I was very surprised by the Valve survey, i thought everyone preferred widescreen these days what with the popularity of widescreen T.V.'s, but i can see why people prefere 4:3. However, i've gotten used to widescreen now and wouldn't wanna go back! Then again, i didn't wanna go widescreen in the first place!!
1280*1024>1280*720
Normal Screen>Wide screen.
Personally I don't see any advantage of wide screens against normal screens other than watching movies. (In PCs, not TVs) They just cause disturbing incompatibilities. Widescreen TV broadcasting disturbs me too, as I can't watch it right in my room's 4:3 TV, and a wide one won't fit in it unless it has the same width of my 4:3 TV. (My TV is more or less inside a "box hole")
Having a wider field of vision is nice. However, some games do widescreen mode by just cutting of the top and bottom of the 4:3 image. Most seem to do it properly though (extending the edges)
- Ok, you must admit that was the most creative cussing this site have ever seen -
Personally I don't see any advantage of wide screens against normal screens other than watching movies.
I can see many reasons
Better for image editing (since, for PS at least, the standard menu layout is vertical, same with MMF2), any A/V editing that uses a timeline, wider field of view in games. And of course video playback. And good widescreen monitors have sensors so they rotate as you tilt them, most of my writer friends do this.
Are there actually any benefits of using a non-widescreen display, other than for old games (valid reason).
Widescreens are not wider than normal screens, it's normal screens that are higher than widescreens!
"Better for image editing (since, for PS at least, the standard menu layout is vertical, same with MMF2), any A/V editing that uses a timeline, wider field of view in games."
Normal screens have this advantage for document editing, as most of them are portrait.
"And good widescreen monitors have sensors so they rotate as you tilt them, most of my writer friends do this." That's the only thing I found cool in widescreen. X)
Not related, but my cousin has a HUGE widescreen, 2560*1440 I think, might be bigger, and I don't see the point of having a screen that is THAT big. It takes a few seconds (!) to get from the bottom left corner (Start menu/Application menu/K Menu and Quick launch/application links) to the top right (X button). Now if you mistakenly open the wrong application it takes quite longer to close it.