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1366x768 Monitors Top 1024x768 For the First Time

mpol writes "Statcounter released new statistics today and 1366x768 is now the most used screen resolution on the internet. These screens are available in most cheap laptops, and therefore probably sold and used very much. With 19.2%, it is beating the old 4:3 resolution, which still has 18.6% usage share. (But as you know, you have lies, damn lies, and statistics.)" The numbers are still close, but it sounds like the tide has turned.

26 of 394 comments (clear)

  1. Who cares? by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

    768 lines of resolution is too few.

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    1. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The point is that 16:9 now beats 4:3.

    2. Re:Who cares? by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Horizontal resolution is entirely irrelevant. Your ability to read lines peaks at about 80 characters. There's no limit to how long a column of text can be. Therefore, vertical resolution is the important issue.

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    3. Re:Who cares? by erroneus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why do I always have to be the one to point out that porn looks better in wide screen?

    4. Re:Who cares? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why do I always have to be the one to point out that porn looks better in wide screen?

      Because you're the only person who thinks "People of Wal-Mart" is a porn site?

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    5. Re:Who cares? by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Horizontal resolution is entirely irrelevant.

      Not to be blunt, but horseshit.

      I knew people who used 132 columns on VT100's almost 20 years ago. I find 80 columns for code to be too small.

      And, having upgraded to a widescreen monitor several years ago, I can have two windows side by side or overlapping and have more on the screen. I've got a Visio diagram I keep open most of the time with my network diagram on it, and it's the width of the screen that allows me to see more, and several applications I use can present more information on a wider screen. Throw in virtual desktops, and I've got 10+ square feet of screen available to me.

      Not everything is just plain text displayed in courier font.

      What you say is your opinion (and your welcome to it), but having the wider screen for a vast number of us is more productive. Hell, the company I work for, dual widescreen monitors is the norm for *everyone* -- which gives you a lot more horizontal resolution than vertical. The ability to look at things side by side is damned useful. If it wasn't for the fact that I'd need to buy a second video card, I'd have added a second widescreen monitor to my home machine.

      However, I know for *some* applications, flipping a widescreen monitor 90 degrees to give you a tall screen works. For me not so much since I'm not editing documents that much.

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    6. Re:Who cares? by gstrickler · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The point is that 16:9 is fine for HDTV, but it sucks for computers. 16:10 is better, and some people prefer 16:12 (4:3). Vertical space is usually more constricted than horizontal space for computers, therefore, decreases in screen height are far more constraining, and not offset by increases in width.

      Still using a 16:10 display, will not buy 16:9 unless that's the only option I can afford.

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    7. Re:Who cares? by spottedkangaroo · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not bullshit, it's straight up harder on your eyes if you're doing a lot of scanning. If you're spending a long time concentrating on the various parts of the line (like in code) ymmv, but in general, your eyes scan like shit if the text is too wide. However, it's not a number of characters, it's a certain angular width... so distance to the monitor and dpi matter just as much. I also expect the angle differs for everyone.

      Personally, I use a 4:3 section of the screen for code ... and maximize (16:9) if I'm working with really long lines. I also use a pretty big font these days... other words ... blah.

      But his point was that, for text tracking, your eyes do best in a narrower area. I bet you read web pages more than you write code.

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    8. Re:Who cares? by ducman · · Score: 4, Informative

      Fine in theory, but I've tried that with several different mid-range displays. The rotated sub pixel orientation plus the variation in brightness from top to bottom makes working with text unpleasant. Maybe an IPS display would be better, but I haven't been able to afford one.

      More importantly, most 16:9 monitors are 1080 pixels tall, which gives you just 1080 wide when turned 90. That's barely better than the old-fashioned 1024x786 that wasn't wide enough a decade ago.

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    9. Re:Who cares? by harrkev · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Riiiight. What if you need access to three or more windows, and need to switch back and forth between them quickly. Maybe copy-n-paste between them, and just plain compare them visually. I have three "meld" windows, and two bash windows open -- not to mention this browser and my windows-VM.

