Surface Pro 3 and thoughts on aspect ratios
I don't actually own or have a unit in hand. But I have been following reviews, etc.... At the moment it is outside of my price point. But it is an interesting talking point.
A lot of people are talking about how it finally starts beating out MacBook and iPad specs for the first time. And my first response to that is that it should be. I think that the "thinner and lighter" type arguments are ridiculous beyond a point. But technology is trending that way, and this device is a newer device. So, whether it needs to be thinner or lighter is irrelevant. They know that they need to strive for those numbers to compete for mind share. In this case, the later a product is delivered, the easier it is to deliver on those.
Put another way, 5 years ago Microsoft could have not built today's Surface Pro 3. And not just because the processors weren't there. The cooling tech was also 5 years older. The available materials for use in such a device were 5 years older as well.
And so, don't be surprised if this victory is short-lived on some of those fronts.
Probably the most exciting item to me, and one I'd like to use the device to check out is the new aspect ratio. Wide screen is great... for watching movies. It's also "ok" for multi-tasking. Right now, I'm writing this blog however in Google's Blogger interface. The authoring chunk I'm spending 99% of my time staring at is maybe between 1/3-1/4 of the screen. Somewhere in the realm of half the screen is literally filled with nothing. And I'm not just talk controls that I'm not using. I mean, literally, nothing.
And, I don't really want the screen to be filled with the text editor either. Lines of text which are too long are a little daunting. Also, having grown up on paper and pen so to speak, it is hard to gauge just how much I've written if the text field were too wide. I suspect some engineers at Google, or whoever they bought that originally designed this realized that and constrained the width of the text for that reason.
Which is why the aspect ration is such an important factor. This screen would be much fuller and look much more function on a device like a Surface Pro 3 (or iPad) I suspect. My reading experience on the internet would be improved as well I suspect.
Fact is, monitors all used to be 4:3 aspect ratio. Then, I think for two reasons that changed. Firstly, the prevalence of digital video. But secondly, as demand for larger monitors and those with higher resolutions emerged, it likely became obvious and quickly that for a desk mounted screen, growing out at the 4:3 aspect ratio would quickly mean monitors you would need to crane your neck up and down to view in their entirety. This is true because humans naturals have a wider field of vision (FoV) than its height, due in large part to the fact that our eyes are placed horizontally on our faces rather than vertically.
So, that actually makes a lot of sense. For desktops and TV's that is. A tablet, or a phone for that fact is a much smaller screen. I don't really want a tablet or a phone so large that it matters how wide or tall my FoV is. And that means that in those form factors we SHOULD be seeing different aspect ratios.
Phones have basically ended up close to the traditional desktop aspect ratios, but flipped on their sides. Which actually makes sense. Firstly, it means, ergonomically, that the phone is taller than it is wide, which makes it easier to carry. But it also means that you simply need to rotate the phone on its side to consume video from a desktop source in an ideal aspect ratio. So I would say that in general phones have the right idea.
Tablets are where many have gone wrong in the past though. I could buy a decent, smaller television with a much bigger screen that is full HD for a fraction the cost of a decent tablet. So, I'd argue that making concessions for HD media on tablets is a waste. Also, moving closer towards a more square aspect ratio with the quality of LCD displays these days, it is actually easier to cram an overall higher resolution in a more manageably sized 2:3 aspect ratio tablet than in a standard 16:9. The aspect ratio is also still such that it can be rotated to be wider than it is tall. So while you might get a bezel, it can still be utilized to watch HD films (albeit with a bezel around the image).
Even the concerns kind of melt away when you think about it though. The bigger the difference of the ratio, the more quickly weight becomes imbalanced making the device harder to hold at certain angles. The 2:3 ratio is better than the 16:9 ratio for this meaning, in theory, that devices can get larger and even heavier than they are today while remaining just as comfortable to hold and use.
I would think a 4:3 or 3:4 however you want to spin it would be better. But since I haven't actually used one of these yet, I'll reserve judgement.
