Why aren't monitors getting bigger?

[nitromullet]

bring back 4:3

They still make them but they aren't any bigger than 1600x1200.

 

[viivo]

I used a 40" Sony 1080P LCD HDTV for a couple years as a monitor before going back to traditionally sized monitors, and I must say for a desk environment, anything over 27-30 inches for a single monitor is overkill. For one, the slower response times of HDTVs is noticeable; two, viewing distance plays a part. It doesn't matter how awesome your 46" TV is, it's going to look like crap from 3 feet away.

I will admit though that having your entire field of view filled by a display is great for games. Racing games were the best, though faster-paced games looked pretty bad due to the horrendous ghosting.

 

[wahdangun]

bring back 4:3

totally true, since HDTV campaign crap.

 

[wahdangun]

I used a 40" Sony 1080P LCD HDTV for a couple years as a monitor before going back to traditionally sized monitors, and I must say for a desk environment, anything over 27-30 inches for a single monitor is overkill. For one, the slower response times of HDTVs is noticeable; two, viewing distance plays a part. It doesn't matter how awesome your 46" TV is, it's going to look like crap from 3 feet away.

I will admit though that having your entire field of view filled by a display is great for games. Racing games were the best, though faster-paced games looked pretty bad due to the horrendous ghosting.

yeah, what we truly need is higher pixel density, like apple "retina dispplay"

 

[Anubis]

because people dont want to spend money, they shop for teh cheapest that fits their needs, which happens to be cheap small TN pannels. the average joe does not care about viewing angles and color accuracy or a huge monitor to read email and facebook.

gamers stick in the 22-27 range 1080p or 1920*1200 as its the sweet spot for preformance and size.

to go to a 27 or 30 running 2560*1600 or 1440 (whatever the 16:9 version is) requires a signifigant $ investment for the screen cost and the video card(s) to drive it

 

[Insomniator]

I don't see any issue with 19x12 on a 24 or 25x16 on a 30... and I wouldn't want anything larger than that for a desktop computer. I'd imagine most people feel the same and thus the market isn't there for expensive new displays.

What would 4k res really do for a 24 inch monitor? I can't really imagine the use for everyday tasks...

 

[v8envy]

TN 24" displays are bad enough. You can see the colors shift in various spots on the display. On a 30" TN it would be absoludicrous. Also, unless the pixel density is higher the only thing 30" would buy you over 24" is the ability to sit further away. Not sure that's worth a premium.

 

[exar333]

What I'd like to see is monitors getting wider. There's a small but growing market for 2.35:1 tvs out there; I'd like the monitor industry to follow.

No thanks. That would be a terrible display. 4:3 would be MILES better for computer usage.

 

[pw38]

No thanks. That would be a terrible display. 4:3 would be MILES better for computer usage.

Not when I double as a htpc and am a heavy BD watcher. Plus it depends on the size of the monitor. Why do you assume it would be terrible, especially comparing to 1.33/1? Because of height?

 

[videoclone]

i wanted the same thing as the OP .. a larger monitor with super rez..

so i picked myself up two 2011 30" dells and with Eyeinfinity i have 5120x1600 over 60" of horizontal space

The only down side is the split down the middle for when i'm watching movies or playing games. A 40" 2560x1600 rez monitor would off been a better option but they stop at 30" `````

 

[KingstonU]

I did a calculation of screen size that I would need, but my was screen size & pixels-per-inch. My desired ppi and screen size dictated the resolution. I don't need cellphone like 200+ ppi. I don't recall the exact numbers anymore but I had figured out that I would be quite happy with ~80-100ppi on a 40" screen. But 40" screens don't come in more than ~60ppi, where the individual dots are too apparent.

 

[imaheadcase]

Because TV and monitors are made differently. A 50 inch computer monitor would be pretty useless actually. Its not about productivity. Its about native rez you would run it at and nothing that "supports" it. Plus, the heat/power draw from one would be huge. You would literally have heatsinks on the monitor.

That is the reason you see "control rooms" in movies and in real life full of smaller monitors.

 

[deimos3428]

i wanted the same thing as the OP .. a larger monitor with super rez..

so i picked myself up two 2011 30" dells and with Eyeinfinity i have 5120x1600 over 60" of horizontal space

The only down side is the split down the middle for when i'm watching movies or playing games. A 40" 2560x1600 rez monitor would off been a better option but they stop at 30" `````

I'm surprised nobody's made a multi-panel display contained within a single bezel. There'd still be a split in the middle, but it'd be smaller.

