Comment by walterbell
5 days ago
> aspect ratio of the display
Meanwhile, Apple sold 500+ million HiDPI 4:3 displays on iPads. Do they have a supply chain lock on 4:3 screens?
5 days ago
> aspect ratio of the display
Meanwhile, Apple sold 500+ million HiDPI 4:3 displays on iPads. Do they have a supply chain lock on 4:3 screens?
Possibly. It’s hugely expensive to order a completely custom screen, and I know Framework waited for a long time for a better 3:2 display to come onto the market after the initial one—the current better panel is actually a compromise that loses some pixels to rounded corners, which is fine but IMO not “pay $270+tax+shipping for the upgrade” fine. Looking at the specs of the screens, I’m almost sure that both the original 2256×1504 one and the rounded-corners 2880×1920 one are actually identical to the ones in the Microsoft Surface (changed to a matte finish), so it’s Microsoft footing the custom-screen bill in this case. (I’ve heard we’re not getting small phones for a similar reason: you would need to sell a lot of phones to justify a new screen, and all the small-phone people will still begrudgingly buy a large one if there are no small ones.)
The big selling point of the higher tier FW13 screen option is that it’s conducive to 2x/200% UI scaling, which is surprisingly rare in x86 laptops and is desirable under Linux. Fractional scaling displays technically work but have some notable quirks, where 2x scaling has worked flawlessly for a long time.
I’m pretty sure it’s just that 16:9 are so ubiquitous they’re by far the cheapest option.
Hell, Apple shipping millions of 4:3 should keep them reasonable affordable. Same with 16:10 back when those were still a thing (because of the notch Apple now uses 9:5.85 displays to retain a rectangular 16:10 fullscreen).