Frankly, the one area where this would hurt would be video games. However, not a big issue here since the tablet is running integrated Intel graphics.
A lot of people are talking about how it finally starts beating out MacBook and iPad specs for the first time. And my first response to that is that it should be. I think that the "thinner and lighter" type arguments are ridiculous beyond a point. But technology is trending that way, and this device is a newer device. So, whether it needs to be thinner or lighter is irrelevant. They know that they need to strive for those numbers to compete for mind share. In this case, the later a product is delivered, the easier it is to deliver on those.
Put another way, 5 years ago Microsoft could have not built today's Surface Pro 3. And not just because the processors weren't there. The cooling tech was also 5 years older. The available materials for use in such a device were 5 years older as well.
And so, don't be surprised if this victory is short-lived on some of those fronts.
Probably the most exciting item to me, and one I'd like to use the device to check out is the new aspect ratio. Wide screen is great... for watching movies. It's also "ok" for multi-tasking. Right now, I'm writing this blog however in Google's Blogger interface. The authoring chunk I'm spending 99% of my time staring at is maybe between 1/3-1/4 of the screen. Somewhere in the realm of half the screen is literally filled with nothing. And I'm not just talk controls that I'm not using. I mean, literally, nothing.
And, I don't really want the screen to be filled with the text editor either. Lines of text which are too long are a little daunting. Also, having grown up on paper and pen so to speak, it is hard to gauge just how much I've written if the text field were too wide. I suspect some engineers at Google, or whoever they bought that originally designed this realized that and constrained the width of the text for that reason.
Which is why the aspect ration is such an important factor. This screen would be much fuller and look much more function on a device like a Surface Pro 3 (or iPad) I suspect. My reading experience on the internet would be improved as well I suspect.
Fact is, monitors all used to be 4:3 aspect ratio. Then, I think for two reasons that changed. Firstly, the prevalence of digital video. But secondly, as demand for larger monitors and those with higher resolutions emerged, it likely became obvious and quickly that for a desk mounted screen, growing out at the 4:3 aspect ratio would quickly mean monitors you would need to crane your neck up and down to view in their entirety. This is true because humans naturals have a wider field of vision (FoV) than its height, due in large part to the fact that our eyes are placed horizontally on our faces rather than vertically.
So, that actually makes a lot of sense. For desktops and TV's that is. A tablet, or a phone for that fact is a much smaller screen. I don't really want a tablet or a phone so large that it matters how wide or tall my FoV is. And that means that in those form factors we SHOULD be seeing different aspect ratios.
Phones have basically ended up close to the traditional desktop aspect ratios, but flipped on their sides. Which actually makes sense. Firstly, it means, ergonomically, that the phone is taller than it is wide, which makes it easier to carry. But it also means that you simply need to rotate the phone on its side to consume video from a desktop source in an ideal aspect ratio. So I would say that in general phones have the right idea.
Tablets are where many have gone wrong in the past though. I could buy a decent, smaller television with a much bigger screen that is full HD for a fraction the cost of a decent tablet. So, I'd argue that making concessions for HD media on tablets is a waste. Also, moving closer towards a more square aspect ratio with the quality of LCD displays these days, it is actually easier to cram an overall higher resolution in a more manageably sized 2:3 aspect ratio tablet than in a standard 16:9. The aspect ratio is also still such that it can be rotated to be wider than it is tall. So while you might get a bezel, it can still be utilized to watch HD films (albeit with a bezel around the image).
Even the concerns kind of melt away when you think about it though. The bigger the difference of the ratio, the more quickly weight becomes imbalanced making the device harder to hold at certain angles. The 2:3 ratio is better than the 16:9 ratio for this meaning, in theory, that devices can get larger and even heavier than they are today while remaining just as comfortable to hold and use.
I would think a 4:3 or 3:4 however you want to spin it would be better. But since I haven't actually used one of these yet, I'll reserve judgement.
Frankly, the one area where this would hurt would be video games. However, not a big issue here since the tablet is running integrated Intel graphics.
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