Comments on: The myth of width: When wide screens don't work

Dear laptop makers: My computer is not a movie theater. Don't make it shaped like one.

[Argyll]

The articles author is an IDIOT! Several studies show that people who work on wide screens are more productive because they can see the applications they have open thanks to more desktop real estate (width).

If you work between a laptop and a wide screen desktop, you just get used to the difference.

[Junk_Yard]

Calling the author an idiot is rather immature and little useful. Incidentally, he is dead on - I held on to my square laptop for as long as I could for precisely that reason. My wide screen laptop works, and yes its nice and shiny, but I miss my square screen sorely.

And has anyone noticed how many wide screen displays make people look fat??

[Penguinisto]

I call BS. As someone who does 3D/CG, it's maddening to see that the screens are often a usual width on a laptop, but everything is shorter on the vertical scale. That's real estate I can be using.

It's doubly maddening @ work, where my laptop is "widescreen", but the second monitor I plug it into is a more pleasant 3:4 ratio. I more often than not push windows to the 3:4 ratio monitor for the real-estate.

[dascha1]

The title should've read to disambiguate -

"The myth of depth: When markerboards don't work"

Sorry, but a 4' x 16' solution is still the standard for you teachers out there!

[extotherule]

I actually agree with the author completely. And Argyll, calm down and take a Xanax.

His caveat:
"People who work with spreadsheets may take exception to this, as do those who use very large monitors that have sufficient vertical resolution. But for most people, more square, or even portrait-mode monitors would actually be easier to read. "

At work I use a 1900X1200, but these laptops are coming out with these ridiculous and crappy 1280x800 or so resolutions. It is NOT enough vertical pixels.

[protagonistic]

I might give some credence to your post, but some idiot forgot to include the links you listed in your reply.

But I have to say I agree with the author. You really only need widescreen for movies. We need to return to monitors that pivot between portrait and widescreen views.

[jaxstephens]

Dude, Argyll, chill out. Calling the author an idiot is just disrespectful.

Like the author and others, I've lamented the widescreening of laptops for quite some time now. I prefer very high resolutions, and many of the laptop screens coming out now have such poor vertical resolutions (800! blech) that they're almost useless to me. I fear this is another case where form/style is walking all over function, and I'm normally a huge advocate of style.

[upStomp]

"The articles author is an IDIOT!"

If you're going to call someone an idiot, it might be best if you double-check your grammar before you hit "Submit".

[cggage]

I beg to differ! First off, calling someone an idiot is a bit excessive.

I am old enough to have worked with punch-cards on IBM 403 equipment. When we went to word-processing screens, the use of black letters on a white, high-res background, in portrait-mode was ideal. These were the days of the CPT word processors and the IBM DisplayWriter.

The point here is it all depends upon what you are doing. I have complained for ages about the landscape monitors attempting to display portrait information such as newspapers, Word documents, and so forth. It is so incredibly annoying to have to constantly scroll up and down just to peek at a document. If you select "whole page" then the font is so small you can't read it.

For those of us working in an office with tons of documents, proposals, newspapers, and government work, a portrait monitor makes all the sense in the world.

Alternatively, give me a really wide screen with high-resolution so I can view two pages side-by-side, and actually read it.

If I had the luxury of sitting around playing games all day and watching the latest streaming DVD in HD, then I'd certainly like the wide-screen, 16x9 monitor. For most work, however, (spreadsheets excluded), the portrait works the best for me.

[Dominick]

So I use a new Macbook Pro 17" 1920x1200 screen ... and I LOVE it. I've gotta' admit ... if you're only working on one Word document a more vertical screen would be appropriate ... but I have 2-3 document side-by-side. Normally 2 Word and one browser. But that's the type of work I do. If I had to rotate between documents with only one up at a time, I'd loose HUGE amounts of work-time. Also ... if you're working with pictures and using any of the toolsets provided ... or even creating a PowerPoint presentation having that horizontal real estate is essential. Maybe Mac started this evolution but it's a winner! Oh ... and the pixels display ARE square. Maybe it's time you switched OS's? HA!!

[nlitell]

I suspect that nearly all of you are too young to remember, but once upon a time Xerox made a very interesting word processing machine -- those stand-alone office machines that did only word processing -- before the era of the general purpose PC... It had a screen that rotated between protrait and landscape mode -- I forget if it was sized for legal or letter paper. But if you needed to do a landscape-format document, you could see the whole document in proper layout just by rotating the screen.