      Right now, I arm running a 2560x1600 30" central monitor, and a pair of 1200x1600 (portrait mode) on either side. So, my desktop is 4960x1600 (almost 8 million pixels). I am using every square inch, and could probably use a little more.

      I got so spoiled by this, I decided to buy a 2560x1600 for home use -- and I will never go back.

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    10. Re:Who cares? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Interesting

      1. Another reason to let XP die. People say its fine but its holding all of us back just like IE 6 and 7 are holding the best web experience to our phones only.

      2. I will say my theory on why laptops only carry crappy 1366 x 768 is because cost accountants and not engineers make the decisions. Worse, because of economies of scale if you wanted to make a laptop screen with a better resolution it would significantly increase the cost forcing you to only include 1366 x 768 and making the problem worse. No one makes anything but 1366 for laptops so your customers would have to pay $$$$ and you would lose money.

      I hate Apple these days but they are the only ones who make screens that do not get dark when sunlights hits them and are not cheap pieces of plastic crap. They have the power with economics of scale but even for them it raises the cost of the units. The race to the bottom is getting very old.

      Retina may help but the demand for XP is quite huge from corporate on new equipment sadly and no cost accountant can justify spending more than .02% on any product.

      3. Consumers are stupid. The Joe Six packs who bought P IV over the AthlonXPs because the Pentium IV was 3.2 ghz while the AthlonXP is only 1.8 ghz! Wow it must suck. 1366 is a bigger number than 1200 therefore to Joe 1366 must somehow be better probably witthout looking at the second number.

  2. LOL ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Statcounter released new statistics today and 1366x768 is now the most used screen resolution on the internet. These screens are available in most cheap laptops, and therefore probably sold and used very much.

    My wife was just bitching about her new work laptop today because it's got a smaller screen than her old one. This is the resolution she's running at.

    I find it kind of pathetic that in this day and age companies are rolling out laptops to their employees with something which is only modestly better than 1024x768, which I was running in '91.

    Reminds me of a monitor I got with a work PC a couple of years back -- it was a widescreen monitor, but it's native resolution was still 4:3. Which basically meant it couldn't draw circles, and was optimized more to be a TV than a computer monitor. WTF is the point in doing that? It looked like crap as a computer monitor.

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    1. Re:LOL ... by White+Flame · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, the loss of vertical space between the prior "common" laptop resolution of 1280x800 (which was also a more useful 16:10 instead of 16:9) and 1366x768 is definitely noticeable. Many browser-based games won't even fit in 768 pixels without fullscreening (as in completely removing titlebars) the browser.

  3. Why is screen resolution not improving? by purpledinoz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been looking into replacing my current laptop, which has a 1680x1050 resolution. But I see that MOST laptops nowadays have this crappy 1366x768 screen. What gives? Why isn't our screen resolution improving along with out CPU speed, RAM capacity, HD capacity, and virtually everything else???

    1. Re:Why is screen resolution not improving? by JDG1980 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've been looking into replacing my current laptop, which has a 1680x1050 resolution. But I see that MOST laptops nowadays have this crappy 1366x768 screen. What gives? Why isn't our screen resolution improving along with out CPU speed, RAM capacity, HD capacity, and virtually everything else???

      Because operating systems can't yet do DPI scaling that works 100% perfectly on all applications. Windows 7 is much better at this than XP was, but there are still lots of rogue applications which won't behave themselves properly at anything but the standard DPI setting. Not long ago I filed a bug report on an integrated library system (ILS) application used at my workplace; some of the toolbar icons are solid black if you set 120 dpi, but display fine at the standard setting. Many other programs I've used have text spilling over the edges, overlapping, etc. if anything other than the default DPI setting is used.

      My feeling is that Apple is going to solve the deadlock; they're less afraid to break old stuff (in large part because they don't have nearly so many businesses running their software and depending on it supporting legacy apps). And they've already rolled out "Retina displays" in the iPhone and iPad; rumor has it that the MacBook may be next.

