common lcd panel resolutions price

Looking for a specific TFT resolution? We offer LCD TFTs varying in resolution from 128x160 pixels to 800x480 pixels. Many of our TFT LCDs also have carrier boards to make integrating them into your product as simple as possible. All of our TFT LCDs offer full color RGB. If you"re not finding the correct TFT LCD for your product or project, please contact our support team to see if they can help you find an appropriate TFT display module for you.

LCD display doesn’t operate the same way as CRT displays , which fires electrons at a glass screen, a LCD display has individual pixels arranged in a rectangular grid. Each pixel has RGB(Red, Green, Blue) sub-pixel that can be turned on or off. When all of a pixel’s sub-pixels are turned off, it appears black. When all the sub-pixels are turned on 100%, it appears white. By adjusting the individual levels of red, green, and blue light, millions of color combinations are possible

The pixels of the LCD screen were made by circuitry and electrodes of the backplane. Each sub-pixel contains a TFT (Thin Film Transistor) element.  These structures are formed by depositing various materials (metals and silicon) on to the glass substrate that will become one part of the complete display “stack,” and then making them through photolithography. For more information about TFT LCDs, please refer to “

The etched pixels by photolith process are the Native Resolution. Actually, all the flat panel displays, LCD, OLED, Plasma etc.) have native resolution which are different from CRT monitors

Although we can define a LCD display with resolution, a Full HD resolution on screen size of a 15” monitor or a 27” monitor will show different. The screen “fineness” is very important for some application, like medical, or even our cell phone. If the display “fineness” is not enough, the display will look “pixelized” which is unable to show details.

But you see other lower resolution available, that is because video cards are doing the trick. A video card can display a lower LCD screen resolution than the LCD’s built-in native resolution. The video cards can combine the pixels and turn a higher resolution into lower resolution, or just use part of the full screen. But video cards can’t do the magic to exceed the native resolution.

Find the native resolution of your monitor. Knowing the native resolution of your monitor will help you quickly get the clearest image. In Windows 7, 8, and most versions OS X, the recommended resolution will be labeled. Below are some common resolutions for monitors:

Desktop widescreen monitors are usually 1920 x 1080, though 2560 x 1440 and 3440 x 1440 are becoming more popular. Older 4:3 flat panels may be 1280 x 1024.

Change your resolution using the slider. Clicking the "Resolution" drop-down menu in Windows 7 and 8 will display the slider. Drag the slider to change the display resolution on your monitor. Resolutions other than the recommended one will result in a blurry, stretched, or squished image.

LCDs follow a different set of rules than CRT displays offering advantages in terms of bulk, power consumption and flicker, as well as perfect geometry. They have the disadvantage of a much higher price, a poorer viewing angle and less accurate colour performance.

While CRTs are capable are displaying a range of resolutions and scaling them to fit the screen, an LCD panel has a fixed number of liquid crystal cells and can display only one resolution at full-screen size using one cell per pixel. Lower resolutions can be displayed by using only a proportion of the screen. For example, a 1024×768 panel can display at resolution of 640×480 by using only 66% of the screen.

Most LCDs are capable of rescaling lower-resolution images to fill the screen through a process known as rathiomatic expansion. However, this works better for continuous-tone images like photographs than it does for text and images with fine detail, where it can result in badly aliased objects as jagged artefacts appear to fill in the extra pixels. The best results are achieved by LCDs that resample the screen when scaling it up, thereby anti-aliasing the image when filling in the extra pixels. Not all LCDs can do this, however.

While support for multiple resolutions may not be their strong point, the ability to pivot the screen from a landscape to a portrait orientation is a feature that is particularly suited to flat panels. The technology that accomplishes this has been around since the mid-1990s and is now licensed by leading monitor and notebook manufacturers worldwide. Portrait mode is particularly appropriate for a number of the most popular PC applications – such as word processing, browsing the web and DTP – and an increasing number of LCD panels come with a suitable base and the necessary software to support the feature.

By the early 2000s many flat panels supported SXGA as their native resolution. SXGA is interesting in that it uses a 5:4 aspect ratio, unlike the other standards display resolutions, which use 4:3. 1024×1280 is particularly appropriate mode for web browsing, since so many web sites are optimised for a 1024 horizontal resolution.

