As I say, I don't mind 16:9 being the common and cheaper aspect ratio. My big irritation is that 16:10 is literally not available at all - even on so-called premium laptops. Her old laptop has a decent 1400x900 screen res and it wasn't a premium model.
My guess is that 16:9 obviously became cheaper to make - what with the entertainment industry and everything, and as it became more popular, 16:10 screens became more expensive. As the margins are better with 16:9 screens, the manufacturers obviously thought that if they shifted EVERYTHING to 16:9, we'd have to buy them, and they'd make more profit as a result. The exception is Apple, as they can charge what they like and still sell things - plus the excellent screens are one of the MacBook's unique features these days.
Dan: Old laptop *screens* are better, but with an older CPU, slower memory, ageing battery and all the rest of it, the laptop is in need of replacement. I want a *new* laptop but with a good screen. Unfortunately, that's not possible unless I buy an Apple laptop. I don't really want to buy a laptop and know that it's deliberately got a sub-standard screen, just to help that manufacturer's profits.
Well, I'm not being sarcastic. I mean buy an old model new (i.e., not used) or maybe refurb, or in 'like new' condition, if you can find one. Sure the latest cpu and faster memory are nice, but maybe not all they're cracked up to be, or really needed by your wife for her computing purposes. And you can usually get a replacement battery.
Just buy a 16:9 laptop. She'll get used it. I moved from 16:10 to 16:9. It was a bit annoying but the benefits of a new much better laptop certainly outweighed the screen res change.
The problem is that unless we spend an arm and a leg, she'll get a drop in resolution from her old laptop (1400x900 to 1366x768). And as she finds the screen to be an important part, she's not overly fussed on having an enforced downgrade.
And of course even if she can get used to it, there's always that annoyance of knowing that you've got a deliberately poorer screen, just to help the laptop manufacturer make more profit at your expense. Kind of leaves a nasty taste in your mouth.
In the end she's gone for a 13.3" Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook. 1600x900 res (so although she'll lose vertical space, she's not losing resolution), 128GB SSD, and it only weighs 1.1kg. Looks very nice. In fact, IMO if it had a 16:10 screen, it'd have been perfect. Still, apart from that it looks like a nice bit of kit!
Same laptop I have, you'll want to do some partition fiddling with it as it comes with 90Gb useable out of the box they've put so much recovery shite on there!
I think it's extremely thoughtful of laptop manufacturers to make sure that you can easily restore all the CuntingFuckware™ they supplied, and I would gladly see at least 50% of the advertised capacity of the barely-large-enough SSD dedicated to such a restore volume. Saves you having to write down a list of all the CuntingFuckware™ so you can download and re-install it after a repave of your PC (and that's assuming the right version of CORELshop Pro Elements Lite 2011 OEM is even available for download anymore).
Helpfully the software wasn't all that crap, and they offer a software manager which you can download to put things like the hotkey functions back on anyway, so if you have an internet connection there's no need to have a 30gb restore image on a 128gb SSD. Whatever happened to the days they just supplied a DVD with the machine!
Apple don't do that any more, since Lion (where you could buy a USB restore stick) they have made a recovery partition on your HDD. With mountain lion they no longer offer a USB stick at all. The expectation is you'll just download it from the apple store in the event of disaster recovery.
bastard by name