For its time, I thought this was a very ingenious solution to a very basic problem, and I wish we still had that capability today in such simple devices as a standalone desktop LCD display....

[ddhboy]

You're on your own for this one. I work dual screen on two widescreen monitors, and I certainly wouldn't want to downgrade the amount of space I have, especially when I'm using multiple programs in the Adobe suite.

[hafenbrack]

you'll notice Rafe is mostly referring to laptops here, in which case he is right one. Have you ever tried using a 17" or 19" widescreen monitor on your desktop?? It's just silly they are so short you do nothing but scroll down all the time. For a desktop once you get to 22" or 24" then it's a much different story since a page fits much better vertically.

[ddhboy]

actually I use a macbook pro on dual screen on my desk, so again, I wouldn't go back.

[BP410]

You are right on with this article. I recently had one of my 20" LCD monitors fail. When I went shopping for a replacement, guess what you can't buy a 4:3 monitor for all practical purposes. So I ended up with a 24" monitor, same vertical resolution, it just adds huge wasted grey space most of the time. Like when reading this article.

Take it one step further, the monitors may have gone wide screen but the programs are still narrow screen, with all kinds of stuff crammed at the tops and bottoms, and little or nothing on the side. Take the Office ribbon, a huge amount of space at the top of the display. On the 24" I can live with it, on my Lenovo T61 laptop its downright painful, I have actually had to turn the ribbon off. Same goes for a lot of internet pages and applications.

[kcotham]

You can "tear" off the tool bars in Office and use them on the sides, at least you can on the Macintosh version. Maybe you need to try OpenOffice. I agree that it's a pain some times, but I'd rather have the extra real estate like other posters have said.

[jakebala]

most widescreen monitors allow you to turn the screen sideways in which case you are now looking at a portrait looking screen rather than a widescreen.

my dad has like 7 displays in his office (awesome, i know) and he has 1 or 2 in portrait for situations where he's reading articles, pdf's, etc. at my work i have a widescreen monitor, but i mostly use excel so it's not a big deal.

I agree 100% with this article. I just bought a new monitor for my desk, and I looked a long time, until I found a 4:3 to replace my 19" CRT. The vertical height of the monitor controls the useful size of most apps, and photographs. In order to maintain the same vertical height, I would have to go to a 22" monitor, at greater cost, and no increased use to me. I have seen the same problem with digital photo frames. I have a huge collection of photos that are 4:3 ratio, and most cameras still use that format. Just creates wasted space. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one left who is aware of that. Thanks

[BigGuns149]

@ jakebala:

You are one of the few people here that have ever figured that out. There are a lot of monitor that one can rotate. If you have a task that works better for portrait than rotate it to portrait press a button and your graphics card will rotate the output. If you buy a widescreen monitor that can rotate you have the best of both worlds. When you are watching a video you can have it in landscape(virtually all video is FAR wider than tall) and when you are using your word processor you can use portrait.

I do somewhat understand the criticism about widescreen displays on laptops though insofar as that there are some people who are mostly doing word processing that would prefer more vertical pixels than horizontal. The only caveat with doing that is that you get smaller keyboards and most people I have encountered would prefer to scroll a bit more to having a smaller keyboard.

[kcotham]

Needleman, how about this? http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2005/03/apple_lcd_monit.html

Or, just find your self an old PARC machine!

Seriously, I know what you mean. But that's what desktop computers with external monitors are for. You could put your MacBook in desktop mode and use a 4:3 monitor, or a portrait monitor if you can find one. If you don't know how, just do a search on Google. I actually found a short video showing you how to do it on YouTube yesterday, ironically.

[BigGuns149]

Samsung made a number of monitor that had stands that would allow the monitor to rotate, so the notion that the monitor you linked to was somehow unique isn't true at all. Furthermore, virtually every video chipset (discrete and integrated) in the last several years has supported rotating the video output. Even some of the older Intel integrated chipsets can rotate the image so in all likihood the only thing stopping you from using *any* monitor in portrait mode is that the stand won't rotate. Even if your monitor stand can't rotate you could always remove the stand assuming that it has a VESA mount and attach it to a rotating mount. Not every store that sells mounts will sell you a rotating mount, but they aren't that exotic. If you have a monitor with a VESA mount you are little more than a purchase of a rotating mount away from a portrait monitor. That is certainly a lot cheaper than buying a new monitor just because it has a rotating stand.

