Stupid developments in IT

[king_pellinor]

My monitor has died.

I've stolen LadyofAstolat's spare 19" LCD for the moment, while I'm looking into getting it repaired, but it's not the same as my nice 22" CRT :-( Even if it does take up a fraction of the desk space and have pretty much the same visible area (ahem).

In the meantime I thought I'd look at the state of the art of PC monitors. I'm pleased to find that one can get big monitors with good specs at very reasonable prices.

But they're all widescreen! Why?? The only point of having a wide screen is to watch DVDs, but why on earth do they assume that absolutely everyone wants to do so, as their most pressing reason to have a computer? Most of what one uses a screen for is text - for which one wants height, not width (my work monitor is in portrait orientation for that very reason). Maybe pictures... which again don't need the extra width.

I ran through the maths. If I were to buy a new monitor, to get the same screen height as the 19" LCD I'd need something like a 22" widescreen. That means paying for a great chunk of screen that will simply sit off to the right and be entirely pointless, except that when reading web pages the lines will be longer and harder to read than they currently are. So I'm paying more for less utility.

And all the marketing is "Don't get a normal 19" screen, get a 19" Widescreen! It's wider!". Whereas what they actually mean is "Don't get a full-size 19" screen, get this one where we've chopped the top of the screen off so you're acually able to see less, and what you can see is squished into an awkward shape".

Why can I not find a 4:3 monitor for sale *anywhere* (apart from some little 15" ones being sold off cheap)? :-(

Oh, and you can't get CRTs anymore. Now I know they take up a lot of space, but it is nice being able to muck about with resolution without it looking as if you have butter smeared on your glasses (Hearts of Iron II, I'm looking at your fixed 800x600...), and you'd think someone would still want them. Me, for example!

So if the CRT is beyond economical repair, what I'd want is a 22" 4:3 CRT to replace it. But I can't get one.

So as a fall-back a 20" 4:3 LCD would be OK. But I can't get one.

So I'd have to get a 22" Widescreen LCD. Which doesn't do what I want, but is close. I might need to get used to reading things in windows rather than full-screen, to avoid having the PC using the excess width.

In other words, as technology progresses its products become less fit for purpose.

Again :-(

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I hadn't come across that particular problem, but in general terms I do know what you mean. Both Terry Pratchett and Dave Langford have written quite eloquently about the problem.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I like widescreen. It's very handy for multitasking. Most tasks I do involve using at least 2 applications at the same time (at present, I have 8 different programs running, and I'm using all of them, or I will be as soon as I've finished reading LJ) and it's very handy to have the screen set up so I can see 2 of them side by side, without having to bother with using an extra monitor.

If the text is too wide, just resize the window. It's what windows were made for!

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Ah, but my requirements are more important than yours, or at least should be taken into consideration more by the monitor makers, and I can't multitask :-) OK, I do at work, but I have 2 monitors here :-)

I don't like resizing windows, I like having things full-screen - the spare space distracts me :-(

So away with you and your implicit suggestions that my own idiosyncracies may not be universal, and that I should change my habits to make better use of new design features! Fie, I say, fie!

[evilmissbecky.livejournal.com]

Okay, I think it says something about a) the state of my flist and b) my own mental state that I saw your cut-line text and read it as "My mother has died" and I instantly was in tears.

In other words...don't scare me like that!

Oh and also? Good luck with the monitor buying!

:-)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Once I was like you. I wanted 4:3 and I wanted CRT. I had (as you know) a 22" Idek Iiyama CRT and it was great.

But now I have widescreen and I have TFT, and I'm glad I do. My monitor is this one: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-019-DE&groupid=703&catid=17&subcat=510 (or at least the previous model without the HC).

Disadvantages compared to my previous monitor:
TFTs don't scale as well as CRTs. They prefer to be at the native resolution, otherwise there is a slight blurring. This does mean that if you buy a high resolution monitor (mine is 1920x1200), then you're also committing to spending lots of money on graphics cards if you want to play modern 3D games at high detail settings.

Advantages compared to my previous monitor:
Much sharper, especially at text.
Better contrast and more vivid colour.
No flicker (not that my old monitor did, but old, cheap CRTs certainly do).
(This isn't an advantage as such, but it's worth pointing out that the old TFT problem of not quite being able to keep up with fast moving images has now been solved, and you won't see it at all, unless you buy a really crap TFT.)
It's man portable.
The widescreen format gives a wider field of view that (assuming your game supports it properly - and not all do) will give you an advantage in some games.
Multitasking is easier.


If you still do want a 22" 4:3 CRT, try buying my old one off Bethran. I gave it him for free. He might be up for making a small profit on it...

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Sorry :-(

Hope not to have to be buying - it looks like these things have a 3 year warranty - but thanks :-)

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

So what you're saying is what they're good at, they're good at; but what they're not good at, they do very badly :-)

The flexibility is what I like about CRTs -I don't really want to be running UT at 1920x1200, for example, as I'd have to go for low detail, albeit hi-resolution low detail :-) And trying to run 800x600 could be messy ;-)

Anyway, all but one of your points are irrelevant to widescreen, being CRT/LCD issues, and that one is potentially a disadvantage :-)

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Could try freecycle for old CRTs... people are chucking them out all the time, although perhaps not usually 22" size.
The demise of CRTs is a challenge for vision scientists too, and several labs have built up stockpiles. (Not suggesting them as a source, just mentioning in passing).
I'm with Bunn on the widescreen - doesn't bother me especially; space is good, that's all. Esp. as, quite suddenly after the birth of Baby D (presumably coincidentally??) I seem to have become quite presbyopic, and now like to have the text size massive. I do like the way you don't have to devote most of your desk to the monitor these days... big improvement in my book.
Neuromancer

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Unless you've got a very old graphics card, you'll probbaly be ok running UT at 1920x1200. UT2004 might be harder, and I struggle with UT3 (and that's with two 7800GTXs in SLI configuration).

CRTs are better at different resolutions than TFTs - true. But it isn't so bad on modern TFTs (if you buy a decent one). I'm really, really fussy about things like that, and I played all of Half-Life 2 Episode 1 in a non-native resolution on my new monitor. To be honest, I felt that the extra vibrancy and contrast more than made up for any slight blurring.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

eBay usually has a few going - problem is you'd have to go and get it.