What's the point of widescreen monitors?

[pne]

There's a new PC on offer at ALDI next week... and two widescreen LCD monitors.

They've had widescreen monitors the last couple of times, too, but I don't like them—I don't really see the point, since I typically don't use all that much horizontal screen estate anyway (if the lines of text get too long, it gets harder for the eye to skip back exactly to the start of the next line) and would prefer more vertical space, but the widescreen ones have less vertical space than "standard" ones.

What's the point, really? Perhaps for watching 16:9 movies, but who really uses their computer monitor primarily to watch movies? I'd have thought that it would make sense to optimise monitors for what people do most, not what they do occasionally.

And what I do most is browse the Internet and play the Sims; your average user would probably add email (which is included in "Internet" for me, since I use webmail most of the time) and word processing, also text-oriented things which would probably benefit from a squarer or maybe even a portrait (taller than wide) monitor setup. (As for the Sims, I think the best monitor configuration is square, so that I can see as much as possible in each direction rather than having the screen subtend a wide angle horizontally with no corresponding benefit vertically.)

What do you use? Widescreen, "standard", portrait (widescreen or standard), maybe even a multi-monitor configuration? How do you arrange your windows on the screen? And what would your ideal setup be, and why?

(For example, I heard from a colleague who had two monitors for a while that she found it extremely convenient to have code and documentation open on separate windows. And perhaps that's some of the appeal for widescreen monitors? But I still think that the decreased vertical size is a handicap.)

Comments

[eva]

I love my widescreen! The best thing is that I can have multiple windows open. For example, I often have a small video window open while I surf the internet or do other stuff. I set the video to stay on top of the screen and usually place it in the bottom right corner. It fits next to many sites' text boxes, for example LJ comment boxes.

It's also nice for gaming, with the strategy games I like to play.

[pleiades829.livejournal.com]

1) Multiple windows on the same monitor, though most people would use 2 monitors for that, I'd imagine.

2) GAMING. I'd kill for a nice widescreen monitor for my World of Warcraft addiction. I'd imagine that any game that incorporates real-time combat would benefit from a widescreen monitor, because battlefields tend to be wide but not very tall.

[bluewingedcat.livejournal.com]

1 Widescreen, 1 standard, both lcd flat panels.

I play games on the wide screen and often have forums or guides or the like open on the other monitor.

[tungol.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I like to read PDFs with two pages up at a time. Sometimes I need to refer to two separate documents and it's convenient to have them next to each other on the screen. Also, when I'm on the internet, I like to have an IM messanger open in the right side of the screen, and my browser window at the left side.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

Terminals open on the right (typically over the top of IM Buddy List window and Twitter) and browser open on the left. I like it that way.

[entirelysonja.livejournal.com]

Well, I have 2 monitors. I find it helpful to have two different things on 2 monitors. Like my bank statement on one and my financial planning software on the other. Or something on one monitor that just needs to be poked every now and again, and a web browser on the other.

I often put things next to each other on my wide screen monitor to compare 2 photos, or to look at "before" and "after" images of a photo I'm editing.

[leighbug]

Everything here in the US is widescreen. You can't get something without some sort of widescreen format. But even with a more square one, I'd always find myself wishing it was wider, so things would fit better. I love having a widescreen.

I don't have the capability to have two monitors, but when playing WoW, I frequently have one computer running WoW, and the other to have Vent (a voice-chat thing that's private) and internet windows open. So much easier. And when doing things where you'd normally switch windows a lot, having either widescreen or two screens is so much easier.

If you want a taller monitor, HP makes all their larger monitors rotateable. I think Samsung has at least their 24" line that has one. There's probably more, but that's all Best Buy has.

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

Widescreen is great for music editing software (e.g. (http://mac.softpedia.com/screenshots/1-897_1.png))! :)

[pthalo]

I suppose it'd be neat with my tiling window manager.

[pthalo]

my monitor is fairly small, even for a laptop. it's a nice, very portable, fairly small laptop. weighs less than a kilogram. so when i tile windows i tile them vertically. with a widescreen i'd probably tile them horizontally more.

[lovesasa.livejournal.com]

I like having a wide screen so I can have two windows(i.e. an Excel spreadsheet and a calendar, or an article and a notes page, etc.) open and accessible at the same time.

But then again, I like to pretend I have a Mac.

[zompist.livejournal.com]

Screen real estate is great. As a programmer, I get more of a productivity increase from dual monitors than from a fast computer. Heck, I could use a third screen.

I have a very wide screen on my Mac as well. It's kind of amusing opening up very old documents which are still sized for the first Macs. It was like editing through a porthole. Now I can see three full pages at a time. It's great for editing, for drawing, for watching movies.

[fridoline.livejournal.com]

F. has got two wide-screens. Sometimes he rotates one of them to use it in portrait format, for instance for reading pdf files. He also often has a video going on on the side of the screen.

My own laptop is wide-screen, and I find it convenient for having two windows open, for instance when I want to copy something from one window or need to get back to it frequently for reference.

[starfighter.livejournal.com]

you can always rotate a widescreen monitor and put it so it's really tall, instead.
a lot of people at work have one "normal" monitor for coding and one "tall one" for reading documentation and webs.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree I find widescreen a real pain and wont have one. You can still get the 4:3 ratio screens from HP up to 20" but they do cost more. I don't what i'm gonna do with my TV's because HDTV and widescreen are not for me.