4:3 is what you want. That's what all laptops used prior to ~ 2002 or so. You only get "letterboxing" if you view content specifically designed for wide screens; i.e. movies. I don't do that often.

Maybe 1:1 is what you really want, but I've never seen such a laptop :)

Have a few old IBM Thinkpads around the house (courteous of the parents) with 4:3. First things I ever tried Linux on. They’re nice, but they add some depth to the machine that I’m not the biggest fan of (tends to make the device a square). Obviously there are other factors at play, such as the dimensions of the screen in relation to other models choosing different resolution ratios.

Been around a few Surface models, and the 3:2 is pretty nice. I chose to stick with the traditional 16:9 FHD resolution width marker as it’s arguably the most common width for online content in the consumer video space, most common display width, and makes downscaling from 16:9 UDH rather easy. I’d rather have some extra horizontal padding than have the video "squished" or "stretched"(not literally) to fit the display appropriately as it won’t be 1:1 pixels.

Of course, you can always go the Apple/Microsoft way and choose a non-preexisting 16:9 based resolution. But as one who has previously dealt with a lot of video work, I much prefer getting those 1:1 visuals, no resizing needed. Personal preference, and yes, no such display exists to my knowledge in a consumer device. Most people don’t notice or care about this specific topic.

For the longest time I was using a Thinkpad X41 with a 12.1" 1024x768 4:3 ratio screen as basically a glorified web browser, VNC client and ssh terminal, and it worked great

About ten years ago when widescreen was catching on I argued that it's the wrong shape for a computer monitor. I have no idea what the best shape is, but I argued that 4:3 was better. I had a single 5:4 panel myself. When it came time to upgrade it I was forced to go 16:9 as there were simply no affordable options out there. It looks like I was right, though. Hopefully we get some good 3:2, 4:3 or 5:4 panels soon, and ones designed as monitors too, not TVs.

After being used to 1600x1200, going to 1920x1080 seemed to be going backwards, even though its technically more pixels, and this was circa year 2000. Maybe personally preferences are affected by how close or far apart our individual eyes are set relative to one another.

20 years on, and there's no chance I'm buying a 1080p laptop no matter the other ideals behind it. If they're targeting the higher end laptop market with lower end specs, I don't think there's not going to be much of a market for them.

As long as the vertical resolution is good, widescreen just means more space for side by side windows.

I run my 4K 27" desktop monitor at 150% scaling, and usually snap two windows side by side, sometimes up to four windows with corner snapping. It's like having two portrait mode monitors side by side.

On my laptop, the 1366x768 screen lacks the resolution to do this. Vertical resolution is the key, no matter the form factor.

There's a limit to the amount of useful horizontal space, though. I have two 16:9 monitors now and already the far extent of each screen is a bit too far away. If I added a third I'd have to move my chair over to be able to see it. On the other hand, there's plenty of available vertical space that these monitors can't take advantage of.

Sure, you only want to turn your head so far, and two 16:9 screens side-by-side or a single ultrawide monitor seems to be the practical limit, also in regards to desk space.

Swivel/tilt/pivot and multi-monitor brackets make for great flexibility, though. I've seen setups with a 4K monitor flanked by two smaller vertically oriented screens. Or you could stack monitors on top of each other, or a combination.

The biggest setup I've seen at a desk was six 4K monitors, arranged three wide and two tall. When you've got a lot of monitoring to show at once...

i think anything boxy is antiquated. you can always swivel your monitor for more vertical real estate. being able to look at two windows side by side i think is more valuable than increasing vert at the expense of horz.

all this 1x1 and 4:3 business just sounds like hipster nostalgia to me. granted I'm not a programmer, but we're not all programmers either. it's almost as if there's some virtue signaling going on there. oh the desire to be different in a mass produced world.

I always had two windows side by side on my 5:4 screen. On 16:9 I have three windows side by side, which isn't as useful, and I lose several lines of text. It's not a hipster thing. I've been saying widescreen is stupid for monitors since before everyone had them. I have widescreen in my living room, though.

Which resolutions are/were those monitors? I've only ever seen 5:4 monitors in 1280x1024, so a 16:9 monitor at 1920x1080 would give you slightly higher vertical resolution and some nice additional horizontal space.

Two windows side by side on 1280x1024 are 640 pixels wide each, on 1920x1080 three windows are the exact same width each, plus you get an additional 56 pixels of vertical resolution, so in fact more lines of text.

And of course once you go to 2560x1440 or 3840x2160, you either get oodles of space or sharper text, thanks to display scaling.

Ugh! I made a mistake. My monitor was 1600x1200 which is 4:3. Not sure why I thought it was 5:4.

I miss the old 4:3 laptops. The last one I had was an old Dell Vostro and it was great for software development, since I prefer vertical space for code than side-by-side windows/applications. Nowadays, I rarely use the full width except for watching full screen videos.

Now, I run Linux on a Dell XPS 15 (3840x2400 with a 1.5 fractional HiDPI scale) and it’s acceptable, but still feels a little vertically cramped.