

Ask HN: How many people would buy a 1:1 monitor? - seanalltogether

I'm looking for a new monitor and noticed that all midrange monitors are now 16:9 with a vertical resolution of only 1080p. Why are we losing vertical resolution when most people use their computers to browse the web? Honestly if I could buy a 1600x1600 monitor I would love it.
======
pwg
Because 1080 vertical lines equals a HDTV 1080p image size, and economies of
scale mean that 1080 pixel tall display panels are less expensive than their
cousins (because they double as televisions). And because they are less
expensive, every monitor maker has decided that "1080p should be enough for
everyone".

------
michaelelliot
Our eyes are positioned next to each other on the horizontal plane. This is
why a screen ratio with a larger width rather than height makes sense.

~~~
colanderman
Except it's well-known that humans read more quickly if lines of text are kept
short (around 6" or so). The height of a page doesn't significantly affect
reading speed (ignoring scrolling). So it makes more sense, for reading, to
have a narrow, tall monitor. (This is why LaTeX defaults to wide margins BTW,
and I'm pretty sure this is why Kindles etc. are portrait-oriented.)

~~~
nailer
Even on a narrow monitor, all websites since suck.com use snake text these
days, so the width of your text columns is likely to be unaffected. The only
exception left seems to email software created by Unix folk who prefer all
text to be forced to 80 characters wide monospace.

Using a narrow monitor will only lessen the amount you scroll.

------
arn
I don't need 1:1, but I'd love some large format 4:3 sizes.

I have a 30" 16:10 Apple Cinema display as my main monitor and a rotated 4:3
20" HP LCD on my right. While I like the 30" monitor, I'll admit the sides of
the screen go to waste. But I love the height, and I like being able to
compartmentalize onto the second monitor.

In my mind, a great setup would be two 4:3 equivalents of the 30" display side
by side. So instead of 2560 x 1600, it would be 2133x1600. Same height, less
width. And I like having two because of the organization issue.

------
wwortiz
Buy one and rotate it sideways (all modern OSs have support for this and
plenty of monitors rotate freely).

~~~
zmmz
The problem with rotating displays is that LCD pixels tend to be taller than
wider (
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pixel_geometry_01_Pengo.jp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pixel_geometry_01_Pengo.jpg)
), hence if you rotate a display it degrades the image quality. Cleartype
especially starts looking horrible.

------
bherms
You can still buy 4:3 monitors. I have a 27" center monitor with a 19" monitor
on each side. I love it. Unfortunately, though, 1600x1200 monitors are pretty
pricey for the size.

~~~
arn
What 27" 4:3 do you have? I looked for large format 4:3's a while back with
little success.

~~~
bherms
Sorry, my 27" is 16x9 and the 19" on the side are 4:3. Didn't make that clear
in the post. Just saying it's a good way to go :)

------
bengarvey
I think it's because it's easier to move your head side to side than up and
down.

