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Screen Size and Resolution Comparisons

Today's LCD TFT flat-panel monitors for stationary systems and portable computers of different brands and their characteristics are compared by pixel related and physical area aspects.

• Desktop LCD monitor comparison
• Notebook LCD screen comparison

Video Standards and Display Modes

4:3 standard and wide-screen displays are presented in two video standard tables with popular computer display modes.

VGA is one of the important hardware standards listed below and was marketed first by IBM in 1997. The display acronym stands for Video Graphics Array (not 'Adapter').

The various computer display modes are common to characterize screens of personal computers. The video graphics terms are often used to specify the screen measurement together with the size (e.g. 15.1" XGA TFT display, 1024 by 768 pixels).

4:3 Standard Displays

This table shows the resolution code, screen width, screen height (both in pixels), aspect ratio and explanation of the code abbreviation for common standard industry sizes with the more box like 4:3 aspect ratio.

The smaller QVGA and HVGA screen resolutions are mainly used in mobile devices as Pocket PCs or the Psion handheld.

16:9 and 16:10 Wide-screen Displays

The following table shows the resolution code, screen width, screen height (both in pixels), aspect ratio and explanation of the code abbreviation for common wide screen sizes with a 16:10 or 16:9 aspect ratio.

1680 by 1050 pixels is today's most popular WSXGA resolution. WXGA screens have rarely 1280 x 768 pixels with a 5:3 ratio (e.g. Samsung portables). Not sure about the WQXGA or maybe WUXGA+ acronym. Some sources refer to QWXGA for the 2560 x 1600 resolution.

A rumored 42-inch Apple Cinema Display for the Macworld 2008 in San Francisco could feature a huge 3840 x 2400 pixel screen real estate.

Apple Macintosh Perspective

Apple's original PowerBook G4 Titanium had a resolution of 1152 x 768, while the current 15" midrange model features 1440 x 900, 1440 x 960 or 1280 x 854 pixels.

The first Apple Cinema Display with a viewable diagonal of 22-inch was a native 1600 x 1024 active matrix TFT screen. Apple currently builds the only known high resolution 2560 x 1600 pixel display with the huge active-matrix 30" Cinema HD Display. Since the CES 2006 Dell offers a 30-inch UltraSharp 3007WFP-HC wide-screen LCD monitor and Samsung offers the SyncMaster 305T 30-incher. Hewlett-Packard recently added the HP LP3065 30" desktop monitor panel. Late in the 30" market was the Gateway XHD3000 with HDMI and Eizo with its FlexScan SX3031W-H and ColorEdge CG301W. Followed by the LG Eletronics W3000H.

See the Cinema Display, iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook, PowerBook and iBook model lineup for more information on Apple products.