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It has long puzzled me why there seems to be such a jump in monitor specs from 1920x1200 to 2560x1600. The difference in price is at least fourfold. Is there some compromise resolution that exists? 1920x1400 or 1920x1600 or there abouts would be perfect.

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one of the reasons for the price difference is the size of the panel. To date, I don't know of anything less than 30" that will display 2560x1600.

The iMac 27" is 2560x1440, which is 16:9 vs. 16:10 for 2560x1600.

Also keep in mind that displays with that resolution require Dual Link DVI as it needs the extra bandwidth to push those extra pixels.

I'm not sure how long dual link, or dvi for that matter along with 16:10 will last.. I'm seeing an awful lot of displays going 16:9 and displayport/mini displayport.

update**

Dell, has a 27" that has 2560x1440 as well..

http://www.digitalversus.com/news_id-12339.html

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  • HDMI 1.4 and display port have equivalent bandwidth levels to dual link DVI, expensive adapters might be needed to translate the signals (DL-DVI to DP is ~$100); but DVI only high resolution monitors should continue to be usable. Also, AFAIK all of the 2011 generation of 2560 monitors have DP support. Dec 1, 2011 at 15:47
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1920x1400 or 1920x1600 would be pretty awful since they don't respect the 16:10 standard aspect ratio. 1680/1050, 1920/1200 and 2560/1600 = 1.6. Only laptops tend to have resolutions that don't follow this, and LCD TVs are 16:9.

That said 1680->1920 is a 15% increase, while 1920->2560 represent a 33% size increase, granted.

My only guess is that 2560*1600 is 4096000 pixels, or 4 Megapixels (MP) which is a milestone resolution that was previously only found in the medical and professionnal imagery worlds.

It makes sense that industry is following in these footsteps, since standards and applications already exist. A mid-point offering, say ~2160x1350, would likely fail to interest that market niche.

So between 1920, the blu-ray HD video resolution, and 2560, a pro imaging standard, there's little gap waiting to be filled - yet.

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