Advantages to keeping page at 800px width??

[domino66]

My web designer, when i mentioned that I wanted to widen my page when i had him re-design it strongly cautioned that he recommended keeping it at 800px wide (which is what i had before, and i thought that it was too narrow).

When I asked him why, he gave me reasons along the lines of compatibility with older browsers, smaller monitors, and handheld devices, etc.

But the more I look around at other affiliate sites, it seems that most sites ARE wider than 800px...most are 900 - 1200, and some are just a variable 100% of browser width.

I feel like I could get more info across with a slightly wider site...and it would be more spaced out -- are there any advantages to, as my designer recommends, keeping it at 800 px wide? Or are we at a point now where most ppl have larger LCD monitors that i really should feel OK about a wider site?

[PPP]

If you set your width wider than 760px 1/4 of the people will have to scroll left to right to see your page, which annoys almost everyone.

There is no reason to set your width width wider than 800px. Either set it 760px, or do a fluid 100%. Obviously this is even more important if you have banners and such on the right side of the page where they would never be seen without scrolling.

[Notspot]

This is an interesting question, and something I put quite alot of thought into before I designed my site. In the end decided to go for 980 width but keep the main content of the site under 800 (index on right hand side). Just looked at my GA stats for April and just under 5% were 800x600, 42% at 1024x768, and the rest higher resolutions.

So what do you do? My feeling is that we are targeting the entertainment sector of web users who will more than likely have a decent computer, for my business-to-business sites I stick to 800 because most of the visitors are still struggling on with out of date equipment (you don't need a high resolution for MS Office).

I think that the old 'holy grail' of keeping under 800 is now out of date for the entertainment sectors, but I'd be interested to hear what other designers have to say about this.

[ArthurD]

Used to we would design & develop websites for 800x600 as this was over 40% of your target market. Now, at least in this industry, your target market should be 1024x768 or higher, I tend to think most poker players of value probably use either a widescreen laptop or monitor(s) running at 1600x1200+. This means in my professional opinion that you should design for at least 1024x768, maybe bigger if you prefer.

Having a liquid (ex. variable, 100%) site is not bad, either - there are many schools of thought on this. Just look at various CSS layout / web design sites to read some of the pros and cons of different styles.