Unlike CRT monitors, the diagonal measurement of an LCD is the same as its viewable area, so there’s no loss of the traditional inch or so behind the monitor’s faceplate or Bezel. The combination makes any LCD a match for a CRT 2 to 3 inches larger:

By early 1999 a number of leading manufacturers had 18.1in TFT models on the market capable of a native resolution of 1280×1024, and as high definition video has emerged from 2003 onwards many flat panel monitors have so-called full HD resolutions of 1920×1080.

A CRT has three electron guns whose streams must converge faultlessly in order to create a sharp image. There are no convergence problems with an LCD panel, because each cell is switched on and off individually. This is one reason why text looks so crisp on an LCD monitor. There’s no need to worry about refresh rates and flicker with an LCD panel – the LCD cells are either on or off, so an image displayed at a refresh rate as low as between 40-60Hz should not produce any more flicker than one at a 75Hz refresh rate.

Conversely, it’s possible for one or more cells on the LCD panel to be flawed. On a 1024×768 monitor, there are three cells for each pixel – one each for red, green, and blue – which amounts to nearly 2.4 million cells (1024x768x 3 = 2,359,296). There’s only a slim chance that all of these will be perfect; more likely, some will be stuck on (creating a bright defect) or off (resulting in a dark defect). Some buyers may think that the premium cost of an LCD display entitles them to perfect screens – unfortunately, this is not the case.

LCD monitors have other elements that you don’t find in CRT displays. The panels are lit by fluorescent tubes that snake through the back of the unit; sometimes, a display will exhibit brighter lines in some parts of the screen than in others. It may also be possible to see ghosting or streaking, where a particularly light or dark image can affect adjacent portions of the screen. And fine patterns such as dithered images may create Moiré or interference patterns that jitter.

Viewing angle problems on LCDs occur because the technology is a transmissive system which works by modulating the light that passes through the display, while CRTs are emissive. With emissive displays, there’s a material that emits light at the front of the display, which is easily viewed from greater angles. In an LCD, as well as passing through the intended pixel, obliquely emitted light passes through adjacent pixels, causing colour distortion.

Until the new millennium, most LCD monitors plugged into a computer’s familiar 15-pin analogue VGA port and used an analogue-to-digital converter to convert the signal into a form the panel can use. In fact, by then VGA represented an impediment to the adoption of new flat panel display technologies, because of the added cost for these systems to support an analogue interface.

However, by the late 1990s several working groups had proposed digital interface solutions for LCDs, but without gaining the widespread support necessary for the establishment of a standard. The impasse was finally broken through the efforts of the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG) – which included computer industry leaders Intel, Compaq, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, NEC and Silicon Image – which had been formed in the autumn of 1998 with the objective of delivering a robust, comprehensive and extensible specification of the interface between digital displays and high-performance PCs. In the spring of 1999 the DDWG approved the first version of the Digital Visual Interface (DVI), a comprehensive specification which addressed protocol, electrical and mechanical definitions, was scalable to high-resolution digital support and which provided a connector that supported both analogue and digital displays.

For screen sizes (typically in inches, measured on the diagonal), see Display size. For a list of particular display resolutions, see Graphics display resolution.

This chart shows the most common display resolutions, with the color of each resolution type indicating the display ratio (e.g. red indicates a 4:3 ratio).

The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by different factors in cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, flat-panel displays (including liquid-crystal displays) and projection displays using fixed picture-element (pixel) arrays.

One use of the term display resolution applies to fixed-pixel-array displays such as plasma display panels (PDP), liquid-crystal displays (LCD), Digital Light Processing (DLP) projectors, OLED displays, and similar technologies, and is simply the physical number of columns and rows of pixels creating the display (e.g. 1920 × 1080). A consequence of having a fixed-grid display is that, for multi-format video inputs, all displays need a "scaling engine" (a digital video processor that includes a memory array) to match the incoming picture format to the display.

For device displays such as phones, tablets, monitors and televisions, the use of the term display resolution as defined above is a misnomer, though common. The term display resolution is usually used to mean pixel dimensions, the maximum number of pixels in each dimension (e.g. 1920 × 1080), which does not tell anything about the pixel density of the display on which the image is actually formed: resolution properly refers to the pixel density, the number of pixels per unit distance or area, not the total number of pixels. In digital measurement, the display resolution would be given in pixels per inch (PPI). In analog measurement, if the screen is 10 inches high, then the horizontal resolution is measured across a square 10 inches wide.NTSC TVs can typically display about 340 lines of "per picture height" horizontal resolution from over-the-air sources, which is equivalent to about 440 total lines of actual picture information from left edge to right edge.

