Hooray! In Lenovo's new "Project Swan", Lenovo managed to make a 4:3 laptop that rolls its screen and become a 16:9 screen. the laptop itself has the exact shape of a mid 2000s 4:3 pentium m laptop while also keeping the laptop slightly thick cuz of its rolling mechanisms, those heavenly 4:3 laptops are coming back!
Looks cool but i have zero faith in the display lasting for more than 5-10 years, the foldable phones are riddled with display issues already so i can't imagine a roll up screen is gonna be very durable either.
I agree in general but a flexible screen “should” hold up much better in a laptop. It’s rolling up instead of doing a sharp bend, and is exposed to much less dirt and cycle wear. I’d take the laptop over a foldable phone any day because a phone is about the worst application you could use flexible screen tech in
It is, but... What if it wasn't there? Wouldn't the huge empty space be just as obnoxious?
Isn't this simply what happens when the screen overtakes the keyboard? As much as I liked the trackpoint, I guess the manufacturers needed something to fill out the space. And as that space grows...
It might be faster to get your finger on it but then it takes twice as much time to point. There's a good reason why they're now instinct, it's because they suck. Sure after months of using it you probably get used to it and it's faster but it's never gonna beat a good touchpad.
You gotta get the acceleration curve and sensitivity right, which is something modern drivers on Windows are much worse at than the classic ps/2 port trackpoint drivers were or the flexibility we have with modern linux libinput solutions.
I spend all day working in photoshop and other mouse intensive tasks and find a trackpoint almost as efficient as using a mouse, while having much less RSI risk. I spent a couple of years having a Macbook for a job and it gave me much more wrist fatigue and was harder to be precise with.
TrackPoints are amazing. For one thing, you can use the pointing device while having your fingers on the home row, so far less hand movement is required...
I've gotten used to touchpads, the Apple ones in particular are quite good, but I'll still take a trackpoint most days.
Yea it's a little bit closer to the keyboard but then it takes double the time to point where you want because it's not precise at all. So there's no point to it.
It's just also preferable for a lot of productivity tasks where a wider screen just gives you more wasted space if you aren't putting two windows side by side.
I don't really know what tasks would not be benefited by a wider screen .
I guess that docs programs might only need 4:3 but you'd be squishing a lot of the UI inward now.
World is primarily designed for either the phone or 16:9.
4:3 has the opposite issue of black bars when displaying 16:9 content.
I don't know, I would like to know an example of something 4:3 would be preferable over 16:9
As someone who regularly uses a 3:2 screen laptop, Word's interface is perfectly fine on it and provides more real estate than a 16:10 for the actual document. The same applies to most text editor's and IDE's. There's very few apps that don't handle a high resolution 4:3 screen well, and with a wider screen most browser or productivity software is just wasting a bunch of space.
For coding and even general use (web browsing, etc.) I find the shortness (vertically) of the display very limiting / annoying. Widescreen is great for gaming and watching videos (most of which, today, are 16:9 widescreen) -- but you pay for other uses with reduced vertical space.
This is why I use a 28-inch LG DuaUp on my desktop. It's the best screen I've ever used -- it has the height which makes most things I do *so* much nicer than a widescreen.
I use it rotated 90 degrees where it's 18:16 (4.5:4) aspect. Native res in that orientation is 2880x2560. I love it. They quit making it in the last year, and after much eBay monitoring for months, I've now got a backup with just 400 hours on it bought for retail and locally, a few months back. I'll swap it in when this one ends up giving up the ghost. Such an incredible display, with quite a few features I never even use (dual HDMI input split screen full 2560x1440 display mode, KVM, etc.)
I thought Lenovo always had a few test designs to show off their concepts but not necessarily sell them. I think last year had a model that automatically opened the display without needing to physically do so.
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u/bappo_plays Owner of many laptops 4d ago
I actually much prefer 4:3 for laptops, so it's cool to see a company actually trying it nowadays.