I'd really like to see the evidence that it's a "more natural layout" ... Please tell me what aspect ratio is defined by the average human's visual envelope? The only experiment I remember ever doing along these lines didn't say to me "oooh! 16x9! our eyes are so much better suited to 16x9!".

And, who cares if it's what every tv monitor these days is doing? I care about the device footprint, and a screen that fits the device footprint. Since "watching TV shows and Movies" isn't on my list of intended uses for the device, why do I care about what the current trend is in that regard?

If I was going to make this a portable workstation instead of a portable server, you'd get more mileage out of trying to make a portrait display of paper-like proportions ... than a landscape display of movie like proportions. That way it would at least feel more like working on an actual document.