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Can we stop with the diagonal screen length thing?

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superboyac:
Ok, one more rant for the week.

I am SOO tired of this diagonal screen length that has now become the standard dimension to advertise for all screens.  It's not the dimension itself that irritates me, since it is partly helpful.  It's more of the reason WHY it has become the standard number to give for screen sizes.  It's the exact same manipulation that is used for prices...the whole $3.99 thing (the .99 part).

It's so freaking annoying.  Why?  Because every time I see a screen size with the diagonal, which is all of them now, I have to go through a whole mental exercise to figure out what that actually means to me as far as width x height.  I don't know about you guys, but when I see rectangular objects, I do not intuitively think about the diagonal length, nor do I really give a shit.  Length and width makes sense to me.  You tell me length and width, and I know exactly what you are talking.  I can picture the shape, I can figure out very quickly and intuitively if it fits somewhere, etc.  All good stuff.

You tell me the diagonal length, and I'm like "cmon, asshole", now I have to do all this math to really understand how big it is.  Furthermore, to really tell, you need the ratio also.  "Oh, but they give you the screen resolution in the spec also.  So you can just figure it out.  It's all there!"  Shut up!!  As if i don't have enough work to do!  So now, I'm supposed to take the freaking 12" diagonal number, and then take the 1024x768 number and do all the math to figure out the length and width??  Are you kidding me?  Look at those numbers...12, 1024, 768!  Cmon people!

But that's how they get you.  I have no idea what a 54" TV means to me.  But it allows them to use the bigger number.  of course the diagonal is going to be a bigger number than the length or the width.  So given the three numbers that describe screen size, of course they are going to use the biggest one.  That's good marketing.  Useless, but good marketing.

What happened is that one company started doing this.  I remember when monitor sizes were given as LxW.  The diagonal was also given as a convenience, but not the main feature.  Now, it's the one sticker that is prominently featured on the product.  Anyway, back in those days, what happened was one company started doing it.  They were able to advertise a "bigger" number for the same size screen as their competitor.  The competitors must have lost a little bit of the market because of the people who got duped by it.  So they all started doing it.  Now it's the thing to do.

JavaJones:
Man, it must be a looong time since this change was made. I vaguely remember a possible distant past where you may be right, LxW was available, but I can't recall when, heh. The single diagonal number does annoy me, yet I also understand it. For most average consumers a single number is enough to tell them what they need to know, especially since it's generally comparable with other similar displays (aspect ratios vary, but not usually enough to make a huge, huge difference).

Anyway, I agree less info is worse than more info, in general. But I don't blame the manufacturers on it *too much*...

- Oshyan

mwb1100:
In my experience, diagonal was all that was ever used for screens dating back to when the only thing they were used for was TVs.  It wasn't a problem then since all screens had the same aspect ratio, so the measurement was always pretty much apples to apples.

But you're 100% right - once we started getting different screen ratios, a diagonal measurement doesn't cut it anymore (though a 54" screen is prety damn big no matter what).

JavaJones:
Most screens are widescreen, near or at 16:9 (sometimes 16:10 or close variations) these days (somewhat to my dismay, but that's a later blog post). Non-widescreen displays are increasingly rare, so it's not really that much different than it used to be...

- Oshyan

mwb1100:
Non-widescreen displays are increasingly rare, so it's not really that much different than it used to be...
-JavaJones (January 07, 2011, 10:45 PM)
--- End quote ---

You're right.  I suppose it's an old dog/new trick thing for me.

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