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« Last post by superboyac on January 07, 2011, 06:27 PM »
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.
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Almost as evil as Josh's creepy little gnat thing. 
or if none available what X person say is useless. Closer to the opposite in tech area I think.
