I searched the site about my issue and feel that it could still be of some general interest to review a topic that might have been most urgent several years ago. I hope this forum is a good place to make this inquiry.

Are there designers out there that would still prefer monitors with 4:3 or 5:4 display aspect ratios? Several designers reportedly used to use two 19” monitors (think those are 5:4 aspect). It seems that wide-screen display width would often be wasted in CAD (except maybe for architecture?), while the greater height of a 4:3 and 5:4 display would not. Placing menus on the side of a single wide screen monitor helps, but if the monitor is sufficiently large, it seems more natural to place them at the top for many work layouts.

Not only is wide-screen inefficient to work with in the display, it is wasteful of desk space, and both inefficiency aspects are exacerbated in smaller monitors, where efficiency is more important (laptops for example). One may choose a wide screen monitor if watching movies is a priority, but how many prioritize work area and physical foot print for computing (desktop and laptop monitors) and are happy to leave the wide-screen for the living room?

There is a petition to bring back 4:3 laptops:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petition...Back43Laptops/

For some people and some types of work, a desktop monitor would also be better with a 4:3 or 5:4 display aspect.