Is 4:3 making a comeback? The retro monitor ratio and why some developers still prefer it

How this is calculated

The 4:3 format refuses to die because a square-ish screen is genuinely useful for specific workflows. A 4:3 monitor in portrait mode (3:4) is essentially a full-page document viewer that shows an entire A4/Letter page at once without scrolling. Developers who work with long log files or vertical terminal output sometimes prefer a 4:3 secondary monitor. The modern revival is driven by portable USB-C monitors in the 10-15 inch range that mimic the iPad's shape.

Verdict

At a 1.33:1 ratio, 4:3 is nearly square, which is terrible for widescreen video but a quiet win for vertical workflows. A 4:3 monitor rotated to portrait (3:4) becomes a full-page A4/Letter document viewer that shows a complete page without scrolling, which is what makes it useful for reading documentation, monitoring long log output, or displaying dashboards on a secondary screen. New 4:3 monitors are rare and mostly limited to industrial or medical displays, but a 16:10 or 3:2 panel rotated to portrait gives a similar experience for the same use case. 4:3 refuses to die because the iPad kept the shape alive for tablet use, and a small niche of portable USB-C monitors and e-ink displays ship the ratio for users who specifically want the document-viewer or terminal-tail workflow. For a primary monitor, the format is a hard sell against the content compatibility of 16:9 and 16:10.