Ah the joy of unfounded assumptions... (Score 1)

I love to read articles and comments by individuals who make up figures to support their assumptions, but those that rely on general myths are even more fun. "Widescreens are smaller LCD surface area, so companies save money"--companies don't get to purchase LCD panels the way you purchase flooring for your kitchen, and in truth, the cost of a square inch of a widescreen LCD panel is higher than it is on standard aspect ratio panels. "we should stick to letting the consumer decide"--the thing is that the consumers do decide, but if you think that the individual consumer should have the power to influence the entire industry, then you probably still believe the US is a democracy. Crack open that civics textbook and let us know when you figure it out. The vast majority of notebook consumers do want widescreens, which is why we have them. It wasn't just a fun change for the industry, though it did happen to reduce the average size of notebooks by virtue of the fact that the chassis are smaller, etc. "most DVDs are non-widescreen"--not sure where this one came from, but I'd like someone to explain it to me. This was likely true of the VHS era, but the prevalance of the DVD format and the soaring popularity of HD formats has turned standard aspect ratio film into a feature offered only for holdovers who 'can't stand the black bars'. In any case, I hated my widescreen notebook screen because of the available resolution in a standard 15" monitor. Just picked up a new 'high def' Dell XPS notebook with 1920x1200 resolution in 15.4" and life is wonderful in mobile dev again. As another reader pointed out, however, I dock whenever possible and use 2x24" widescreen LCDs, which is by far the preferred mode. Screen space is king, but efficient use of the space available makes widescreen a smarter choice.