The Xerox Alto and some of its' offspring are about the only examples I have ever seen of a monitor that was intended to be in set up in portrait instead of landscape. Considering the failure of portrait monitors to catch off even towards the business community I have to question of how much demand there really is for such a monitor. Even the original IBM PC (5150) used a landscape monitor. If there was such an uproar over the orientation of the monitor you would think that Compaq or one of the other clone makers of the time would have answered people's prayers.

[tdreher]

I agree with the first two comments, when working I mostly use spreadsheets, and with two 24" widescreen monitors, I can easily compare / review al least 4 of these at one time.

[kcotham]

Forgot to mention that I too have noticed that the trend has been to have a wide screen on everything, even when it isn't useful, like GPS units. It's a fad, pure and simple. Corporations see something that has a practical benefit in one field, then grab ahold of it as a marketing scheme to further fill the company coffers. It'll blow over where it isn't actually advantageous. Marketing schemes like that would never work if the general public weren't so utterly stupid.

[orbital318]

OMG that is so true!

[Binary Minds]

I'm genuinely surprised this is being mentioned. If the page is hard to read because the window's too wide... drag the window narrower. Job done. No-one's forcing you to have the window full-screen-width. Why make an issue of it? Sounds like a classic case of whinging for the sake of it.

[tomws]

You missed the point about fewer vertical pixels. Stretch/shrink the window all you want, but you can't add vertical pixels to the monitor.

[rapier1]

Umm... making the window narrower won't magically make the window longer allowing you to see more text at once.

[sting7k]

Tomws, don't by a cheapo laptop with a low resolution screen then. Get one that is at least 1440x900 or go for the big boy that is 1920x1200, thats about as many verticle pixels you will get on any screen.

Main reason why the Macbook isn't worth it's price, terrible screen (and glossy makes it even worse).

[orbital318]

There is this crazy invention called a scroll wheel, they have them on mice. Also laptops have them now! Its the neatest invention!

[BigGuns149]

@tomws/rapier1:

Having a window that is too narrow is a FAR bigger issue than one that is too short. If a monitor is too narrow to display all the text at a size that you can read than you have to scroll *EVERY* single line. To read one screen of text might require one to scroll right *and* left 30-40 times. To scroll down there is this novel button that has been on most keyboards for a couple decades called the page down button that coincidentally scrolls the page down exactly one page. Therefore, between having to press page down 10-20% more or having to scroll left and right 60-80 times it is pretty clear which is a much greater annoyance. Nobody seems to ever think about this. Furthermore, on laptops if you have a 4:3 aspect ratio the keyboards are a lot more cramped. Between a taller screen and a wider keyboard most people preferred a more comfortable keyboard. Ironically the people complaining about wide screen laptops (people who type a lot) are the people who benefit the most from them.

@ orbital318:

Sadly a lot of people whining about wide screen monitors don't seem to realize that they have been on the market for a decade.

[Ted Miller]

It all really depends on what you use, I found that using SolidWorks, Quark, Photoshop among others, where you get the workspace screen, that extra real estate on the side is a great place to put the little annoying, but very useful tool boxes that usually stand over your work like popups. Also I am not the biggest fan of Vista, but I do use it a lot and I am a fan of the side bar, I really love that thing, and use it alot. Where does that sit? Why neatly on the side, that some would think is wasted. I wish XP had that and I am saying that in a positive way for I enjoy XP and use it a lot also. NO I am not a MS fanboy by any means. I just like a balanced view point.

[BigGuns149]

Even if we ignore the point about the sidebar in Vista almost anyone using Photoshop or anything similar tends to prefer widescreen monitors because the toolbars take up so much space. The notion that widescreen monitors are just about video isn't true at all. I remember selling monitors in retail for a while and I had a lot of people buying widescreen 22" and 24" monitors. They didn't haven't any more vertical pixels than a 4:3 20", but they really liked the extra horizontal pixels for all their Photoshop toolbars. Now that the screens have became so cheap you see a lot of people buying them just to watch video, but back in the day it was mostly graphics designers buying them.

[CTG]

Ted 1, Needleman 0. Rafe's shortsighted article must've been hastily whipped up right before putting the seat back up. Those of us who need to stay mobile and don't have the luxury of lugging around an additional monitor to expand the desktop will find the trend in widescreens exceptionally helpful.

