Any wide screens for the new T series?

[nowstime]

Hi~

I visited Fry's today, and I saw a lot of wide screen LCD laptops...Sony vaio T, S series...HP, Compac..., Futshiju...

Is there any news IBM will adapt a wide screen LCD for the T-series...?

[lfeagan]

I hope not...wide screens just make it easier to have larger sounding screens that have lower total pixel counts. Think of what happens when you take a square shape and start pushing it down to a rectangle.

A 10" x 10" square has a diagnonal of 10*sqrt(2) = 14.1" and has an area of 100" square.
A 12" x 8" rectangle has a diagonal of 14.4" and an area of 96" square.
Yeah, so this isn't a terrible dramatic example, but it still shows the point that the diagonal which is what they state increased whereas the total area decreased and yet the perimeter remained the same.

I do know why the have started making them wide-screened though, and it isn't just for DVDs. There has been a lot of research done on women and computing and they found that women are much much more productive and feel more comfortable using wide-screened computers. The wide-screen format is somehow more conducive to the mental pathways they use in thinking and really helps them a lot in using the computer. For males there is hardly any difference, though they are slightly more productive using a wide-screen. The numbers are something like 5% better for males and 30% for females. So, to try to appeal to females who represent a nice new market of people who use computers a lot they have started making wide-screens an issue.

So, what are my conclusions about IBM possibly going wide-screened. I would say that IBM isn't as likely to make this move as other companies that are more consumer oriented are. Anyone who sells computers through a store (females are much more likely to but at a store as touch is something very important to them) will likely be getting into wide-screens a lot. Since IBM doesn't sell through retail stores, their % of buyers who are female is likely much lower and consequently they aren't nearly as likely to feel the push to go wide-screen anytime soon.

[Plinkerton]

lfeagan, when I read the name of this thread, I felt the same way as you. I was debating between my T42 and another widescreen notebook before I bought this one. I'm happy with what I chose.

That's really interesting about the productivity statistics. I wonder why that is.

I also hope that they don't come out with a wide screen. Thinkpads just seem too businesslike to have any use for the widescreen, which often seems to appeal to the DVD watchers. I have hear many people however, talk about having spreadsheets open side by side, and loving the wideness of the screen. I guess it would be cool if IBM made them, but I doubt they would do as well as the other companies that make widescreens. I have a 14 inch T42, and would not want a 15 either. It's just a good all around size.

Give me some good ol' 4:3 any day...

[sugo]

Reading web pages on a wide screen is such a pain, for me.