I purchased an EMachines PC that came with a 17 " widescreen LCD monitor. I guess I assumed that the idea of having a larger monitor was so that it displays more information. But when I got it home and hooked it up, it appears to simply stretch out the images so they are very short and fat. Circles look like ovals, and squares look like rectangles. There doesn’t appear to be any setting that changes this. Is this right? This isn’t like a widescreen television, where the aspect ratio is preserved and more information is displayed on the edges. I’m planning to return it, because it seems useless to me, but before I do that, I’m wondering if the software is set up incorrectly, or if this is definitely how it’s supposed to be. I suspect that I might be expecting Windows (Vista) to do something that’s impossible for it to do. But then I don’t understand the point of producing widescreen monitors - seems like it would just be a stupid gimmick. Thanks.
You need to change the resolution on the monitor. Assuming your video card supports it, you should have something like 1440x900 or 1280 x 800 or 1680 x 1050.
If not, it’s your video card that’s the problem, not the monitor. I have a widescreen laptop and if I set the resolution to that of a regular square screen (1280 x 1024 or similar) then I get the same effect you notice due to compressed pixels.
Set your video card to display in the monitor’s native resolution of (according to your link) 1280 x 720.
Check to make sure you have the drivers for the monitor. A cursory google search for the model number plus “drivers” got me links to the Site Map at emachines, which is full of broken links (thanks, eMachines, you suck). If 1280x720 is not selectable initially, missing monitor drivers may be the culprit.
You could also make sure you have the latest drivers for your video card (or onboard video drivers).