As they seem to be coming the 'norm', what benefits are there to a widescreen PC monitor ?

I can see the advantage for page-to-page work and obviously for watching WS DVD's.... but what else ?

How big a desktop do ya want ? 19", 20", 22" ? Right now I'm 22" away from a 17" LCD with a 1280 X 1024 resolution and it sure seems to fill my field of vision.

How do most mainstream game and apps translate to a 16:10 display ?

I am sure that somewhere in my 9800 Pro's configuration with Cat 6.12 I can hit the necessary resolution, but will it be enough ?

filper:

I have a 24" widescreen monitor with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 and I really appreciate the extra real estate or the ability to have multiple windows open without having to constantly toggle through which window I want on screen. With this setup, I usually have 4 open application windows on screen at the same time.
But other than that I can't think of any other benefit, but the benefit of having the ability I described in my first paragraph is enough.

If you 'window up' multiple apps do they automatically return to their last postion when you reboot ?

Yes, they do. I usually have Opera on the top right, Media Player on the bottom right, Excel or some other Office app on the top left, and another Office app on the bottom left. When I close them all and reboot and restart the apps, they open up again in the position I had them previous to rebooting.

I always run my windows maxed out so I don't care too much about overlapping windows. However, what I have found useful on my widescreen laptop is that you get extra real estate for other applications.

For example, I can run various sidebars without reducing the amount of information on screen in my normal window.

That being said, I think the ultimate example of this would be multiple monitors. I thiink my next purchase would be 2 less expensive 19" monitors so that I could run two full apps and have them both visible.

I am using a 24" monitor at 1920 x 1200. Applications that benefit from the extra real estate are those for image editing (i.e Photoshop) and applications development (MS Visual Studio, Eclipse, etc.). You get to see more of the canvas and code respectively without the need to scroll as much. These apps have windows, sidebars, multilayer toolbars, etc. that makes high resolution almost a must.

Many of the newer games have widescreen mode. However, you can also check out widescreengamingforum.com where folks have compiled tweaks to enable widescreen gaming mode on older games. Your 9800 will be ok for day to day activities but might be challenged for gaming at widescreen resolutions.

Kinda like asking why put energy efficient windows in your house. ;)

I think side-side movement of the head/eyes is more efficient/natural than up-down movement. A large 4:3 screen would require a lot more up-down movement of the head/eyes... makes me dizzy just thinking about it.

Here's a picture of my desktop, on a 32" 16:9 display, 1360x768 native res. the screen/that pic is 27.5" wide and I typically sit 4.5' to 5' away and occasionally surf while in bed, 9' away and don't have problems reading what's on the screen.

http://members.shaw.ca/dvdguy/monitor.jpg

Given the "windows" environment that all GUI's create for us width is much more valuable real estate to own than height.

I'm working on a 19" 4:3 monitor at work right now. If I open up a web browser just wide enough to fit most pages, it takes more than half the width of the screen...leaving me with not quite enough space to open another one...or many other apps. Most people don't mind scrolling up and down to see more of a web site but scrolling side to side is a pain. If I had a widescreen monitor I could easily open two web browsers side by each.

I also think that it is much more natural to our eye to accept information through a 16 by 9 format window than it is to do it through a 4 by 3 window. I'm sure I've read this somewhere ... not sure where though.

My opinion.

Darren

Apart from anything else, it's COOL! I got one at the weekend.

I thought the same thing about WS monitors in that what's the exact point behind them. I used to have a 19" 4:3 LCD and it looked ok. However, couple months ago, I picked up one of these from the states.. and let me say I couldn't be happier.

http://www.westinghousedigital.com/details.aspx?itemnum=60

The extra real estate really helps when trying to have multiple windows open, ie for moving files from folder to folder while viewing some pictures in a pic viewer and browsing a website at the same time.

It is very pleasing on the eyes as well which makes reading forums a lot less stressful on the eyes/brain.

I'll never go back to 4:3 again! :D

I've got a question related to WS computer monitors (sorry to highjack your thread).