The image content I deal with on a daily basis is typically sized for a web-friendly 800x600 or 900x600 resolution. With exceptions of course, most web pictures aren't downsized (from a higher rez) much larger than this to ensure it'll fit our audience's browsers. Working on my old 15.4" laptop (1280x800) with images loaded into Photoshop means the oft-used toolbars and palettes overlap the image. If my physical screen's aspect ratio is similar to the aspect ratio of the content I'm working on, overlapping toolbars is par for the course. Zoom down the image? Capital idea. /sarcasm

My new notebook sports a 16.5" 16:9 aspect ratio display at 1920x1080. This wider aspect ratio allows my images to reach the top and bottom edges of my work area AND provide enough horizontal space to place tools and palettes. The physical footprint of this machine lets me carry it in the same backpack I used for its 15.4" predecessor. In the 8 weeks I've been using this system, it's proven to be more efficient than all that additional clicking, zooming, and panning I had to do. I believe that's an example of greater productivity.

Why didn't I consider a 17" notebook? 1.) Most of the candidate 17" models were a backbreaking 10lbs and 2.) their increased footprint make them absolutely unuseable when shoehorned into any cattle-class flight. I don't have an issue schlepping 10lbs daily, but figure in some additional gear and we're talking about a 35-40lb sack.

This isn't just a Photoshop issue. Editing widescreen footage in Premiere Pro is better in the wider display; a source monitor and a playback monitor fits in a 16.5" workspace layout more efficiently than a 15.4" screen.

The wider screen lets me keep a windowed browser comfortably spaced out (no horz scrollbars) while allowing enough of a chat window to peek out behind it.

Watching 16:9 Hulu content blown up on a 16:9 display with no letterboxing? Fantasmic.

If you positioned your article by claiming that the general consuming/viewing/surfing public didn't need extra-wide commputer screens you might have a point.. or fraction thereof. But some of us content-makers, those whose productivity you are addressing, are finding 16:9 monitors to be quite worthwhile.

[zhaonameloc]

One must consider how the screen is being used and functions of the screen as well. I too fought having wide screen laptops and I'm not all that fond of my Lenovo T61. Some practical uses are, for the commuter like me, a reduced vertical size fits better in my lap as I work on the train. The screen folds out more before hitting the seat in front of me. Also, for software developers, it does have an advantage wherein long lines of code traditionally wrapped for readability, now extend farther in the horizontal. (You don't read code like a book)

On a related note, while this article is about laptops, inferences are made about wide screens in general. I have an external wide screen and the greatest single advantage it has bar none, is that it rotates. I do a lot of technical writing (non-code). Rotating a wide screen (with drivers that perform a transform) is a HUGE advantage for authors. (It's also very good for reading this article.)

[BigGuns149]

The whole concept of rotating monitors is lost on a lot of people. With rotating monitors you can pick landscape or portrait depending upon which is better for the task at hand. Some stuff works better in landscape (videos, coding, graphics design, etc.) and some things work better in portrait (most documents). Since virtually every graphics adapter can rotate the video output the only thing that you need is a stand/mount that can rotate.

[davidwb45011]

The problem isn't with you or the computer - it is with the software developers. Once upon a time displays were cramped and all real estate, vertical and horizontal, was at a premium. We couldn't see an entire page side to side, let alone top to bottom. At that point, given that scrolling was a must, it was decided (wisely) that horizontal scrolling was just plain out. So software was developed to preserve the horizontal and sacrifice the vertical.

This made sense when my display was barely 600x800 pixels and though it makes sense no longer, software still is built that way. Look at the program you are running. How much stuff is at the top of the screen? The menu bar, a toolbar or two, an options bar? How much space does this waste? Why aren't these things on the side where it wouldn't matter so much?

I'll keep my wide screen display thanks - but I wish more of my software would jump into the modern world.

[donrisi]

Some software apps allow you to move the tool bars around the screen. Look into that possibility. You may be able to move them to some empty real estate.

[illegallydead]

while i agree that some of the design is just a hold-out, in that "that is the way we have always done it", I feel that things like text in the file/edit/etc. looks more natural at the top, seeing as my eyes like to read sideways, not always jumping lines down.
That being said, I think this is also partly because I am simply used to software looking the way it does. Programs re-designed for efficiency on widescreens would look REALLY weird for a bit, but would ultimately be better in the long run.

