Beyond HDTV monitors
With the house fire, I'm in the market for a new monitor - so I dropped in at my local Best Buy to get a feel for what is available. I felt like I was buying a Model T - I could have any size I wanted, as long as it was 1920x1080. I've since confirmed this via Newegg - there are a few 1920x1200 (all 24" 16:10 so I suspect they are the same panel) and a few 2560x1440 or x1600, but the majority are 1920x1080.
Now I understand the economics at work - HDTVs use the same panels and they don't need more than 1920x1080 for their content. So it's cheaper to use the same panel for both solutions.
Now, I should be overjoyed with 1920x1080 considering the number of years I used 640x480 (and even lower if I consider the A2 and CoCo). And I probably won't be wanting in most cases. But I do start to wonder if trying to get the biggest monitor within my budget might backfire. Is 27" too large at 1920x1080? IIRC the original Macs assumed 72dpi, which means I could go up to 30" !!!
Speaking of Macs, one upshot of sticking with 1920x1080 is that's the max resolution for the Mac Mini over HDMI. Going higher (up to 2560x1600) requires a DisplayPort (or Thunderbolt).
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