I doubt that, most sites don't even with Chrome of Firefox. Including anandtech. I don't understand why websites don't scale to fit screen, is it the webbrowser or the website?
Anandtech does scale to fit the screen, it does have a maximum width of 1001px though which is sensible since having a site span a lot more generally isn't what you want. Reading an article which spans most of your screen isn't a very good experience.
I think it's to account for monitors that are 1024 pixels wide and leave 23 pixels for the vertical scroll bar. If they designed it to fit the whole 1024 pixels they they would need a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom to accommodate the 23 pixels that are overtaken by the vertical scroll bar.
Not sure who has a monitor that is 1024 pixels wide though. People with old 1280x1024 monitors using them in portrait mode?
Anandtech scale, just not wider then 1024 pixel, as reading area wider just tend to make thing harder to follow with the eye and it's a nice round kibi. But I admit with 4k display it might be a problem, if there is no pixel multiplication in place.
it does fit, but there is a maximum width of course, because long horizontal lines make text difficult to read. There are various studies about this in the field of typography. Figures vary but if web pages adapted to wide screens they would be unreadable, unless they dynamically put the text on two columns when the screen is wide enough, but that would barely fit even with 1920 if you take this page as an example.
I've been using Spartan for an hour now on SP3. It's nice but 2 finger scrolling on the trackpad just works half the time and I don't see Cortana integration.
My Dell Venue 11 Pro is running 10041 build and I am not entirely impressed. Don't get me wrong, it is orders of magnitudes better than the 8.1 that came installed. Being a Technical preview these things are expected. I have high hopes for the official release later this year. My major grip is the font resizing that seems to be built into interface. I am hoping that it is display driver related and Intel is going to address the issue for the final release. Intel seems to have allot of work ahead of them though, as I can't install any build of the preview on my main rig. I have an Asus Crosshair V Formula Z, which unfortunately uses an Intel Lan controller. the only way to install a preview is to disable the Lan controller in the BIOS and or install a PCI-E Lan card. The only reason I want to try the preview on my main system is to test the new DX 12 benchmark by Future mark. Thinking of getting a lan card and later using the onboard intel one to team with the card, if possible.
It would be nice to have a viable browser on a Windows tablet, for sure. But I suspect they still won't support extensions or make it render properly - performance really isn't the issue with Modern UI IE...
Chrome is horrible on a touch screen under Windows, which is a bit upsetting when it works so well ON THE SAME TABLET running Android...
I thought they already said extensions were on their to-do list? Also, what rendering issues are you having with IE11? I've had pretty good luck with it on tablets, much better than Chrome for touch.
It better have ad blocking available by element. I want to be able to block anything. For example, on this site I cant stand seeing the words "Facebook" and "TWEETS"! in huge letters on the right hand side of every page. I can easily block them using opera. Site looks a LOT better without that crap.
Spartan is just another browser and falls in to the same UI traps as every other browser. (Nearly) everyone has a wide screen these days, but most web sites are designed to work to a fixed width that is around half that of the screen and yet browsers steal valuable vertical space from the display for the tabs, menus, address bars etc instead of at least offering the possibility to move all this clutter to the side of the screen. The Microsoft OS team worked this out years ago, even before widescreens came along and allowed users to move the task bar anywhere they so wished, this ability to be able to customize the interface to suit you was perhaps what made the OS so successful, however the various apps teams (Office and all the other specialist ones like SQL) seemed to have failed miserably to implement this simple UI customization as has every other App developer I know of.
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23 Comments
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Morawka - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
Hopefull sites will optmize layout to spartan.I would like to see the same browsing experience on my iPad and my Dell Venue 8 pro. Same Image Assets, same zoom, same font, same everything.
Right now, browsing on the Dell Venue 8 Pro is a huge pain compared to my ipad or iphone.
imaheadcase - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
I doubt that, most sites don't even with Chrome of Firefox. Including anandtech. I don't understand why websites don't scale to fit screen, is it the webbrowser or the website?Leonick - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
Anandtech does scale to fit the screen, it does have a maximum width of 1001px though which is sensible since having a site span a lot more generally isn't what you want. Reading an article which spans most of your screen isn't a very good experience.iniudan - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
1001px, what kind of madman made this site markup. =pWithoutWeakness - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
I think it's to account for monitors that are 1024 pixels wide and leave 23 pixels for the vertical scroll bar. If they designed it to fit the whole 1024 pixels they they would need a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom to accommodate the 23 pixels that are overtaken by the vertical scroll bar.Not sure who has a monitor that is 1024 pixels wide though. People with old 1280x1024 monitors using them in portrait mode?
