HDTV Has Ruined the LCD Market
alvin67 writes "Microsoft Evangelist Pete Brown rants about the lack of pixels available in today's LCD screens: 'OK, that's it. I've had it. I want my pixels, damn it! For a while, screen resolution has been going up on our desktop displays. The trend was good, as I've always wanted the largest monitor with the highest DPI that I could afford. I mean, I used to have one of the first hulking 17-inch CRTs on my desk. I later upgraded to a 21-inch job that was so huge, that if you didn't stick it in a corner, it took up the whole desk. It was flat-panel, though and full of pixels. It cost me around $1,100 at the time."
After some years of improvements, we've regressed, in Brown's opinion: "At the rate we were going for a while, we should have had twice or three times the DPI on a 24- or 23-inch screen. But nooo."
I've always wanted the largest monitor with the highest DPI that I could afford.
Typical attitude of looking only at the numbers and thinking "more is better." While there is room for improvement, there are practical limits. For example, would you want a 50" display on your desktop? It would be rather impractical. How about a 30" monitor with 200,000,000 pixels of horizontal resolution. What would be the point, apart from requiring your graphics card to require its own nuclear power station and liquid nitrogen cooling? Your eyes would not be able to perceive the extra pixels.
Going much higher than current resolutions would be pretty counterproductive untill all our OSes and applications had completely resolution-independent interfaces, anyway.
... and then they built the supercollider.
First, more pixels requires more graphics processing power. Next, more graphics processing power often means a new computer. Last, Microsoft makes it's money when people buy new computers (the only customers they really care about are the OEM's). Add this up - this may not be the story you think it is.
which in turn is an excuse to cram more stuff into what turn out to be smaller areas. But it doesn't matter. My OP is now flamebait because people believe you need unbelievable amounts of concurrent information exposed at once, instead of cumulatively.
So people put in tiny fonts and wedge so much stuff onto their screens that they're a graveyard of disinformation.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
It's not that hard, but you won't find them on a $600 laptop.