Shoppers who can’t multiply
Haha, this one is funny: I was checking the front page of Geeks.com (great people behind this shop btw) and saw that their No1 selling item is a 19″ Acer TFT LCD monitor this week. Obviously, the buyers can’t resist the fact that this is a widescreen 1440×900 19″ monitor. It sounds so cool. And yet, they could have saved as much as $45 if they would go for a 17″ SXGA 1280×1024 monitor instead. But nooooo…. this is a 19″ monitor, it’s bigger! And it runs a higher resolution!
Does it really?
1440×900 = 1,296,000
1280×1024 = 1,310,720
Yes, these widescreen 19″ monitors have 14,720 fewer pixels than the 17″ SXGA monitors! No, the pixel count difference is not significant, but it’s there (the difference is only about a 121×121 square of pixels).
SXGA on a 17″ monitor is more than enough to work comfortably, plus you will have more pixels available than on that widescreen 19″. But this is a great example how people don’t know how to shop. They don’t research deeper. They know 1-2 buzzwords and they go for it.
Sure, there are reasons to buy that specific 19″ widescreen monitor instead of the same model at 17″ instead: if the user has eye problems and needs bigger pixels, or because he watches too many DVDs or pirated DivX movies and likes that widescreen format better. But honestly… Only a few people would have bought this monitor for these specific two reasons. The large majority bought it because they think they get “more” than the normal SXGA 1280×1024 monitors…
But it seems that they don’t know how to multiply…
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I purchased a 19″ wide screen because I preferred the wide screen aspect ratio. But I do a lot more stuff with video (I run Windows MCE and use it as a DVR as well). For a while I did run a 2 monitor configuration and the 19″ widescreen spanned nicely with my 15″ XGA monitor, I got tired of it though because it didn’t work ideally with MCE and I noticed how dim the old 15″ monitor was when it was sitting next to the new 19″.
The one gripe I have is that I don’t understand why wide screen pc monitors have a 16:10 aspect ratio instead of a 16:9 which is more common on HD TV sets. Of course 16:9 would mean even fewer pixels on the screen.
BTW, if right now I had the choice between the two, I would go for the widescreen 19″ and not the 17″ one. But I am a special case because I need an LCD monitor to run side by side my 1200×1600 vertical LCD monitor (and I already have an SXGA monitor anyhow).
I need one wide monitor (to place next to eachother my normal apps) and one long (only for web-browsing and documents). I have the long one already, so that widescreen one would be perfect for what I need to do to replace my current SXGA.
But 99% of the people who bought that 19″ don’t have my dual-monitor vertical setup, I am a special case: http://www.eugenia.co.uk/images/dual2.jpg
I’m baffled as to how you could list two excellent reasons to buy widescreen, and then dismiss them as trivial in the same breath. And then call the buyers idiots!
Because most of these buyers didn’t think of these two reasons. Only few of them did (and these who did, they did well done to purchase that monitor). All the rest though, bought them because they thought the monitor was actually going to give them “more”. I explained that. Did you somehow miss it?
Hi,
all I say is: API_WITH_MANY_PARAMETERS_PER_CALL
Best regards
Tam Hanna
Some more screen real estate here.
Cool new triple screen gadget here.
I’d say another good reason for widescreen is that you can easily put your instant messenger alongside whatever you are working on. Most IM apps seem to be optimised for being used with a taller-than-wide window.
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