3:2 (Premium)

While there's some debate about the benefits of 3:2 displays on portable PCs, there shouldn't be. This type of display isn't just optimal. It should be a given.

In fact, we as an industry should be collectively moving to 3:3 displays right now. And on desktop PCs, too.

The rationale behind this need is simple: We should optimize for the most common, everyday usage scenarios and not for the occasional. The problem is that we, as people, have a hard time making this kind of decision correctly.

So let me use two related examples to explain my way of thinking.

As I've mentioned probably too many times already, my wife and watch a lot of House Hunters-type TV shows. They're infuriating: Two idiots who apparently (but not really) want completely different things argue over a house purchase for 22 minutes and then arrive, predictably, at the perfect home for them. These shows are beyond formulaic, are, in fact, completely fake. But there are little gems of human psychology in there, too. Among them is a very common trait of not optimizing for the everyday.

Bob and Mary, we're told, are moving to Amsterdam because of a new job there. He wants to be in the middle of the action, because they've never lived in Europe and they want to experience everything that the city has to offer. But doing so will incur a 45-minute commute to work.

What they should do is optimize for the everyday: You are going to go work five days and week. You will only be out and about in Amsterdam on some days. But oftentimes these two boobs will pick the (more expensive) city apartment instead. And the poor sap will fight with other commuters on the tram/bus/whatever everyday when he goes to and from work.

The even more common example is when a young couple with no money buys/rents more house than they need---and this could be international or right here in the U.S.---expressly because friends and family will be visiting them and it is obviously their responsibility to make that easier and less expensive. So they spend more money than they need to, to accommodate the occasional house guest. They pay for an extra bedroom for 365 days of the year, and it will get used maybe 10 to 20 days in that year.

It would be cheaper in many cases to simply pay for the guests' hotel room for those days, not that anyone ever does this, let alone even considers it. Or just let the guests sleep on your couch. You really don't want house guests getting too comfortable, after all. Again, optimize for the everyday. Not for the occasional.

OK, back to PCs and the need for 3:2 displays.

PCs used to have square 4:3 displays. That was true of both desktop displays and portable PCs. Over time, these display types gave way to widescreen form factors---first 16:10 and then 16:9---because HDTV happened and we were all taken with the cinematic aspect ratio. More to the point, the PCs of that era were still do-it-all personal computing devices. We didn't just work on them, we...