interstice (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
interstice) wrote2008-09-11 06:21 pm
interstice) wrote2008-09-11 06:21 pm
laptop
After nearly a year now, my laptop has been discontinued and replaced with a widescreen model (rumored also to be generally more flimsy). I have the highest-end ultraportable Thinkpad which will ever have been made, with a 4:3 screen.
Neat. I don't like widescreens (for computing) in general but beyond that, using widescreen for small displays (12.1") specifically is just a bad idea period. Especially for business/enterprise oriented laptops like the X-series, where presumably a majority people are doing at least some important word processing or coding!
However, it's moot to protest; as I understand it, they changed over because the LCD manufacturers themselves are dropping their 4:3 lines like hotcakes. (sigh) Who watches movies on a 12.1" LCD anyway?
Here's one thing some of you might not have thought of: 8.5*(4/3)=11.3 which makes a rotated 4/3 display almost perfect for viewing letter-sized documents; to fit height-wise, we need to shrink the horizontal aspect to 97%; this is almost ideal because it introduces an implicit margin even for documents which don't have one. (Not having a margin is actually nauseating to me, since my eyes wind up auto-focusing on the wall behind the monitor. Sucks.)
On the other hand, 8.5*(16/9)=15.1, so we need to take the horizontal down to 73% width. Weak.
Now if you're using the more "civilised" A4 paper (notably the default even in many American LaTeX distributions), the story's about the same. 210mm*(4/3)=280mm which is a bit shy of 297mm, but not much! We just need to go down to 94% of height (and maybe a little more for a margin), no biggie. You can see where this is going: 210mm*(16/9)=373mm!!! That's 20% of the vertical, useless.
Now I suppose if you have a large enough monitor the extra vertical space could help for annotations, but I'd really rather have those on the sides anyway, as a simulacrum of marginalia.
Neat. I don't like widescreens (for computing) in general but beyond that, using widescreen for small displays (12.1") specifically is just a bad idea period. Especially for business/enterprise oriented laptops like the X-series, where presumably a majority people are doing at least some important word processing or coding!
However, it's moot to protest; as I understand it, they changed over because the LCD manufacturers themselves are dropping their 4:3 lines like hotcakes. (sigh) Who watches movies on a 12.1" LCD anyway?
Here's one thing some of you might not have thought of: 8.5*(4/3)=11.3 which makes a rotated 4/3 display almost perfect for viewing letter-sized documents; to fit height-wise, we need to shrink the horizontal aspect to 97%; this is almost ideal because it introduces an implicit margin even for documents which don't have one. (Not having a margin is actually nauseating to me, since my eyes wind up auto-focusing on the wall behind the monitor. Sucks.)
On the other hand, 8.5*(16/9)=15.1, so we need to take the horizontal down to 73% width. Weak.
Now if you're using the more "civilised" A4 paper (notably the default even in many American LaTeX distributions), the story's about the same. 210mm*(4/3)=280mm which is a bit shy of 297mm, but not much! We just need to go down to 94% of height (and maybe a little more for a margin), no biggie. You can see where this is going: 210mm*(16/9)=373mm!!! That's 20% of the vertical, useless.
Now I suppose if you have a large enough monitor the extra vertical space could help for annotations, but I'd really rather have those on the sides anyway, as a simulacrum of marginalia.
no subject
Nice to know undervolting is a feasible option. If you turn off virtuality, shouldn't the flash virtual machine run as a normal process without unilateral hardware access?
I guess, in the end you seem pretty happy with it. I think I'll get one.
BTW. I think the wider screen helps text writing at a fixed unit weight. most people want to see a a few lines above and below, not the document in full page format, so wider is categorically better. If you're doing figure placement that matters, but no one does that for very long.
no subject
I was referring to using a second rotated flat-panel monitor for reading papers, which I've found to be a good setup.
no subject
Pay me no mind. I sure don't