When the new laptops arrived in the Infovark Burrow, I excitedly began setting them up. Nothing excites my inner geek like new gadgets, so I was eager to see what a new generation of hardware and software toys could do.

But as I began installing my software applications and configuring my web browser, I noticed that things seemed a bit skewed. My software applications felt cramped and I was scrolling the screen more than usual. At first, I thought I was reacting to the new touchpad, since I ordinarily use the mouse.

Then suddenly I figured it out.

Dude, where’s my pixels?

As I moved my files from my old Dell Latitude to the shiny new one, I saw a dramatic difference in my workspace. Here’s what Visual Studio 2010 looked like on my old monitor.

Visual Studio 2010 on a monitor with a 5:4 aspect ratio

And here’s what it looked like on my replacement laptop.

Visual Studio 2010 on a screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio

See the difference? As someone who spends a significant portion of his life writing code in the basement, it was obvious to me. Here’s another, possibly more familiar example. Here’s what WordPress looked like on my monitor.

WordPress 2010 in 5:4 aspect

And here it is on my shiny new laptop.

WordPress 2010 in 16:9 aspect

Ok, maybe it’s still a bit too subtle. Here’s a comparison of today’s TechCrunch home page, shown on both screens.

Two screen aspect ratios compared

Wow. What a difference a few pixels here and there can make!

What’s going on here?

When looking at a screen, there are two important measurements to consider. The first is the physical size of the screen, usually measured along a diagonal from the lower left corner to the upper right corner. The second is the display resolution which gives you an idea of how much information the screen can display at once. The resolution, measured in pixels, can also tell you the aspect ratio of the image.

When I ordered the new laptops, I’d made sure that the screens measured roughly 15.4 inches diagonally. That was the same size as our old laptops. They’d fit comfortably in the laptop bags we use. The resolution, measured in pixel density, was about the same, but I forgot to check the aspect ratio.

In the last few years the aspect ratio of most computer monitors have morphed to match that of high-definition television, 16:9. This widescreen format feels much different than the older television standard, with a squarish 3:4 ratio.

One size (or shape) does not fit all

With both physical size and and and display resolution, there’s a simple rule of thumb: more is better. But it also matters how that more is used. For some things, like watching videos on YouTube, you’d like a wide screen. For others, like reading a blog, you’d want a taller, narrower screen.

For many websites, using a Widescreen monitor means that you see nothing but the banner, navigation and ads. You’ll have to scroll to get any of the content. For software applications focused on the written word, you’ll see a large amount of wasted space on the right- and left-hand margins.

How you use your computer determines what sort of screen you’ll need. The widescreen monitor on my personal computer, used mainly for pictures, video, and games, looks beautiful. But on my work computers, where I spend a great deal of time reading and writing text, I most often want those extra pixels on the top or bottom of the screen, not off to one side.

It depends on the application, too. If PowerPoint is your primary work application, the landscape format works great. If you spend more time in Word, you need a screen with a portrait orientation.

Orientation matters

Many of today’s smart phones and tablet computers allow you to rotate the device from portrait to landscape mode easily. This allows these devices, which often have small screens and lower resolution than laptop or desktop computers, to make the most of their screen real estate. You can switch to whatever orientation works best for the task at hand.

Some freestanding monitors can be rotated as well, but most laptop screens can’t. So if you do most of your work at a laptop — like I do — pay close attention to the resolution and aspect ratio of the screen. It can have a big impact on your workspace. What you see is what you get, after all.

I gave the nice folks at Dell a ring and got them to exchange the laptops. I couldn’t change the aspect ratio — everything’s gone widescreen now — but I could get screens with higher resolution, which gives me a few more vertical pixels to work with.

And I have a new, personal resolution as well: remember to check all the measurements before I buy my next monitor.

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