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Where are all the high resolution monitors?

By Dan8267   Follow   Thu, 10 May 2012, 1:16am   1,506 views   9 comments
In Boca Raton FL 33433   Watch (2)   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike  

Gone are the days when you could buy a CRT or any kind of 4:3 aspect ratio display. The standard is now 1920x1080. But 1080 vertical pixels sucks for anything but watching videos. Hell, my 10-year-old CRT can do 2048x1536, albeit at an unacceptable 60 Hz refresh rate.

1920x1080 is only 2,073,600 pixels a mere 8% more than my current display of 1600x1200 or 1,920,000. That's not a lot of pixels, and the 16:9 aspect ratio makes it less desirable for tasks like word processing, programming, and pretty much anything not related to video. Yet we've been stuck at 1920x1080 for about a decade.

Finally, there's a glimmer of hope. Sharp may be the first company to release a 3840x2160 display that would finally meet the needs of non-video apps without sacrificing video. Such displays are being marketed as "4K displays" since they contain approximately 4,000 horizontal pixels. Personally, I would have gone with calling them 8 megapixel displays keeping in line with the precedent set by digital cameras.

In any case, if you are thinking about upgrading your display, you might want to hold off a few years until the 4K displays, possibly with 3D, are mainstream. That's what I plan to do.

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1. Kevin Follow Befriend 40 threads 2,652 comments

   1   10:11am Thu 10 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Calling an 8MP display "high definition" at anything bigger than 20 inches or so is laughable. Given apple's precedent, I fully expect 200+ dpi monitors this year.

2. Vicente Follow Befriend (8) 209 threads 4,509 comments Davis, CA

   2   10:03pm Thu 10 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   For non-movie usage, the 16:9 is kind of pain. Your 4K dream is just higher-res 16:9 I had to hunt for a 16:10 1920x1200 monitor for my desktop. I much prefer having a bit more height when viewing text. Because most of the display manufacturing is now driven by TV industry needs, computer users will just have to get used to it. My iPad is 4:3 and I like it that way.

3. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (17) 785 threads 7,962 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

   3   10:10pm Thu 10 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Vicente says For non-movie usage, the 16:9 is kind of pain. Your 4K dream is just higher-res 16:9 True, especially since you can't swivel the monitor and even if you could, 9:16 wouldn't be much better. Still, the 4K displays provide enough resolution to display even more lines of text as my current 4:3 1600x1200 monitor. And that I think is good enough. The text part would just take up half of the monitor's width. The other half could be used for GUI rendering. A 1920x2160 area would be more than adequate for rendering code even if some of the horizontal space was taken up by the IDE's chrome.

4. jvolstad Follow Befriend (4) 1,003 threads 1,146 comments San Antonio, TX jvolstad's website

   4   10:31pm Thu 10 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   I want my old green screen and my Heathkit H89. Now that was a nice system. Running both CP/M and HDOS.

5. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (17) 785 threads 7,962 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

   5   11:14pm Thu 10 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   jvolstad says I want my old green screen and my Heathkit H89. Now that was a nice system. Running both CP/M and HDOS. Ah, brings back memories of just before the nuclear war between the United States and China, when for some reason, we were using computer terminals that look like they came from the 1970s instead of the 2070s. Minimalist computing. It's so much better than that 32-bit color graphics UI that was so popular in the late 20th century.

6. Kevin Follow Befriend 40 threads 2,652 comments

   6   12:41am Fri 11 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   You guys should really buy better monitors. The $400 deal you find at best buy isn't going to work, but check out the 30" monitors in the $900+ range if you want decent resolution.

7. Poop Deck Follow Befriend 6 threads 28 comments

   7   4:47pm Tue 29 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Came across this thread because I was googling 20"+ 4:3 LED monitors. BenQ makes a 19" LED 4:3, but it isn't 1600x1200. The Dell Ultrasharp 24" 16:10 should meet your needs. I have two and they're great. 1920x1200, LED and provide great color. If you still want a 4:3, you can pick up refurbed Dell 2007FP (1600x1200, IPS panel) for around $90-$100. I bought 3 for my office, and they're about the best you can do in a 4:3 screen.

8. zzyzzx Follow Befriend (9) 434 threads 4,247 comments Baltimore, MD

   8   10:32am Thu 31 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   To an extent there is no such thing as a monitor, it's only a TV with no tuner and a VGA input. Or so I am lead to believe.

9. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (17) 785 threads 7,962 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

   9   11:23am Thu 31 May 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   zzyzzx says To an extent there is no such thing as a monitor, it's only a TV with no tuner and a VGA input. Or so I am lead to believe. If the homeowner isn't insulted by your offer...you didn't bid low enough!!! Or conversely, there's no such thing as a TV. There's only monitors/displays, and some of them accept input from NSCT/PAL tuners.