[masraum]

I'll tell you exactly why. Because they are preying on the fact that people are especially clueless about math and it's all about the bottom line. People think 26" is 26", right? Not really when you are measuring TV's of different aspect ratio.

If you were to measure a 16x9 TV with a 26" diagonal the width and height would be roughly 22.7x12.7.

If you measure a 4x3 TV with a 26" diagonal the width and height would be roughly 20.8 and 15.6.

Whatever, one's more square, we all knew that. Generally in the world of rectangles, the more square a rectangle is the more area it covers. So the 4:3 TV has a surface area of 325 sqin and the 16:9 TV has a surface Area of 288 sqin. You get a smaller screen, and the bigger it gets the more area you loose. So you actually get less picture for the size.

More screen costs them more money to manufacture, and the average person has no idea that they are getting less TV.