Gateway’s newly announced MC-series of notebooks are odd in a few key respects. Their 16-inch displays are toted as true 16:9, but that advantage is hobbled by a rather pitiful 1366×768 resolution. The keyboard is illuminated in low light conditions, but in jack-o-lantern orange. And each MC laptop weighs a thighbone-pancaking 7.1 pounds.
Otherwise, their specs are relatively impressive, especially for the price: Intel Core 2 Du processors, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650, HDMI out, four USB ports, 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. There’s even a Macbook style seamless glass display.
The MC-series will be released this month at major retailers for $949.
MC-Series [Gateway]
…ugh, it begins. I despise widescreen laptops, and the situation is only going to get worse.
A recent Lenovoblogs entry ( http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=155 ) states why this is happenning. The display manufacturers would very much like to have *every* display they make be 16:9. This will eventually mean stupidly squat laptops with no option for 4:3 eventually (especially with my beloved thinkpads).
Damn you, display manufacturers.
The 16:10 ratio was, as far as I can tell, introduced simply to justify the large price gap between computer monitors (cheap) and LCD TVs (expensive). Now that the gap has gone away there’s less overhead making one ratio of panels.
That’s not why laptop manufacturers produce widescreen laptops though.
A 14″ 4:3 display is ~97 square inches. a 14″ 16:9 display is ~94 square inches. The difference is larger for bigger displays. A 1600×1200 display has 1.92 million pixels, while a 1680×1050 display has only 1.76 million pixels… It’s cheaper for the manufacturer to use a widescreen of the “same” size, and as a bonus the consumer can be made to believe that the widescreen is “premium” instead of seeing that they’re getting less display.
Sony has a much more attractive 16:9 laptop just out.
I must be behind on the times on laptops (it’s likely, I’ve never needed to own one), but 1366×768 on a 16″ display is lousy?
I’ve only had this 19″ LCD monitor on my desktop a couple of years, and it has a slightly-superior 1440×900 resolution… and is 3″ larger.
I guess by “lousy” you mean that it compares poorly with current market standards?