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by Maome 4118 days ago
I don't disagree with you but your argument seems to promote the idea that 4:3 would be even more ideal for the same screen size because it has more vertical screen real-estate. I don't think you answered the question at all.
2 comments

ThinkPad loyalists would kill for a modern ThinkPad with a high-res 4:3 display. This is how they used to be sold, and the extra vertical screen real estate (16:12) was great for work.

Lenovo's blog post at the time:

http://web.archive.org/web/20111030050311/http://www.lenovob...

> PC vendors have almost zero say in this change. We simply have to adapt. As much as I would like it to be so, 4:3 is not coming back.

Apple has since gone on to sell hundreds of millions of 4:3 iPads, so this argument doesn't hold much water. Where there's a will, there's a way. Further dilution of the ThinkPad from a pure "business" machine.

Obviously it's subjective, but I'd prefer a machine with a 4:3 display, because when I'm coding or reading I need vertical real estate much more than horizontal.

I always assumed that the move to 16:9 for computers was driven mostly by either manufacturing economies of scale or the coolness factor of HDTV's.

Lots of good info about ThinkPad's switch to 16:9 here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20111030050311/http://www.lenovob...