Most television display manufacturers "overscan" the pictures on their displays (CRTs and PDPs, LCDs etc.), so that the effective on-screen picture may be reduced from 720 × 576 (480) to 680 × 550 (450), for example. The size of the invisible area somewhat depends on the display device. Some HD televisions do this as well, to a similar extent.

Many personal computers introduced in the late 1970s and the 1980s were designed to use television receivers as their display devices, making the resolutions dependent on the television standards in use, including PAL and NTSC. Picture sizes were usually limited to ensure the visibility of all the pixels in the major television standards and the broad range of television sets with varying amounts of over scan. The actual drawable picture area was, therefore, somewhat smaller than the whole screen, and was usually surrounded by a static-colored border (see image to right). Also, the interlace scanning was usually omitted in order to provide more stability to the picture, effectively halving the vertical resolution in progress. 160 × 200, 320 × 200 and 640 × 200 on NTSC were relatively common resolutions in the era (224, 240 or 256 scanlines were also common). In the IBM PC world, these resolutions came to be used by 16-color EGA video cards.

Programs designed to mimic older hardware such as Atari, Sega, or Nintendo game consoles (emulators) when attached to multiscan CRTs, routinely use much lower resolutions, such as 160 × 200 or 320 × 400 for greater authenticity, though other emulators have taken advantage of pixelation recognition on circle, square, triangle and other geometric features on a lesser resolution for a more scaled vector rendering. Some emulators, at higher resolutions, can even mimic the aperture grille and shadow masks of CRT monitors.

In 2002, 1024 × 768 eXtended Graphics Array was the most common display resolution. Many web sites and multimedia products were re-designed from the previous 800 × 600 format to the layouts optimized for 1024 × 768.

The availability of inexpensive LCD monitors made the 5∶4 aspect ratio resolution of 1280 × 1024 more popular for desktop usage during the first decade of the 21st century. Many computer users including CAD users, graphic artists and video game players ran their computers at 1600 × 1200 resolution (UXGA) or higher such as 2048 × 1536 QXGA if they had the necessary equipment. Other available resolutions included oversize aspects like 1400 × 1050 SXGA+ and wide aspects like 1280 × 800 WXGA, 1440 × 900 WXGA+, 1680 × 1050 WSXGA+, and 1920 × 1200 WUXGA; monitors built to the 720p and 1080p standard were also not unusual among home media and video game players, due to the perfect screen compatibility with movie and video game releases. A new more-than-HD resolution of 2560 × 1600 WQXGA was released in 30-inch LCD monitors in 2007.

In 2010, 27-inch LCD monitors with the 2560 × 1440 resolution were released by multiple manufacturers, and in 2012, Apple introduced a 2880 × 1800 display on the MacBook Pro. Panels for professional environments, such as medical use and air traffic control, support resolutions up to 4096 × 21602048 × 2048 pixels).

The following table lists the usage share of display resolutions from two sources, as of June 2020. The numbers are not representative of computer users in general.

In recent years the 16:9 aspect ratio has become more common in notebook displays. 1366 × 768 (HD) has become popular for most low-cost notebooks, while 1920 × 1080 (FHD) and higher resolutions are available for more premium notebooks.

When a computer display resolution is set higher than the physical screen resolution (native resolution), some video drivers make the virtual screen scrollable over the physical screen thus realizing a two dimensional virtual desktop with its viewport. Most LCD manufacturers do make note of the panel"s native resolution as working in a non-native resolution on LCDs will result in a poorer image, due to dropping of pixels to make the image fit (when using DVI) or insufficient sampling of the analog signal (when using VGA connector). Few CRT manufacturers will quote the true native resolution, because CRTs are analog in nature and can vary their display from as low as 320 × 200 (emulation of older computers or game consoles) to as high as the internal board will allow, or the image becomes too detailed for the vacuum tube to recreate (i.e., analog blur). Thus, CRTs provide a variability in resolution that fixed resolution LCDs cannot provide.

As far as digital cinematography is concerned, video resolution standards depend first on the frames" aspect ratio in the film stock (which is usually scanned for digital intermediate post-production) and then on the actual points" count. Although there is not a unique set of standardized sizes, it is commonplace within the motion picture industry to refer to "nK" image "quality", where n is a (small, usually even) integer number which translates into a set of actual resolutions, depending on the film format. As a reference consider that, for a 4:3 (around 1.33:1) aspect ratio which a film frame (no matter what is its format) is expected to horizontally fit in, n is the multiplier of 1024 such that the horizontal resolution is exactly 1024•n points.2048 × 1536 pixels, whereas 4K reference resolution is 4096 × 3072 pixels. Nevertheless, 2K may also refer to resolutions like 2048 × 1556 (full-aperture), 2048 × 1152 (HDTV, 16:9 aspect ratio) or 2048 × 872 pixels (Cinemascope, 2.35:1 aspect ratio). It is also worth noting that while a frame resolution may be, for example, 3:2 (720 × 480 NTSC), that is not what you will see on-screen (i.e. 4:3 or 16:9 depending on the intended aspect ratio of the original material).

