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What Aspect would you like in a Tablet.

Which Aspect would you design a Tablet for?

  • 1.0:1

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 1.2:1

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 1.3:1

    Votes: 11 47.8%

  • 1.4:1

    Votes: 4 17.4%

  • 1.5:1

    Votes: 1 4.3%

  • 1.6:1

    Votes: 2 8.7%

  • 1.7:1

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 1.8:1

    Votes: 1 4.3%

  • 1.9:1

    Votes: 1 4.3%

  • 2.0:1

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 2.2:1

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 2.4:1

    Votes: 2 8.7%

  • Wider

    Votes: 1 4.3%
  • Total voters
    23
B

Bytor65

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 10, 2010
854
237
Canada
When I asked a poll about size, there was some suggestion that Aspect should be included. I think that is a separate discussion. There have literally been hundreds in use. There is no magic ratio.

So here is the Aspect Poll. But I didn't write them in some of the popular designations such as 4:3. Just as a ratio vs 1. Including only one decimal point, so round to the closest to your choice, this isn't about picking your pet ratio, it is about zeroing in on the best compromise.

Don't go kneejerk to one existing standard. Think like a designer, think of all the potential vertical and horizontal uses. Think not only of video, but of paper formats (which may be more realistically designed without baggage). Think about the percentage of time the device is used for certain tasks.

Some background on existing formats:
Wiki - Paper size
Wiki - Film Aspects
Wiki - Golden Ratio

Examples:

iPad: ~1.3
A4 Paper: ~1.4
iPhone: 1.5
24" ACD: 1.6
Galaxy Tab: ~1.7
HDTV: ~1.8
Normal wide Movie: ~1.9
Anamorphic wide Movie: ~2.4
 
I think the range of options you have given is just going to confuse people.

4:3 is what TV and Computer screens have been over the last umpteen years.

Computer monitors went wide screen to 16:10 (which is my personal favourite for PC/Mac use)

TV's Video and DVD's seemed to adopt 16:9 ratio which has really become the "media" standard I feel these days.

Other formats are used by various compact and pro camera's both film and digital, but to be honest, I don't personally think on the whole people would choose a screen rez to use for their screens.

4:3 (old screen shape)
16:9 (modern screen shape)
16:10 (nice computer monitor shape)

Probably would be the only 3 aspect ratio's that 99.9% of the general population would wish to select from. IMHO :)
 
Piggie said:
I think the range of options you have given is just going to confuse people.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I want people to actually think about all the different aspects and usage patterns and examine what actually makes sense rather that jumping to the first aspect that comes to mind.


Things to consider:

1: Aesthetics:

Landscape and Portrait have different requirements. In Photography I prefer 3:2 to 4:3 for landscape, but 4:3 to 3:2 for portrait.

For Aesthetics in Landscape, 1.6:1 works very well and is close to the Golden Mean.

For Aesthetics in Portrait, 1.3 - 1.4 seem best from my personal preference, even 1.5 Seems a bit skinny.

Overall for aesthetics we are bounded somewhere between 1.3 and 1.6, though obviously there is subjective wiggle room here.


2: Applications:
These can be coded for any aspect (and usually both)

But here usable area is likely best utilized toward the square end on the aspect choice on most applications. If you go with a long skinny monitor (take 2.4:1 to as an extreme example), end with a smaller useful work area and a lot of wasted space. Here 1.3 seems to work well in either portrait or landscape.


3: Media consumption:

Print:
I decided to look at my collection of PDFs. The vast majority are either 8.5x11 = ~1.3:1 or International A4 = ~1.4:1.
Images:
Someone governed by aesthetics but Film has traditionally ranged from 6x7 to 3x2, with 3x2 being least suited for portrait use.
Video:
There are many aspect in common play here from 4:3 to 2.4:1. IMO this is the only case for a wider than 1.6:1 ratio. But the ratios are many, arbitrary and more extreme.


Bottom line. Video is the least important driver here. It is the most arbitrary, most extreme, and the most fungible. Video isn't full of small text that will unreadable if you display mismatched aspects with black bars.

If you ignore video, you keep coming back to the same ratios in the 1.3 to 1.6 range. Smaller ratios being better for portrait, larger end for landscape.

If you are going to use the device in both direction it seems like Landscape handles smaller aspects better than portrait handles large ratios so it is better to error on the side of lower ratios for multi-orientation usage. Apple seems to have chosen fairly well.

My choice for a portrait/Landscape Aspect would be 1.4 (but 1.3 to 1.5 are acceptable). 16:9 is just a poor choice made by manufacturers using cheap off the shelf screens. Apple thought long and hard about usage and ordered a custom screen in the exact ratio they felt would be the best compromise.
 
Well, I've had photo classes, design classes and various others classes.

I glazed over at the list.... I don't feel like doing math! LOL!

I really like the iPad's aspect ration as is in everything I've used it for. I have honestly not once said, I wish it was a tad bit bigger or something to that effect.

I like 16:10 better than 16:9, i have wished my 16:9 monitor was taller.
 
Ok, you are welcome and of course full entitled to your views (as am I) :)

However, putting up a poll with 20 different aspect ratio's is going to only confuse people who are not "into" all the many choices.