  4. uh oh... cue the aspect ratio people.. by QuasiSteve · · Score: 4, Funny

    uh oh... cue the aspect ratio people.. the ones complaining about 16:9 and saying 16:10 is so much better for computer work, only to be snubbed by the 4:3 people who don't know why anybody would want to work with any sort of 'wide screen' monitor, who in turn will be ridiculed by the CAD people stroking their 5:4 monitors, while the 16:9 folk just roll their eyes, and their monitor by 90 degrees, and put on a trollface.

    Now... where's my 32" 4k 3D 12bit 2.39:1...

  5. Re:1366x768 by franciscohs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, 1920x1200 should be standard.

  6. Obsolete already! by Tharsman · · Score: 5, Funny

    Writing this comment on an iPad with a 2048x1536 screen.

  7. Small text by Aqualung812 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't you know that higher resolution means smaller text?

    Sure, when you have a proper application & OS, you can resize the text all you want, and also get the benefits of much better graphics.

    However, most end user reaction to seeing over 2000 lines was "The text is too small. Change it back."

    Why give them something better* & more expensive if they don't want it?

    *I suppose that better could be that lower res = lower graphics card power use = longer battery life & cheaper cost.

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  8. 1920x1200 getting hard to find anymore by DanLake · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My wife and I have 1920x1200 screens on our desktops and laptops. The laptops are getting old and have become almost impossible to replace unless we want to step into the "mobile CAD workstation" market of laptop at 3 times the cost we paid for her Dell. Even desktop screens have all moved down from 1200 vertical lines to 1080 "HD". I had hoped my 24 to 27 inch screens would have bumped up to 2560x1600 by now but it's going the opposite direction.

  9. Screens are getting wider... by craznar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... and web pages are getting narrower.

    and while we are at it, why are 27" monitors the same resolution as 14" laptop screens?

    and why is the highest resolution device easily available a 10.7" iPad ?

    The world makes no sense to me.

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  10. 1366x768 is so 20 years ago by Trondheim · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I remember saving my pennies in the early 90s for a video card that displayed 1024x768 (XGA for you old-timers). So here we are, some 20 years later, and the standard display resolution is only slightly better.

  11. Re:1366x768 by bgarcia · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Yep. We were well on our way to 16x10 being the new standard aspect ratio, with better & better resolutions. But then HDTV finally became popular, and a computer with an "HD screen" became something that could be advertised, and we've been stuck with 16x9 ratios with crappy 1366x768 resolutions (aka 720p) ever since.

    (typed on a 2560x1600 monitor)

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  12. you've got to be kidding by Chirs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a system where I'm doing some testing. It has a shelf of multiple blade servers, each of which has a terminal displaying current status. I have another few windows open controlling traffic generation tools, another one showing the steps to take for the testcase.

    In an ideal world I want to have all of these open and visible simultaneously without needing to flick through them manually. With a 1920x1200 monitor this is possible, barely.

  13. keep the same vertical, add horizontal by Chirs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I went from a 21" 1600x1200 monitor to a 24" 1920x1200. There's no downside.

  14. Unbelievably sad... by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...to think that screen resolution (dpi) has been essentially static for over ten years. My 1999 laptop had a 1024x768 display. The new laptop I was just issued at work has 1366x768 -- a downgrade, IMHO, from the previous laptop's 1280x800.

    I've been thinking of getting a 17" MBP (1920x1200) for personal use, but I'm holding out in light of rumors that the new models might have double-res screens. After using a 4G iPad, I've realized that a 200+dpi laptop or desktop display is worth whatever extra it costs. I'd take a 15" 2880x1800 display over a 17" 1920x1200 in a heartbeat, and I'd easily drop an extra grand for it.

    I'm not going to cheap out on something can increase or decrease my eyestrain for many hours a day.