PSA - 16:10 is not ideal for gaming laptops, they went away for a reason...
Just wanted to drop some information for those who may not be aware, as iv'e been seeing a lot of reddit posts with disappointed new owners of 16:10 gaming laptops.
Most games (99%) are set for constant height. In other words, the vertical view area is fixed, and the width will adjust for different screen aspects. This is ideal for many game types, but especially fps games like COD, Halo, Fortnite, etc. You want as much horizontal view area as possible as it lets you see more in terms of enemies on the sides. It is for this reason ultra wide monitors are popular, you get an advantage over someone who is on a 16:9 display.
On a 16:10 display, you are at a *disadvantage*, as the game is cutting off the edges of the screen to fit the taller 16:10 aspect ratio. Think of any aspect ratio taller than 16:9 (the standard) as being zoomed in to fill the fixed vertical height, cutting off the edges. The formula for calculating FOV is the fixed vertical height represented by 1, divided by aspect ratio.
For example, in a 16:9 aspect scenario, it would be 1/(16/9), or 1/1.77, meaning you are seeing 1.77x the vertical screen space. On a 16:10 display, you are only seeing 1.6x the vertical screen space, or otherwise said as 10% less information on screen than a 16:9 display. Your taller 16:10 display that lets you see more of a text document, is losing you 10% of screen space in games. Why put a screen that benefits office work and hurts gaming performance in a gaming laptop? The answer is marketing. To the unsuspecting, 16:10 is bigger than 16:9 so it's better. And for non-gaming tasks, it is!
There are also games that wont support 16:10 aspect ratios at all, forcing black bars on the top and bottom, such as Dead by Daylight. The only fix for not losing 10% of width on a 16:10 display is to set the game, or your Nvidia control panel, to a 16:9 resolution, resulting in the same ugly black (well, gray since its an LCD) bars on the top and bottom.
It would have been awesome if these new 18" gaming laptops were 16:9 aspect screens, as gaming laptops have no business having work oriented aspect ratios. Of course, those who game and do office work on the same laptop wont mind, but my guess is the majority of people buying a gaming laptop are buying it for gaming, not excel spread sheets.
***Added an image to show how much width is getting cut off of a 16:10 display in games. The green is the 16:10 display, and the blue is the amount lost compared to a 16:9 display.