Do widescreen monitors work with any computer and video cards? I have someone here at work who wants to buy one and he's been told that his computer may not be "strong" enough to run a widescreen monitor. It is a old PII computer so there may be some merit to what these guys are saying but I have some doubts about that. My take on that is that it will work on any computer you just may not be able to run your apps in full screen but I presume that these monitors may have zoom modes or at the very least you can run two apps at the same time side by side.... Anyone to enlighten me on that?

The video card has to support the resolution of the LCD monitor (normally 1280x800, very few - 1920x1200) at the required refresh rate (normally 60Hz).

Diogen.

I have a 1600x1200 monitor. It was killing my 128 MB ATI 9800 AIW when running a 1600x1200 game in the background and apps on the desktop. (I like to multitask. :)) I am guessing some of the problem was due to lack of memory. A 256 MB nVidia 7600 fixed the problem. IIRC, most video cards in PII systems have 8 MB to 32 MB at most and max out at 1024x768 or maybe 1280x1024 resolution. That will drive a 17" or 19" 4:3 LCD monitor...maybe. I doubt that upgrading the video card is even an option, since it will be AGP 2x and currently available AGP cards require 4x or 8x slots.

I Want My HDTV, how did the 9800 Pro handle non gaming tasks on that monitor ?

After reading this thread, went out to Future Shop and bought the 22" widescreen "Proview" (made by LG, I believe) LCD monitor (which they have at a special price until February 1st).

Love the widescreen and the reduced space it takes compared to my 19" CRT monitor.

Did not buy this to enable multiple tasks on one screen. Therefore, at 800 x 600 resolution (tried the others), it is extremely easy to read for both my wife and I. So, for what we do with a computer, this is a good change. And the screen is about 6 inches further away compared to the CRT.

What I lose are the beautiful and real colours of the CRT and no distortion of pictures when seen in 4:3. But it's a good tradeoff.

how did the 9800 Pro handle non gaming tasks on that monitor ?
Its a 9800 AIW. It handles most things well. In fact, a 9800 is probably overkill for desktop tasks. Something like a 9600 is probably better because it uses less energy. The main problem was using the 1600x1200x32 desktop with a 1600x1200x32 game switched out. My guess is that it used over 128 MB of memory and caused paging to system RAM or disabled the acceleration. Note that I am not playing fast action games.

at 800 x 600 resolution
LCD monitors typically look much clearer at their native resolution. If possible, use the native resolution and find other ways to make it easier to view. i.e. large icons and larger fonts. Some video cards will do scaling but I haven't tried that personally.

reduced space it takes compared to my 19" CRT monitor.
Not to mention the weight. I had a 19" Trinitron. It was 20" deep and weighed about 50 lb. I actually managed to hit myself in the head with it once when I perched it on a chair and it fell while I was hooking up some cables under the desk. @#$%! that hurt?! :o

I can change resolution to 1680 x 1050 very quickly and view photos in there glorified format. But for Internet surfing by my wife and Forum reading by myself, 800 x 600 resolution is best.

mfabien, you can use the native resolution of 1680 x 1050 (to allow for crisper text) and at the same time still see the text in the documents you are reading by doing the following:

Launch control panel (Start > Control Panel), select display properties, select the Settings tab, on the settings tab click the "Advanced" button, on the DPI Setting drop down box, select "Large Size 120 dpi" or customize the dpi that suits you.

After that restart (reboot) the computer and see if text with the large dpi settings suit you.

cyclo,

Yes I tried that, at your suggestion. I could live with it but not my wife. Her search engine is Yahoo and she refuses to see so much empty space on both sides of the Yahoo page (which uses about 1/3 of the space... even with 120 DIP). Same for Google.

But, it's not a problem. To see photos or anything of the kind, it literally takes seconds to switch to the highest resolution.

Have you tried just increasing the size of the text in your web browser (IE or Firefox)?

Just go CTRL+ (hold control key and press the +/= key) to make text bigger (CTRL- to make things smaller) - much quicker/easier than changing screen resolution....plus everything on the screen will just look better all the time.