SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Samsung has shown off a TV that can rotate into portrait orientation:
Samsung has unveiled a TV that switches from a horizontal, landscape-style orientation to vertical - so it can easily display smartphone content. The 43in device is called Sero and comes with an integrated easel-like stand upon which the screen pivots. It will go on sale in South Korea towards the end of May and cost 1.89m won (£1,250).
One TV analyst said it was an interesting concept - but might have limited applications. Sero will come with a microphone and Samsung's virtual assistant Bixby built in. It can also be set up to display photographs, a clock face or other images. Among the content users might choose to watch on it may be a new series of shows by Snapchat, designed for mobile consumption and set to be launched in May.
See also: Samsung thinks millennials want vertical TVs
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:27AM (12 children)
But the basic idea of going back to monitors with decent proportions is a good one. The march to widescreen has been pointless and actually counterproductive and driven by movie watching, not computing. The traditional monitor ratio was 4:3 and frankly even that is too wide, 3:4 would have been an improvement - 16:9 just makes me want to see companies closing and people losing their jobs. There's just no excuse for such crap.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:01AM (2 children)
The move to 16:9 was driven by two factors:
1. Cost. Production can be on production lines built for TV screens.
2. Dumb buyers: The same diagonal measurement gets you less screen area with a 16:9 screen. A lot of buyers did not realize this when buying monitors and the vendors too advantage of this.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:04AM
That leaves 2. I'm buying 2. A little oversimplified but not incorrect.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:44AM
3. For laptops anyway, the keyboard is also wider than deep, so a wide screen pairs with it well.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:21AM (3 children)
I disagree. Gaming, which is a huge market and use of monitors benefits from widescreens... i can't even imagine playing much of anything beyond galaga on a 3:4 screen. Gran Turismo? Grand Theft Auto? Command and Conquor? Fallout New Vegas? Sim City?
Likewise, spreadsheet work benefits from a wide screen. I pretty rarely need to see more ROWS at one time. I almost always want more columns.
Word processing? Sure I can see matching the printed page. Advantage portrait.
Coding? Either way is good. Really just give me more... Advantage none. 32" 4k... Let me put 3 pages side by side on one screen, and be able to read them...
But another advantage of landscape is its a nicer form factor for laptops. Can you imagine if your laptop opened long-wise? That's just awkward, cramped keyboard miles of useless space, and a tall narrow screen that's a less stable due to the screen's higher center of gravity.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:40AM
We should all switch to VR/AR headsets. Any aspect ratio you want, at any "size". Just put in a couple of 16K resolution panels and add foveated rendering and we're good to go.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:11AM (1 child)
But did the games come first, or the widescreens?
And this is all basically aside from the real point. We could have had a trajectory where computer monitors followed sensible geometries for computing uses, and gamers simply bought a second monitor to give the desired width. I'm sure I'd have at least three, which is much better than one super wide one, as they can be individually angled to provide a much better approximation of a continuously curved geometry.
The individual monitors would be cheap, benefiting even more from economy of scale than the widescreens have, and the result would be much better both for general computing AND for games AND even for watching movies.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:58PM
"and gamers simply bought a second monitor to give the desired width."
No gamer wants a bezel smack in the middle of a dual monitor setup.
"I'm sure I'd have at least three"
Right. You'd need at least three due to the bezel issue. And that is simply not going to be more inexpensive than one small wide screen (which is what plenty of people use).
"and the result would be much better both for general computing AND for games AND even for watching movies. "
And while 3 works for first-person perspective games, it doesn't really add much to xcom2 or wargame reddragon or diablo3 etc, and the bezels would be an annoyance. Ditto bezels vs watching movies.
And if you think ... simple... no bezels... get real ... especially if you think we should have had this for the last 20 years.
Your first question was the most interesting... "But did the games come first, or the widescreens?"
I think I'd have to concede the games followed the screens. If we somehow only had 3:4 screens... we'd only have 3:4 games. BUT I really don't think that ever would have happened. Humans are biologically wired left-right not up down. We evolved in a horitontally centric environment. We primarily move around on an effectively flat horizontal plane because we can't fly, and everything we interact with is on that plane. We scan left to right for food, for prey, for predators ... not up down. Our rooms are wider than they are tall. Our lives take place in a wide horizontal bands; and that's why our movies went wide -- to match that biological reality. Its simply more natural for us.
For certain specific workflows sure portrait makes sense, but I think for immersive games and entertainment and movies we invevitably would have gone wide.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:38AM (3 children)
But if you get a big enough 16:9 screen, you can just snap a window to each side. That way you basically have the benefit of dual monitors without the cost. Or you can flip it to portrait and it is the perfect size for an Letter sized paper with the toolbars on top and bottom.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:07AM (2 children)
Uhh, no. Same cost, absent 'we decided you would want this one so we built 10 million of them already, and we're selling them at a discount, they're on the shelf. if you want something sane pre-order at 300% cost and we'll try to get something to you by next year' level bullshit.
Let me buy one monitor if I don't need two, or buy two. Don't force me to buy two, and force them into the most nonsensical and unuseful geometry imaginable on top of that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:01AM (1 child)
Try a 4K ~40-in 16/9 TV as a monitor.
That solves the 1080p problem, and gives you a real desktop with many windows/terminals/documents/waveforms filling your visual field with minimal motion.
The guys I work with laughed when I commandeered the $350 TV after a tradeshow. Now they all have the same setup.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:10AM
16/9? 9/16. Please!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:34AM
I dunno, for TVs wider makes sense than taller. Afterall walls in most homes are wider than they are tall... and yea TVs are primarily for watching movies and we're talking about TVs here.
If you're just being specific to monitors, for sure we need more vertical space, but personally I want both, not one or the other.