It wasn’t long ago we reported about how the 16:9 monitors was starting to gain ground on the PC market. For long, the 16:9 format was solely for the multimedia market, but slowly the widescreen format made its way to PC monitors (regular widescreen PC monitors are 16:10). With the HD formats marching into more and more people’s homes, which use the 16:9 format, this feels kind of expected. According to a report published by DisplaySearch, we will have widescreen displays in 90% of all notebooks by 2010, while 67% of all monitor panels will use the 16:9 format at said time.
The panel manufacturers are at least very eager to transition to 16:9 in favor of 16:10, not the least because of the favorable size when producing the panels. Simply, more displays can be manufactured from the same amount of substrate.
“In the near future, panel makers will take necessary phase-out tactics on the existing 16:10 LCD panels in order to drive the market to 16:9 panels. Panel makers did it for square panels, and they know how to do it again,” said DisplaySearch’s David Hsieh, Vice President, Greater China Market. “Notebook PC and LCD monitor product planners and marketers must plan for the transition now to assure a smooth roll-out of products over the next four years and sufficient panel availability,” Hsieh said.“
The future lies in the 16:9 format and even if it may take some time before we see the true widescreen monitors come and replace the current 16:10 displays, it will happen. In the long run we will be more comfortable with one widescreen format instead of two.