 

[Ratman6161]

2 24" monitors are WAY better for productivity than 1 30" in my experience ...

Agree with that 100%. I just upgraded from a pair of 20 inch 1680x1050 to a pair of 24 inch 1920x1200 . The difference is amazing on several fronts...and in one case its not a good difference. The part that's not good is that it surprised me just how much more space on the desk is taken up by the 2 24's compared to the 2 20's. I think there really wouldn't be room on my desk for anything bigger unless I went to a single monitor...and after using dual screens for a few years now I would never go back.

On my home system, where my (very limited) gaming takes place, I have a conglomeration of monitors. 1 - 22inch 1680x1050, one 20 inch 1680x1050 and one 19 inch square screen 1280x1024. The thing about the 1680x1050 resolution is that if you are not a hard core gamer, you can play games at that resolution with very low end (by today's standards) video cards. And as for productivity, I would never consider trading my three smaller monitors for a smaller number of bigger ones.

 

[cmay119]

What I'd like to see is monitors getting wider. There's a small but growing market for 2.35:1 tvs out there; I'd like the monitor industry to follow.

I would dislike this quite a bit. 2.35:1 is great to view movies in their native ratio, but it would be horrible for computer work. We've already lost vertical real-estate moving from 16:10 to 16:9, we'd lose quite a bit more moving to 2.35:1 (47:20). You'd also need to bring up the size considerably to achieve 1080 vertical pixels.

 

[Kenmitch]

Being such a niche market for higher res monitors I'd imagine it's just not cost effective to pump the R&D $'s into it currently.

On another note when the TV manufacturers have completely burnt out the 1080P sales then they'll have to up the anty to make more sales. I see the move beyond 1080P resolution being iniciated by the TV driving the monitors res up at the same time. The diff between a LCD TV and LCD Monitor is little to none as far as the screen goes anyways.

 

[sonambulo]

Clearly personal preference, but I straight up don't like using huge monitors. I used to have dual 19's and went to my current single 25 a couple years back. It has honestly made me much less productive and I am researching to make the switch to dual 21's or 23's.

It's just plain uncomfortable for me both sitting or standing, near or far, to work on a large monitor and constantly be moving my head and neck. Smaller dualies are more comfortable for me.

I'm surprised nobody's made a multi-panel display contained within a single bezel. There'd still be a split in the middle, but it'd be smaller.

I am as well. Manufacturers probably don't want to take the risk but I don't understand why a home hacker hasn't ripped a few panels out of their bezels and built something together with a better single bezel. There has to be something out there with small enough parts to make this work.

 

[cmay119]

Clearly personal preference, but I straight up don't like using huge monitors. I used to have dual 19's and went to my current single 25 a couple years back. It has honestly made me much less productive and I am researching to make the switch to dual 21's or 23's.

It's just plain uncomfortable for me both sitting or standing, near or far, to work on a large monitor and constantly be moving my head and neck. Smaller dualies are more comfortable for me.



I am as well. Manufacturers probably don't want to take the risk but I don't understand why a home hacker hasn't ripped a few panels out of their bezels and built something together with a better single bezel. There has to be something out there with small enough parts to make this work.

I believe quality-control for backlight bleeding would be a manufacturing nightmare. From what I understand, the bezels play a big role in controlling backlight uniformity. Eliminate that, and it'd be very unpredictable on backlight behavior.

Once OLED/QLED becomes the norm, all of this should be a thing of the past. Curved panels, no backlight uniformity issues (no backlight), gamma shifting gone, 176 degree+ viewing angles, Response time <0.01ms & an unbelievable static contrast ratio. God, I can't wait for that!

I doubt resolution increases would be a very big deal to overcome, either.

 

[velis]

To many consumers bigger isn't better. 21.5" 1080 is sometimes considered a bit too tiny, but many are quite happy with 23" or 24" with 1920x1080. If you get too many pixels in a small screen you have to damn near squint to read text (like the above mentioned 3840x2400 at 24"). Or if it gets too big you have to sit 10 miles away and/or have a giant desk (anything greater than 30").

I have a 17" laptop with 1920x1200. I don't have to squint or anything to read this monitor. Besides, most software that I use has adjustable fonts and even if the software doesn't, windows has... BTW: So far I have not adjusted one single font for this laptop. Stock defaults work just fine.
This is the exact same glass that would give me 2560x1600 @ 24".

4:3 would be MILES better for computer usage.

