HDTV is 16:9 and manufacturing processes / economies of scale made panels in that ratio cheaper even though losing 10% of your screen height was always dogshit for doing actual work
Wait, how does that work? I assumed that displays of different sizes are made with their own machine, so a line that makes laptop displays screens would have its own machines, and a line that makes TV displays will have separate machines, so the aspect ratio of one wouldn't affect the other.
maybe it's changed since 15 years ago and newer display tech like oled probably has different constraints but iirc you make big sheets of screen and cut out individual panels like how paper is manufactured in huge sheets and then cut to A4 or whatever size and since a 16:9 panel of a given diagonal (marketing bullshit but anyway) is smaller than a 16:10 one you have a lower defect rate
Makes sense, because laptops were competing with other laptops on the x" category, and resolution was rarely a marketing thing, especially for budget laptops. Defect rates would be based on the area (given the same density), so yields would be higher the smaller the area, but they still wanted it to be an x" display.
I also think that it may have something to do with brick and mortar stores, since they would usually play some videos on the screen at the store to show how the display looks, and having the same aspect ratio makes it look more impressive (larger image without black bars) probably made these laptops sell more.
HDTV is 16:9 and manufacturing processes / economies of scale made panels in that ratio cheaper even though losing 10% of your screen height was always dogshit for doing actual work
Wait, how does that work? I assumed that displays of different sizes are made with their own machine, so a line that makes laptop displays screens would have its own machines, and a line that makes TV displays will have separate machines, so the aspect ratio of one wouldn't affect the other.
maybe it's changed since 15 years ago and newer display tech like oled probably has different constraints but iirc you make big sheets of screen and cut out individual panels like how paper is manufactured in huge sheets and then cut to A4 or whatever size and since a 16:9 panel of a given diagonal (marketing bullshit but anyway) is smaller than a 16:10 one you have a lower defect rate
Makes sense, because laptops were competing with other laptops on the x" category, and resolution was rarely a marketing thing, especially for budget laptops. Defect rates would be based on the area (given the same density), so yields would be higher the smaller the area, but they still wanted it to be an x" display.
I also think that it may have something to do with brick and mortar stores, since they would usually play some videos on the screen at the store to show how the display looks, and having the same aspect ratio makes it look more impressive (larger image without black bars) probably made these laptops sell more.