Get Ready For The 20-inch Laptop

linumax writes "With so many DVDs featuring letterboxed or wide-screen versions of films, consumers' fascination with larger screen sizes is changing the size and shape of the laptop industry, stated an IDC report issued on Monday. The wide-screen format, found in only 39.2 percent of laptops expected to ship this year, will become dominant in mid- to late 2006. It will nearly eclipse standard screen dimensions by the end of 2009, the market research firm estimates. Samsung has already unleashed its upcoming 19-inch laptop. The product is expected to ship later this year. Dell, a major partner of Samsung, could easily adopt the large screen format for its high-end XPS laptops. And, LG Philips is also touting its 20-inch LCD displays for laptops."

Comments

Landscape vs. Portrait

[VoidEngineer]

It's a Good Thing this is going to happen. Why? Well, for one thing, it will also push the Tablet's into getting a little bigger. Oddly enough, Laptops and Tablets still don't screens that are big enough to fit an 8.5x11" full-size 1:1 ratio image of a piece of paper! People ask me if I find my Tablet too bulky (same problem with Laptop, essentially), and I tell them... actually, no, I want a bigger screen so I can write papers in real ratio format. Expect with this increase in size for some manufacturers to also start playing around with swivel screens to allow putting the screen in either landscape or portrait mode.

Of course, it's also great to have a portable movie playing machine. Nothing wrong with the entertainment side of the equation. I'm just saying that this is also going to push the adoption of swivel displays and increased tablet screens sizes.

Re:Lap Top vs Table Top

[TCaptain]

I have a 17inch laptop and while its certainly a bit more awkward than my old one
(9.2 lbs vs 7), I'm a big boy and I can carry the weight.

The upside is that its a much nicer screen and size-wise in a car, cafe, or bus its not MUCH larger than a regular laptop and once you're used to it its nice.

keyboard

[CaptnMArk]

How about a full size (except numpad) keyboard with real keys that click.

Based on www.pckeyboard.com?

Re:Bigger Screens good, Wider Screens bad

[MaestroSartori]

I dunno, horizontal piano roll with vertical = pitch, horiz = time, makes decent sense to me. Mixers and other stuff horizontal is just fallback to the old hardware days. Even then though, eq's and stuff are normally laid out hi-mid-low top->bottom, which again makes a kind of logical sense.

I just love ableton, and want a huge laptop to run it on :D

Size matters

[KayakFun]

A large-screen laptop will be a status symbol like a SUV: the bigger the better. This is opposite to the miniturization in many other electronics, but with the emphasis on the UI and productivity they are the way to go (boss/partner: are you listening?):

• designing XSLT with 3 windows of XML, XSLT, and XHTML next to eachother,
• DTP work (A3 + some dialogue boxes)
• webdesign
• GIMP
• email, if your friends like long subject lines
• tabbed browsing

And the subject says it all: size matters (My desktop at home is 23.1", so my work laptop looks like a letterbox)

How about making it PROPER HD widescreen ratio?

[Quizo69]

I don't have a widescreen laptop yet, but when I do get one, I'd like to see it with a proper 16:9 display at HD resolution, i.e. 1920x1080, NOT the bastardised 16:10 ratio of 1920x1200.

Who were the idiots that decided that LCD panels should forego proper TV scale resolutions (4:3 and 16:9) and use the non-standard 5:4 and 16:10 ratios???

Is Microsoft responsible? Did they ask to have TV resolution plus taskbar addon resolution? I mean seriously - who watches a DVD at full screen width and keeps the taskbar visible? Anyone? Didn't think so, so why make the panels that way? /rant