[ale] [OT] Laptop Battery Worth It?

[Pat Regan]

On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:02:56 -0400
Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> wrote:

> I can live with 1 4-core CPU and 1-2TB disk.  But I do still want the
> 10GB ram and a nearly-full-size keyboard.  I can live with a 15"
> monitor but dammit it had better have *at least* 1024 vertical, if
> not 1280 or 1600!  These stupid 1400x900 monitors SUCK ASS.  Oh, and
> yeah, I still want it in 4lbs, although I'm willing to give you 4.5 ;)

I can't really function at 1280x(768|800), I've never tried 1440x900,
but I could probably adapt if I had to.

The problem for me is the width and not the height.  I have my window
manager configured to let me effectively use each display as if they
were a pair of asymmetrically sized vertical displays.  

Here's an example screenshot of what my screens look like when I'm at
my desk, this is on a pair of 1920x1080 displays:

http://patshead.com/tmp/desktop-small.jpg

On the first monitor, the left hand column is a stack of Pidgin windows
and the wider right hand column is a Chromium window.  On the second
monitor, the left hand column is Claws-mail and the wider right hand
column is Emacs.

On my 1920x1080 displays, the left hand column is about 750 pixels wide
and right hand column is about 1150.  I used to use a similar setup on
my 1680x1050 15.4 inch laptop, with about 600 and 1000 pixels for each
column.  If I had to go any smaller than 1680 this would get pretty
tight...

> Seriously, why do laptop screen suck so much now?  Who's "bright" idea
> was it to make these long, thin screens that can't put two 80x24
> terminals (xterm, gnome-terminal, etc) above/below each other?

I found this old photo the other day:

http://patshead.com/tmp/old-monitors.jpg

Those were only 1024x768, and I know I had a font back then that just
about fit a 2x2 grid of 80x24 terminals on the screen.

I'd be pretty excited if I could get a wider laptop, maybe with a
2.35:1 aspect ratio.  That'd give me about a 2538x1080.  I could easily
get three columns out of that, but my key bindings would get
convoluted...

Pat