Monitors
 

Just a simple question...is 19" Wide screen monitor better than ordinary 19" monitor? What are the advantages-disadvantages of Wide screen monitors ?

Re: Monitors
 

For my personal experience, a widescreen monitor is better for displaying DVD & other 16:9 ratio files, than my previous 4:3 monitor :)

Re: Monitors
 

i've just bought a new monitor and went for a 20" non widescreen for the simple reason that i would not watch a full movie on the PC so would therefore be wasting most of the screen most of the time.

Dont forget the dimension is corner to corner so if you take a 19" widescreen and compare it with a 19" 4:3 the 4:3 will show a taller image.

Re: Monitors
 

But if you get the right type of stand then you can swivel the 19in WS and have a long thin paper shaped monitor.

I prefer the WS as you can have two things side by side on the screen more easily, a chat window and an IE window, or a spreadsheet and a word doc.

I do find that IE is never maximised as reading full screen width is difficult.

Re: Monitors
 

Something to bear in Mind though with those 19" Widescreen TFT's - The Max Res they Support (Native) is 1140 x 900. Now while this is great for things going Across the Screen, the Down REs is lower than a Normal 17/19" TFT (these been 1280x1024). As Most games Support 1024x768 and higher res of 1280x1024, this means the game will not allow you to Select the Latter (as the Screen does not support this).

Before I bought anything, I did some Quick Sums though:

1280x1024 (17/19") = 1310720 Pixels
1440x900 (19" Widescreen) = 1026000 Pixels

So you can see you Actually Loose some real Estate there.

Personally I bought a 20" Widescreen which runs @ 1680x1050 and I have seen these now for like £200 now (even in PC World)...

Re: Monitors
 

Not to discredit your post but from what i've just Googled i'm finding the native resolution of a 19in WS LCD to be 1440 x 900. Maybe 1140 x 900 was a typo?

Re: Monitors
 

1280*1024 = 1310720
1440*900 = 1296000
Difference 14720 or 1%
So not so much - maybe a problem if you are big into gaming, but for us surfers, emailers Imers and video / photo editors the widescreen is the right shape.

Re: Monitors
 

I prefer non-widescreen. I've got a normal 19" TFT. I think it's all personal preference as to which is 'better'.

Re: Monitors
 

I have a 19" Iiyama Widescreen TFT at home and we use Dell 19" 4:3 TFTs here at work and I prefer the Widescreen (not to mention that the image on the Iiyama is far superior to the Dell)