Not from where I'm standing. SW development is quite nice on 16:10 or 16:9. All you really need are pixels and once you move beyond 1080p, there's enough of them both horizontally and vertically.

What this is really about is choice: each time a topic is started about higher resolutions (if that's what OP really implied), you have people ranting all around about the monitors they want - but are not available, naturally. There's so much diversity in these wishes that it's beyond ridiculous. Look at this thread voting results for instance.
The trouble is that manufacturers don't allow us many options so that we could vote with our wallets.
Currently a 1080p monitor is SO MUCH cheaper than even a 1920x1200 one that almost any sane person will opt for the 1080p one. Any 2560 monitors are ridiculously expensive even though their panels are cut from the same glass...
I was shocked the other day when I saw that the dreamcolor option for HP Elitebooks only adds $500 to the price. That should put a 24" 2560 dreamcolor display below $1000 if I apply some simple arithmetic, yet such a display is not even available, let alone under $1000. Keeping CCFL and TN, such a monitor should be available for < $300...
So to finalize the opinion: the manufacturers / retailers are actually DECIDING for us what monitor we want to buy. It simply makes little sense to buy anything other than a 1080p right now because any other (higher) res is ridiculously expensive. Much cheaper to simply buy two monitors. You get the res you want, the features you want and the stupid bezel you don't want. And then there's the pathetic ~100DPI resolution.

 

[3DVagabond]

It's the number of 1080 monitor/TV's that are being produced that drives the cost down.

 

[velis]

It's the number of 1080 monitor/TV's that are being produced that drives the cost down.

I don't buy this argument. The glass is the same, plastic is dime a ton and any chippery is the same, just configured for a different resolution...
Everyting in a monitor is scaled linearly or logarithmically with size / resolution, except defective pixels which raise defective panel count exponentially. Perhaps this last thing is what makes high res panels so expensive? But nowaday you are hard pressed to find a monitor with dead pixels out of the box so this shouldn't be an issue any more.

 

[v8envy]

That's exactly it. Defects increase your reject count to the point that it's not profitable to make the larger display.

And the reason you're not seeing large defect counts on retail units is because consumers refuse to accept those defects. No matter what your store policy on dead/live pixels is consumers will simply return displays with glaring defects (including paying restocking fees) until the get one they like. I went through 4 24" monitors before I accepted one -- dead pixels on one, live pixels on the second, horrific uneven backlight bleeding on the third. I paid more to get the monitor locally from a store with a good return policy for just this reason.

As much as you like "all sales are final" that just doesn't fly with most consumers when it comes to electronics.

 

[pw38]

I would dislike this quite a bit. 2.35:1 is great to view movies in their native ratio, but it would be horrible for computer work. We've already lost vertical real-estate moving from 16:10 to 16:9, we'd lose quite a bit more moving to 2.35:1 (47:20). You'd also need to bring up the size considerably to achieve 1080 vertical pixels.

A 21:9 monitor wouldn't lose vertical pixels. You'd still have 1080 vertical, you'd just have 2560 for the horizontal. What would make you think we'd lose vertical real estate? Maybe on a smaller monitor. Make the monitor bigger if that's an issue. After all this would be a niche market so I don't see the resistance. HTPC would benefit greatly for those not wanting the sheer size of a tv but the ability to watch BDs in their native format (for 2.35:1 movies that is). If you're after productivity either have a seperate monitor or use the wider monitor on a secondary htpc/gaming pc.

 

[podspi]

As much as you like "all sales are final" that just doesn't fly with most consumers when it comes to electronics.

Especially when you've just dropped hundreds of dollars on a new monitor and it looks like trash. I can understand both sides pretty easily. From the manufacturer's POV, it is very hard to make a perfect LCD. From a consumer's point of view, they probably already have a crappy monitor...

 

[LxMxFxD4]

I think Microsoft actually has a lot to do with this.

At work I have 4 19" monitors at 1280x1024. 3 wide row and then 1 on top, like this:

-------Mon 4
Mon 2 Mon 1 Mon3

This is huge for my productivity. I bring up windows because I can efficiently have 50+ browser windows open and very quickly move them around. I can display 8 browsers or other software at once. To change or zoom all I do is double click and any one browser in full screen only takes up 1 of my 4 monitors. In addition in windows 7 I can just drag a browser to the edge of a monitor and it autosizes it to half the screen. If I had 1 giant monitor none of this would happen and i'd spend half my time rearranging windows within windows.