I have problems with a lot in this article but one thing I find interesting is his statements on screen aspect ratio and how he prefers the 16:10 ratio of Samsung’s tabs, versus the 3:2 ratio of the Surface, specifically for multitasking.
I’d be willing to bet money the author is either a Gen Z or millennial, as I’ve noticed in our customer base that they seem to prefer the wider aspect ratio, and not just for video.
Many of the “old timers” here (myself included) started in computing in the age of CRT displays and have preferred the 3:2 aspect ratio for “productivity”.
Whereas the younger groups started in computing when 16:9 LCDs were standard. My son absolutely is in the wide aspect ratio camp and considers the 3:2 aspect ratio of his Surface Go only acceptable for school work or office, and does all his leisure computing on his gaming rig, and in fact would prefer his Go be at least 16:10 too.
A good reminder that what’s “obviously better” to you might not be for others. That being said, any user can invest the effort to adapt IMHO.
Maybe. There is certainly the “smartphone effect” in play too as for example my son’s first computing device that was truly his, was his smartphone and of course all of the modern phones have aspect ratios of 21:9 or even greater.
And it certainly has pervaded both still and video photography as all you have to do is look at Facebook or Tik Tok where the majority of content is vertical.
The distinction I’m also drawing is that more and more I think a lot of younger people start with their smartphone as primary computing device and go there first, and only go to another device when it’s obviously not suitable.
That 100% is the case with my son and I’ve observed a similar tendency with my daughter, even though she is a hardcore iPad Pro user, and their peer groups observationally act the same.
My point was/is that there are lots of drivers that drive choice and what works best for me, may be clunky and awkward to others.
Au contraire - what is BEST for me IS what is RIGHT for the rest of the world. Otherwise I don’t get what I NEED and WANT. Just think, you’d already have a WinPad and a MacPad for your choices if I were in control.
Maybe they have done test groups and found that most people don’t really understand ratios, fractions nor fraction reduction. They know what 16:9 looks like so they can figure out that the bigger first number in 21:9 means wider.
Perhaps, but I think because 16:9 became so pervasive in the late 00s and early 10s that 16:10 and 21:9 just compare well to it.
16:10 is clearly a tad taller than 16:9, and 21:9 is clearly the same height but much wider. Throw in 8:5 and 7:3 and the numbers become harder to quickly compare, with some people simply not able to (why is a debate for another day).
I guess 4:3 stuck as 4:3 because it rapidly faded out and became common in a different time period. And sure Apple use it, but then it sort of just became the ‘Apple screen size’.
Perhaps we should call 4:3 ‘16:12’, though I think 4:3 better demonstrates quite how square it is. The same with 3:2, though 15:10 would also fit in nicely.
Lenovo and HP have started to do that already in some of their product literature, I also agree it is the exception not the rule that the general public fully understands aspect ratios especially when it comes to usable area. I’ve had more customers than I could count insist to me that their 13 inch 16:9 display has much more usable screen real estate than my 13 inch 3:2 Surface Pro 8
Currently there’s only one app I absolute need that is Windows only (a development app). There’s other that is nice to have (Rebelle, Blender, Paintshop Pro, Live2d…) but they are not strictly necessary.
Even for development I had moved to a text editor app on Android for writing script and only move to Windows PC for testing. Basically Android serve 70% of my creative needs for now ( could be more if I was willing to pay for CSP subscription, but it’s Super display for the more complex arts now)
Rebelle would be nice to draw on a tablet but that thing is so resource hungry any low power Windows tablets would freeze and any high power tablets I own had a battery life of 2 hours and a huge brick of a charger.
As for aspect ratio, 3:2 is always better for productivity ( more viewable excel or scrips lines, longer list of tools and options on CSP panel so less scrolling, much better portrait mode usability).
16:9 is only useful for entertainment, or thin, easy to grip phone. Anything that long and bigger than 7" are terribly awkward to use in portrait mode.
