Continued use of 4:3 monitors

[Jamman960]

We've avoided buying widescreen monitors because most of our pc's are hooked up to projectors, we either end up with distorted images or wasted screen space to compensate.

 

What's everyone else planning now that its getting harder to source 4:3 monitors at normal prices? it seems as though the ones availible are mostly above £100 and are 19" rather than the standard 17" ones we normally buy.

 

I've been asked to add more pc's to an IT Suite and ensure that the monitors are all the same, they are currently all 4:3's so I'm having to pull matching 4:3's from classrooms and purchase new ones to replace them, so far I've been able pinpoint several that can be swapped out for widescreens and will order some of the over priced 4:3's where I really have to but thats not going to be ideal when we need to replace others in future.

 

James

[3s-gtech]

We pulled all of the student 4:3 ones to go to staff (projector hooked up) PCs, luckily there were enough to cover it; these were then replaced with 16:9. When we need new ones, we can use someone like ICT DIrect who can get 4:3 monitors cheaply still.

 

In some situations, I'm now fitting widescreen projectors too (eg where the teacher has a laptop instead).

[synaesthesia]

It's difficult to find a projector under 5 years old (i.e. within replacement time) that isn't capable of 16:10 so this sort of thing often makes me wonder why. Ok some whiteboards might not look as good as they should if they're old but still...

[jamesfed]

Staff have notebooks issued and Windows 7 is pretty good at adapting the display resolution to match the projector.

 

We've been long after replacing the monitors in classrooms with 16:9/16:10 however cost is the biggest issue and considering our 4:3s work fine still we just can't justify it....

 

Another option is to introduce staff to extended displays (assuming you have dual headed graphics) - great for PowerPoint!

[mjs_mjs]

i tried dual head a few years ago with the smart boards - for projection it worked a treat and the particular department staff loved it as there were computer literate - it also meant they didn't have to freeze it to do the register on sims, but the interactive functionality was lost - it just didn't like it, tho this may have been fixed since then.

[john]

i tried dual head a few years ago with the smart boards - for projection it worked a treat and the particular department staff loved it as there were computer literate - it also meant they didn't have to freeze it to do the register on sims, but the interactive functionality was lost - it just didn't like it, tho this may have been fixed since then.

 

Interactive functionality is fine with SmartBoards for us, when you do a calibrate the points appear on the Primary Screen and you get a message on-screen saying if this is not the right one press space bar, and you do and voilla they move to the IWB. So you calibrate as normal and its fine.

[mjs_mjs]

Interactive functionality is fine with SmartBoards for us, when you do a calibrate the points appear on the Primary Screen and you get a message on-screen saying if this is not the right one press space bar, and you do and voilla they move to the IWB. So you calibrate as normal and its fine.

 

Awesome - clearly they have fixed it in a later release then

[siuko]

We use Edge10 T171b monitors everywhere - they are glass fronted so don't get things poked in the screens easily and are 17" 1280x1024....

 

My suppliers still seem to be able to source them and they cost about £70-80 normally

[localzuk]

We just buy widescreen and be done with it. New IWBs that've gone in have been widescreen format, and now our interactive projectors are too. 4:3 is disappearing. Those who end up with a widescreen laptop on a 4:3 projector just have to put up with their laptop screen being odd when its plugged in.