[BigGuns149]

This is probably one of the best posts on this article. Particularly in some *nix window managers you can rip off menus and move them to the side, but in Windows and MacOS you tend to be more limited in your options for moving things around. I agree that a UI optimized for larger screens would look weird at first, but once poeple got the hang of it I think most people would prefer it.

[dbargen]

Your forget that there are people out there that do a lot of real work on these machines. Whether it's drawing in CAD, 3D modeling, photo editing in programs like Photoshop or Aperture, or editing audio or video, much of that "extra space" is taken up by tools and menus, leaving as much work space as possible. And anyone who uses the linear editors WANTS as useable much horizontal space as possible.

Yes, when you're reading and typing text, using the full widescreen is a no go, but that's why you don't size up your text editor or browser to full-screen. DUH! No one said you had to.

I can tell your from personal experience that there's a lot of work to do out there that doesn't involve text, and just think of people doing layouts for 2 pages at once! Any publisher would scoff at not being able to do that.

My screen I use for editing photos has the ability to turn 90 deg. for a portrait view. That almost never happens unless I'm at a photo shoot and want to show the client a full-screen view. I think that best summarizes why and industry standard should continue- people who work with text alone and can't stand not going full-screen can always get an external monitor. It's such a niche demand, there's no way you'd see major manufacturers changing their trend.

[waynerifish]

I agree with you, Rafe. I actually have the best of both worlds at the office. I have a dual monitor setup. Main monitor is the old-school squarish ratio, while the 2nd monitor is a widescreen. I use a lot of spreadsheets, and I have those set to open up on the widescreen, while I have MS Word, email, AutoCAD, and pretty much everything else open in the main monitor. This works pretty good for me.

I did have a little trouble though when I needed to buy a new standard aspect ration monitor for an ultrasound machine at a local pregnancy center. A widescreen would have stretched the ultrasound image out of proportion. Between TigerDirect and NewEgg, I was able to find only one standard aspect ration monitor of the appropriate size. I wonder if next time I won't be able to find any.

[freemarket--2008]

If an application stretches an image, it's not the monitor's fault. It just means the application is poorly written. At the very least there should be an option to disable this behavior. I would push the developer (if possible) to correct this problem.

[BigGuns149]

@ waynerifish: Have you looked into Eizo's medical displays? They offer a variety of displays including some the more difficult to find high resolution displays. I see them in quite a few medical offices for displaying X-rays and images from other imaging technologies. I am surprised that you didn't look into their displays.

@ freemarket--2008: You are absolutely right that the monitor doesn't stretch things. I remember I used to show people this repeatedly before they believed me.

[bugma302]

I'm with you on this one - so I'm probably too old school. I like the thing I'm working on to be the thing I can see (I have alt/tab if I want to switch and I'm a bloke so I can't multitask.)
Sidebars are enough of a distraction, never mind 4 spreadsheets open at once.
And the point - as I understand it - is that you actually lose vertical space and yet most applications and sites are still designed vertically.

[someToast]

Making a monitor wider doesn't cause you to lose vertical space, it causes you to gain horizontal.

When I replaced my laptop - 15" standard screen monitor with a 17" widescreen monitor the width increased by 2" - BUT - the height decreased by 0.3".
I went from a 15" monitor to a 17" monitor to almost - but not quite - have the same height.
Since monitors are measured diagonally - wider will always be shorter for the same diagonal sive monitor!

[aj37viggen]

One word that justifies the utility of a wider display: Palettes.

I agree that you still need enough vertical pixels, though. Maybe the column should have focused on that, rather than aspect ratio.

Incidentally, horizontal navigation displays are more useful than vertical ones if you're using the device in a car. You not only need to know where you're going right now, but where you'll be going if you turn. Since cars can't maneuver in a vertical plane, the only turns you're going to make are horizontal ones.

[MadLyb]

The author has some good points in that 16:10/16:9 isn't suited for every use, but the same can be said for 4:3 and there is been many example supplied by other posters.

Suffice it to say that I prefer the wider aspect ratio because it provides more real estate for working my tools.

Not all us spend all day reading things on the web. ;^)

[polyomino]

When I started reading, I was wondering if you'd nail the Garmin. 100% spot on.

