Incorrect resolution?

[Washington]

I'm thinking of buying a 17 inch panel but they all have a native resolution of 1280 by 1024. Am I missing something because to me this is incorrect because it is not in the ratio of 4:3 and so each pixel on the screen is not square it is rectangular. This doesn't matter for text and graphics but for images and video will the images be stretched and people look fat etc? If so is there any way to correct it? If you move away from the native resolution then I assume the image is poor. I don't want to have to manually re-size every window which contains images or video.

 

[oskis]

Don't worry, they wont look stretched or fat. You will only have 71680 extra pixels on your desktop.

 

[flamethrower205]

gee, the way you put it makes me feel so secure lol.
Washington, it won't matter, b/c the difference is negligible.

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

 

[Adam_est]

There's nothing to worry. You are right, 1280x1024 isn't 4:3 ratio, it's 5:4. But so are LCD screens! All 17" and 18" flat panels have 5:4 ratio. It's actually funny to see them in the beginnig, because they look a lot more square-like than CRTs. Actually, 1280 resolution will be streched in CRTs. All other resolutions are 4:3 and this means that THEY will be streched in LCDs. (15" LCDs use 4:3 ratio, because of resolution 1024x768).

 

[Washington]

Thanks Adam, now I understand. In fact I imagine 5:4 is better for web browsing because you get more height so less vertical scrolling.