iniudan - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
I know, just a professional deformation of mine, that extra 1px drive me insane. =pAnnonymousCoward - Saturday, April 4, 2015 - link
Not 1280x1024 in portrait. XGA screens: 1024x768.iniudan - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
Anandtech scale, just not wider then 1024 pixel, as reading area wider just tend to make thing harder to follow with the eye and it's a nice round kibi. But I admit with 4k display it might be a problem, if there is no pixel multiplication in place.Murloc - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
it does fit, but there is a maximum width of course, because long horizontal lines make text difficult to read.There are various studies about this in the field of typography.
Figures vary but if web pages adapted to wide screens they would be unreadable, unless they dynamically put the text on two columns when the screen is wide enough, but that would barely fit even with 1920 if you take this page as an example.
NikosD - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Spartan is a complete disappointment, as it is right now.Buggy, very buggy it doesn't even support favorites properly.
No new features and no new standards compatibility.
Exactly the same score in almost all benchmarks and standards (HTML5, CSS# etc) tests with IE11.
Alexvrb - Friday, April 3, 2015 - link
Damn it's almost like it's prerelease software or something. Oh wait...dexgen - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
I've been using Spartan for an hour now on SP3. It's nice but 2 finger scrolling on the trackpad just works half the time and I don't see Cortana integration.Jahzah_1 - Monday, March 30, 2015 - link
My Dell Venue 11 Pro is running 10041 build and I am not entirely impressed. Don't get me wrong, it is orders of magnitudes better than the 8.1 that came installed. Being a Technical preview these things are expected. I have high hopes for the official release later this year. My major grip is the font resizing that seems to be built into interface. I am hoping that it is display driver related and Intel is going to address the issue for the final release.Intel seems to have allot of work ahead of them though, as I can't install any build of the preview on my main rig. I have an Asus Crosshair V Formula Z, which unfortunately uses an Intel Lan controller. the only way to install a preview is to disable the Lan controller in the BIOS and or install a PCI-E Lan card. The only reason I want to try the preview on my main system is to test the new DX 12 benchmark by Future mark. Thinking of getting a lan card and later using the onboard intel one to team with the card, if possible.
Dug - Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - link
I thought win7 drivers would work for IntelMorawka - Thursday, April 2, 2015 - link
Rosewill makes a amazing Dual Port NIC. Unlike Intel, it has drivers that work out of the box on windows 8 and 10http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DODX5MA/ref=...
DanNeely - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Have they added any new html/javascript/etc features in this build?Laxaa - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
Looking forward to the phone version of this. IE is a bit slow sometimes, and I find Safari and Chrome a lot more enjoyable to use on mobile.I do hope we can keep the adressbar at the bottom, because it is really handy. At least give us the option to choose.
Azurael - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
It would be nice to have a viable browser on a Windows tablet, for sure. But I suspect they still won't support extensions or make it render properly - performance really isn't the issue with Modern UI IE...Chrome is horrible on a touch screen under Windows, which is a bit upsetting when it works so well ON THE SAME TABLET running Android...
Alexvrb - Friday, April 3, 2015 - link
I thought they already said extensions were on their to-do list? Also, what rendering issues are you having with IE11? I've had pretty good luck with it on tablets, much better than Chrome for touch.Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
It better have ad blocking available by element. I want to be able to block anything. For example, on this site I cant stand seeing the words "Facebook" and "TWEETS"! in huge letters on the right hand side of every page. I can easily block them using opera. Site looks a LOT better without that crap.Murloc - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
they just need to support plug-ins and that will happen sooner or later.hrmes - Tuesday, March 31, 2015 - link
It's still early days but it looks like a sad excuse for a desktop web browser. Thank god for other "traditional" browsers.lorribot - Friday, April 3, 2015 - link
Spartan is just another browser and falls in to the same UI traps as every other browser.(Nearly) everyone has a wide screen these days, but most web sites are designed to work to a fixed width that is around half that of the screen and yet browsers steal valuable vertical space from the display for the tabs, menus, address bars etc instead of at least offering the possibility to move all this clutter to the side of the screen.
The Microsoft OS team worked this out years ago, even before widescreens came along and allowed users to move the task bar anywhere they so wished, this ability to be able to customize the interface to suit you was perhaps what made the OS so successful, however the various apps teams (Office and all the other specialist ones like SQL) seemed to have failed miserably to implement this simple UI customization as has every other App developer I know of.