Stupid 1366×768

Well, it seems laptop LCDs are all going from 16:10 aspect ratio to 16:9, to match the HDTV standard format. The most popular 16:9 HD resolution, 1366 x 768, has taken over the laptop market and taken away precious vertical space on almost every new laptop LCD screen! I’m sure 16:9 is really convenient for watching for movies, but I don’t watch movies, ever – especially on my laptop!

1366×768 sucks because it is too short for any useful work, and not wide enough for 2 windows side by side. I do a lot of programming and development on my laptop, so having less vertical screen space just is not practical, and means more vertical scrolling.

Thanks to the HD marketing hype, 1366 x 768 is the new standard. This is really annoying since I’d personally like more vertical space. I can’t seem to find a decent thin and portable notebook to replace my current dying one (made in 2006!) – and I refuse to settle for anthying less than 900 vertical pixels!

My current [dying] 14″ laptop…    1400 x 900 | 16:10 |  1.24 MP
Any new 15″ or less laptop…          1366 x 768  | 16:9   |  1.00 MP

I’m not the only one, nor the first one, to complain about this…
Why are we losing vertical pixels?
Vertical pixels are disappearing
Why does everyone hate 1366×768 screen? *
Obligatory xkcd
Say Goodbye to 16:10 Notebook Displays

I don’t really use Windows much, but for some perspective: this fancy “HD” resolution is barely above Windows 7’s bare minimum screen resolution of 1024×768! It’s almost like we took a monitor from ~20 years ago and stretched it wider a few hundred pixels…

Enough is enough – I want my vertical pixels back!

Update:
So I broke down and got a Macbook Pro (15″ | 1680×1050 | 16:10 | 1.764 MP = nice)…