Why are laptops rectangular?

Answer 1

In fact, the human perception of a seen by nature is wider basically. When a person looking at monitor, if the his/her is parallel to the view plane of monitor, it will result pleasing effect. Shaping otherwise will create painful effect to interact with the monitor

Answer 2

Its easier to look at, our eyes like to see things Boxed in, or in a box surrounded by strait lines. Besides a circle monitor would look funny and everything is made for a square one so the picture would be messed up. Not all moniters are square my dads got a rectangula one but hes got a point

Answer 3

They wouldn't make sense being other shapes. They are square or rectangular because most things that people might want to work on, such as documents or image, are also square. The old CRT monitors that were used in older computers would have seriously distorted the image had they been circular, let alone triangular or trapezoidal.

Answer 4

Interesting question. It's probably because the screens are rectangular to fit in with documents on paper, which are normally rectangular. Also, hinging the two halves of the laptop casing would be more difficult if there were not at least one straight edge.

Also things like the space bar would either have to be curved to fit the edge, or be very short, or accept some wasted space between it and the edge of the case, or have various controls filling that space.

I think a curved laptop case could be built as a gimmick but it's not very practical.

Answer 5

All monitors are rectangles because a square is a rectangle. If measured my monitor the sides would be the same so some monitors are squares you should measure a monitor to find out if it is a square or a rectangle.