(The Garmin is awful for about a dozen other reasons, as well. Grrr! Continue via way point YES or NO ha ha, gotcha.)

[AndySocial]

I work developing computer-based training, and the local organization ran into a huge problem replacing their monitors. The approved (government) inventory list no longer includes any 4:3 aspect monitors. Every piece of training developed for the past 8 years has been built as 1024x768 or 1280x1024, and now the new monitors either distort the view or waste space to the left and right.

I agree with many commenters that 16:9/16:10 has its place (multimedia development for sure), but the marketing goons have taken that to an extreme that is a bit hard to understand. Look at the advertisements in your local paper for the big box computer stores and try to find a 4:3 monitor. Good luck.

Of course, marketing is a part of this as well - a wide-screen monitor can claim a higher diagonal measurement than the same number of pixels would give you at 4:3. So, a 21-inch widescreen monitor may have the same number of actual pixels as a 19-inch normal-aspect monitor. I'm sure that profit margins have nothing to do with that.

For that matter, what's with the wide-screen digital photo frames? Every digital camera I've ever seen has, as its default mode, an aspect ratio of close to 4:3, not anywhere near the wide-screen ratios these photo frames have. Yay for cropping!

[Eerikki]

You have met 4:3 aspect ratio as default mode digital cameras? For some years only very few camera makers use 4:3 method. Look at Canon, Nikon etc, They ignore 4:3. Guess why.

[BigGuns149]

@ AndySocial:

A 21" widescreen would have 1764000pixels (1680x1050) whereas a 19" 5:4 panel would have 1310720 pixels (1280x1024). Not only does the 21" have more pixels, but it has more vertical pixels, which is what most of the anti-wide screen people are complaining about. You got the pixel numbers wrong and you got the aspect ratio of a 19" monitor wrong(5:4 is the norm, not 4:3 on 19" monitors). Unless I am missing something you don't know what you are talking about.

Furthermore, we are talking about the government here. Merely because the GSA or whatever acquisition department that you go through can't buy any 4:3 monitors doesn't mean they don't exist. Lenovo amonst others still sell them. At the very least figure you would think people would know how to not distort the image.

[heinriph]

Most point-and-shoot consumer digital cameras (including Nikon & Canon) still natively shoot 4:3 (although they can sometimes be set to automatically discard the top and bottom of the image in order to give a wider image).

Generally the higher-end 'pro-sumer' digital SLRs that natively shoot the somewhat wider 3:2 aspect ratios.

I don't there are very many if any consumer cameras out there with 16:9 sensors.

[AndySocial]

@BigGuns149
A 21" widescreen would have 1764000pixels (1680x1050) - not generally for the same price as the mentioned 19" panel. You're much more likely to see 1440x900, for 1,296,000 pixels. The 1280x1024 monitor wins.

I did say distort OR waste space, didn't I?

@Eerikki

Powershot G11 - 3,648 x 2,736 = 4:3
Powershot D10 - 4000 x 3000 = 4:3

[Ron Geiken]

I have a wide screen 24 inch Samsung, and have never been happier. The reason that they make wide screen computers almost exclusively is that is what the majority of customers want. I have Vista installed, so the right side of my screen is filled with gadgets like time, temperature, calendar, and several other useful tools. I also use Firefox 3.X and the enlarge text button so I can increase the size of a site's text. I also use full screen, and it is much easier to read on line newspaper and magazine pages that way. I never want to go back to a 4 X 3 aspect ratio. I would like to get a 30 inch monitor so that it would be easier than ever. It also makes it easier to us Excel and Word. I just can't imagine that anyone would want an old style monitor!!!!!

[IgnatiusTheKing]

Buy an external monitor. Hook it up to your MacBook. Turn it on it's side (into "portrait mode"). Go into System Prefs > Displays and set it to rotate 90 degrees. Done.

[b_baggins]

Precisely. People who go on a rant because they are ignorant of the solution available to them don't get me a lot of sympathy.

I wonder if this blog author ever thought to ask his friends if there was a way to make a display portrait in OS X before he went into histrionics.

[john55440]

Some of HP's wide desktop monitors are designed so that they can be rotated into the Portrait position, for viewing web sites with less scrolling etc.

With my wide 22" monitor, IE7 can be magnified to 150% or so, for those who need it.

I think my 22" monitor is the perfect size. It's not too wide to be distracting.