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iPad screen – Yay or nay on 4:3?

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iPadLandscapeiPadPortraitNot 100% sure the iPad screen is exactly 4:3, but it sure isn’t widescreen. Looked blocky to me, but then I remembered the fuss when Tablet PCs transitioned from 4:3 to widescreen. Lot of people weren’t happy about the narrowness of the screens in portrait. Where do you stand? Happy to go back or happier now with widescreen?

16 Comments

16 Comments

  1. GoodThings2Life

    01/27/2010 at 1:14 pm

    I gotta say, it’s a bad call. This is the Age of HD, so what’s the point of this as a “Media” device?

  2. Scott

    01/27/2010 at 1:19 pm

    For a media content device: BAD.

    For screen size and readability: Good (“over 50” eyesight)

  3. Shogmaster

    01/27/2010 at 1:25 pm

    It’s 3:2, 960×640.

  4. Shogmaster

    01/27/2010 at 1:37 pm

    Nevermind! It’s 4:3 1024×768.

    I took that pixel doubling comment too seriously. :P

    https://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/

  5. Frank

    01/27/2010 at 1:40 pm

    no OLED, normal IPS display, no outdoor display, no high resolution, no widescreen, so no media device, just iPhone OS, slow CPU, poor battery life, and damn expensive. Well, that’s called a fail.

  6. borax99 (AlainC.)

    01/27/2010 at 1:40 pm

    I’ve used both, and I much prefer tableteering on 4:3.

  7. Mark H

    01/27/2010 at 1:43 pm

    As a tablet user I prefer 4:3 because it’s closer to the proportions of paper. Widescreen usually means less pixels for apps on laptops. Depends where the focus is – video or ebooks.

  8. Mickey Segal

    01/27/2010 at 1:50 pm

    The iPhone has very little border around the screen on the small dimension, but the iPad has lots of padding in both dimensions of the screen. I guess Apple gave up on fitting it into a jacket pocket, so they didn’t try to keep that dimension small.

  9. Nameless

    01/27/2010 at 1:50 pm

    I definitely prefer 4:3 on a tablet. 16:9/10 feels a bit…unwieldy and distorted.

    That said, I ended up moving from the 10″ 4:3 1024×768 HP TC1100 to the 14″ 16:10 1280×768 Gateway E-295C/C-142XL anyway, but mostly because there was no alternative. Now, in tablet mode, while the screen is certainly long enough, it still isn’t WIDE enough, and I find myself having to scroll horizontally a lot.

    Just because movies and games tend to look better in widescreen doesn’t mean everything does…

  10. Gavin Miller

    01/27/2010 at 2:06 pm

    Agreed!

  11. klucon2

    01/27/2010 at 2:12 pm

    I like the 4:3 ratio as well, 16:9/10 might be good in landscape, but in portrait mode it’s just to narrow!! I would prefer having DIN A4 norm aspect ratio, not to wide and not to narrow.
    I think IPS screen is also a let down. It’s just not good enough now a days with OLED devices out there and as already mentioned, people are gonna want to take their device with them out into the sunlight and I don’t think that the iPad is suited for that.

  12. lockdown

    01/27/2010 at 2:20 pm

    Best tablet resolution I’ve ever used was 4:3: the 1400×1050 12″ panels that were available in Lenovo X60/X61 and Motion LE1700 tablets. Liked those way better than the TC1100’s screen (though did prefer the little HP’s overall form factor). Brightness could have been better, but they weren’t glossy. Too bad nobody’s producing SXGA+ panels anymore.

  13. Sam

    01/27/2010 at 2:45 pm

    I think IPS screens are unusual for mobile devices, anyone know?

    For those unfamiliar, IPS LCD has much better viewing angles than more usual TN LCD technology, but typically has higher power usage for the same brightness (IPS lets less light through, so to achieve the same brightness, you need a brighter backlight). It’s also more expensive. Apple uses IPS in many of their desktop displays.

  14. RDX.

    01/27/2010 at 4:29 pm

    I much prefer 4:3 on tablets, I find 16:10 odd to use in portrait mode, using them in lanscape is nice for writing long sentances but then again, height is lacking. (In the past year I’ve owned a m700, xt, t2010, 2710p, r1f).

    Oddly enough, on the day the iPad was released, I took delivery from Japan of an old NEC VersaPro (pentium 1.1ghz). With a 10″ screen, 900g weight, 11mm thickness, it’s hard to believe this was released in 2004.

    I really hope NEC get back in the game.

  15. RDX.

    01/27/2010 at 7:48 pm

    i mean the iPad was announced not released

    and the VersaPro (VY11F/GL-R) is a tablet :P

  16. kahm

    01/27/2010 at 8:06 pm

    4:3 is much better for a device where you change the orientation. It’s better for displaying photos, and better for use as an e-reader. Widescreen in portrait mode is annoyingly narrow. So much so that I prefer using my 4:3 Fujitsu tablet over my 16:10 HP tablet, despite the HP having a lot more pixels.

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