Most "normal people" will only really know about 4:3 and 16:9

They will generally only think along the lines of 4:3 old TV shape and 16:9 modern TV shape.

You may not like it, but that's as far as a general person in the street will go with the choice. It will be widescreen (to match many movies) or it won't.

Given the STRONG media element of the iPad I can't really go along with your statement that almost brush's aside video as a major consideration.

I would have preferred a simple poll that asked just Standard 4:3 as is now, or 16:9 Widescreen (as many other tablets by others are being made to)

The current poll is only going to confuse and at best end up with no real results.

Never mind :)

I know not many people want widescreen anyway, but I still do as Video is probably 80% of what I use my iPad for.
 
lol who ever voted 2:4:1, thats just stupid, most movies is 2:35:1, but still, then the device is good to watch movies, but nothing else, and the form factor will look stupid.

and 16:9 aint modern anymore.
 
I would vote for 16:9 but I can't as it's not even on the list to pick from.

16:9 (which is how most people know it and would understand it) is 1.77:1 if we want to be picky

And that's not on the list.

Personally I'd close this thread as it's just daft and intended to confuse people and draw no meaningful answer.
 
Piggie said:
Ok, you are welcome and of course full entitled to your views (as am I) :)

However, putting up a poll with 20 different aspect ratio's is going to only confuse people who are not "into" all the many choices.

Most "normal people" will only really know about 4:3 and 16:9
Click to expand...

It is better to cover the whole range. The most common complaint I see on Polls, is "you left out option x". I also don't believe in creating false dilemmas. There is no artificial limitation on the aspect ratios you can choose, especially not to a mere two, one being your favorite. That would be an extremely biased poll.

It would be really sad if figuring out 16:10 is 1.6:1 or that 3:2 is 1.5:1 is beyond the weak math skills of some. Maybe 16:9 has you stumped and that is why you are complaining instead of selecting it (Hint you may need to round up).
 
Bytor65 said:
It is better to cover the whole range. The most common complaint I see on Polls, is "you left out option x". I also don't believe in creating false dilemmas. There is no artificial limitation on the aspect ratios you can choose, especially not to a mere two, one being your favorite. That would be an extremely biased poll.

It would be really sad if figuring out 16:10 is 1.6:1 or that 3:2 is 1.5:1 is beyond the weak math skills of some. Maybe 16:9 has you stumped and that is why you are complaining instead of selecting it (Hint you may need to round up).
Click to expand...


Really there is no need to insult me or others on this forum.

You do appear to be going all out to be difficult here.

As I shall say again, when it comes to screens, most people (who are not into aspect ratio's as a hobby) will just know a few basic types.

They will understand 4:3 is a normal old TV shape

16:9 is a modern widescreen TV shape

If they are a bit techy they may also know 16:10 is the nicer widescreen monitor shape.

To be totally honest, and speaking from experience about the people I work with, who are not computer IT people. Just the normal man/woman in the street. they would not even know what 4:3 and 16:9 is (shock horror)

All they know is normal TV shape and the new Widescreen shape and that's probably as far as their knowledge and interest goes. I'm not being insulting to them, but they have more things in their lives that to fully understand a dozen aspect ratio's

They also may know their photo's come back from the shops in 6"x4" or 7"x5" if they pay a bit more.

I can quite easily see a conversation in a shop (if we said for a moment there were two iPads to choose from)

They would be called the normal one and the wide screen one and that would be about as "tech" as it would go for most people.
 
Piggie said:
Really there is no need to insult me or others on this forum.

You do appear to be going all out to be difficult here.
Click to expand...

Sadly, it appears I actually overestimated the math skills of many forum users, if this is perceived as an effort or difficult.

Again. Fewer choices is false dilemma. Choices are infinite. Limiting to the shape of old and new TV's is ridiculous.

The iPod Touch is: 1.5:1, not 4/3 or 16/9.
The Galaxy Tab: is actually 1.71:1, not 16/9.
Most Android Android tablets are 800x480 1.66:1, not 16/9.

1.33 (4/3) and 1.78 (16/9) are not the only choices.
 
Bytor65 said:
Sadly, it appears I actually overestimated the math skills of many forum users, if this is perceived as an effort or difficult.

Again. Fewer choices is false dilemma. Choices are infinite. Limiting to the shape of old and new TV's is ridiculous.

The iPod Touch is: 1.5:1, not 4/3 or 16/9.
The Galaxy Tab: is actually 1.71:1, not 16/9.
Most Android Android tablets are 800x480 1.66:1, not 16/9.

1.33 (4/3) and 1.78 (16/9) are not the only choices.
Click to expand...

No, you just think WE CARE enough to do it.

We don't.

There can't be 10 different aspect ratios for companies to pick from, sticking to a few standards keeps costs down. I'm all for that even if it means that i don't get just the size I might want, because I'm getting close for a better price. Not to mention you have the whole software mess it would create trying to support it.

Niche products are often expensive, which is what you are proposing.

You can win the title for the day of "uber geek" though!! I don't mean that meanly either, but it's labor day, i haven't had AC in my house since it blew up on Friday, it's like 90 in here and I reeally don't care to do more math than figuring out how cool i can get my room tonight.

You obviously think this way and care.... Cool beans!
 
Bytor65 said:
Sadly, it appears I actually overestimated the math skills of many forum users, if this is perceived as an effort or difficult.
Click to expand...

It's not about math skills. It's about using common terms to facilitate the conversation. If you actually want to have a discussion on this topic, please don't be purposely difficult and insulting.
 
mye said:
It's not about math skills. It's about using common terms to facilitate the conversation. If you actually want to have a discussion on this topic, please don't be purposely difficult and insulting.
Click to expand...

The vast majority of film aspect are decimal aspects and don't even have common fractional representations, so if you didn't switch to a common form you would have a mix of decimal and fractional values. A complete mess.

1.3:1, 1.4:1, and 2.0:1 are common ways to depict aspect ratios and I included a link of the dozens of film formats listed in this format:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_formats#Film_formats

It is actually a much better way to compare different aspects, than referring to them as mismatched denominator fractions. It is even more intuitive to figure out a new aspect as you essentially will convert to the decimal ratio in the end. 1.5:1 is clearly 1.5 times wider than tall.

Most Android tablets are actually not 16:9, they are 15:9, how does that compare with 16:10? How about iPad ratio 4/3 vs A4 paper ratio 2/Sqrt(2)? Intuitive? They more sensibly compared as decimals.
 
Bytor65 said:
The vast majority of film aspect are decimal aspects and don't even have common fractional representations, so if you didn't switch to a common form you would have a mix of decimal and fractional values. A complete mess.

1.3:1, 1.4:1, and 2.0:1 are common ways to depict aspect ratios and I included a link of the dozens of film formats listed in this format:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_formats#Film_formats

It is actually a much better way to compare different aspects, than referring to them as mismatched denominator fractions. It is even more intuitive to figure out a new aspect as you essentially will convert to the decimal ratio in the end. 1.5:1 is clearly 1.5 times wider than tall.

Most Android tablets are actually not 16:9, they are 15:9, how does that compare with 16:10? How about iPad ratio 4/3 vs A4 paper ratio 2/Sqrt(2)? Intuitive? They more sensibly compared as decimals.
Click to expand...

I agree that using decimals does make aspect ratios easier to compare if you are comfortable with numbers. However I think the poll have been just as useful if it was comparative; for example:-

Would you like the iPad to be?

  1. Squarer
  2. The same shape
  3. A bit wider/taller (iPhone/Paper shape)
  4. A lot wider/taller (Movie shape)

I'd say that is easier to understand whilst still trying to avoid the sort of knee-jerk reactions that we saw after the reveal (i.e. 'It's not 16:9, FAIL!")

Personally I'm pretty happy with the current shape but I also think that experimenting with a slightly wider shape would be interesting. Obviously it's a tradeoff and without holding something in my hands it's difficult to know if the advantages for video and maybe other areas would be worth the disadvantages elsewhere.

I think the size of a tablet also matters; IMHO a taller tablet becomes more attractive the easier it is to thumb-type in portrait.
 
blackNBUK said:
I agree that using decimals does make aspect ratios easier to compare if you are comfortable with numbers. However I think the poll have been just as useful if it was comparative; for example:-

Would you like the iPad to be?

  1. Squarer
  2. The same shape
  3. A bit wider/taller (iPhone/Paper shape)
  4. A lot wider/taller (Movie shape)
.
Click to expand...

Sure, in hindsight I agree. I really never thought the numbers would throw anyone. I have no issue with anything in the 1.3 to 1.5 range. Thoug even 1.5 seems a bit narrow in portrait. I think 1.4 would be my preferred, but I have no real complaint with the current aspect.
 
This is a bad idea if the resolution changes. The app store is fractionalized enough without devs having to support yet another resolution. Most people would bitch about there being empty space on either side of the apps.
 
Bytor65 said:
Sadly, it appears I actually overestimated the math skills of many forum users, if this is perceived as an effort or difficult.

Again. Fewer choices is false dilemma. Choices are infinite. Limiting to the shape of old and new TV's is ridiculous.

The iPod Touch is: 1.5:1, not 4/3 or 16/9.
The Galaxy Tab: is actually 1.71:1, not 16/9.
Most Android Android tablets are 800x480 1.66:1, not 16/9.

1.33 (4/3) and 1.78 (16/9) are not the only choices.
Click to expand...

Where can you get the Galaxy Tab? Most Android tablets like the what? Kmart Blue Light Special ? Can you still get the KM one ? Did they actually sell one ? I know you are talking about screen resolutions but I want to know about these other tablets that people reference and where to get one...
 
MrWillie said:
Where can you get the Galaxy Tab? Most Android tablets like the what? Kmart Blue Light Special ? Can you still get the KM one ? Did they actually sell one ? I know you are talking about screen resolutions but I want to know about these other tablets that people reference and where to get one...
Click to expand...

They were just examples. But Archos 7 has the common 800x480 resolution and is widely available. Archos 9 has the 1024x600 resolution.
 
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