Used on some portable devices, and is a common alternative resolution to QCIF for webcams and other online video streams in low-bandwidth situations, and on video modes of early and later low-end digital cameras.

A common size for LCDs manufactured for small consumer electronics, basic mobile phones and feature phones, typically in a 1.7" to 1.9" diagonal size. This LCD is often used in portrait (128×160) orientation. The unusual 5:4 aspect ratio makes the display slightly different from QQVGA dimensions.

Used with some smaller, cheaper portable devices, including lower-end cellphones and PDAs, and perhaps most commonly in the Nintendo Game Boy Advance (with, in that guise, 32k colours (15 bpp) on-screen).

Half the resolution in each dimension as standard VGA. First appeared as a VESA mode (134h=256 color, 135h=Hi-Color) that primarily allowed 80x30 character text with graphics, and should not be confused with CGA (320x200); QVGA is normally used when describing screens on portable devices (PDAs, pocket media players, feature phones, smartphones, etc.). No set colour depth or refresh rate is associated with this standard or those that follow, as it is dependent both on the manufacturing quality of the screen and the capabilities of the attached display driver hardware, and almost always incorporates an LCD panel with no visible line-scanning. However, it would typically be in the 8-to-12 bpp (256–4096 colours) through 18 bpp (262,144 colours) range.

Effectively 1/16 the total resolution (1/4 in each dimension) of "Full HD", but with the height aligned to an 8-pixel "macroblock" boundary. Common in small-screen video applications, including portable DVD players and the Sony PSP.

Various Apple, Atari, Commodore, Sinclair, Acorn, Tandy and other home and small-office computers introduced from 1977 through to the mid-1980s. They used televisions for display output and had a typical usable screen resolution from 102–320 pixels wide and usually 192–256 lines high, in non-interlaced (NI) mode for a more stable image (displaying a full image on each 1/50th / 1/60th-second field, instead of splitting it across each frame). The limited resolution led to displays with a characteristic wide overscan border around the active area. Some more powerful machines were able to display higher horizontal resolutions—either in text-mode alone or in low-colour bitmap graphics, and typically by halving the width of each pixel, rather than physically expanding the display area—but were still confined in the vertical dimension by the relatively slow horizontal scanning rate of a domestic TV set. These same standards—albeit with progressively greater colour depth and upstream graphical processing ability—would see extended use and popularity in TV-connected game consoles right through to the end of the 20th century.

Later, larger monitors (15" and 16") allowed use of an SVGA-like binary-half-megapixel 832×624 resolution (at 75 Hz) that was eventually used as the default setting for the original, late-1990s iMac. Even larger 17" and 19" monitors could attain higher resolutions still, when connected to a suitably capable computer, but apart from the 1152×870 "XGA+" mode discussed further below, Mac resolutions beyond 832×624 tended to fall into line with PC standards, using what were essentially rebadged PC monitors with a different cable connection. Mac models after the II (Power Mac, Quadra, etc.) also allowed at first 16-bit High Colour (65,536, or "Thousands of" colours), and then 24-bit True Colour (16.7M, or "Millions of" colours), but much like PC standards beyond XGA, the increase in colour depth past 8 bpp was not strictly tied to changing resolution standards.

The first PowerBook, released in 1991, replaced the original Mac Portable (basically an original Mac with an LCD, keyboard and trackball in a lunchbox-style shell), and introduced a new 640×400 greyscale screen. This was joined in 1993 with the PowerBook 165c, which kept the same resolution but added colour capability similar to that of Mac II (256 colours from a palette of 16.7 million).

Introduced on MCA-based PS/2 models in 1987, it replaced the digital TTL signaling of EGA and earlier standards with analog RGBHV signaling, using the synonymous VGA connector. As with EGA, the VGA standard actually encompasses a set of different resolutions; 640×480 is sometimes referred to as "VGA resolution" today, however as per the original standard this mode actually only supports 16 colours (4 bpp) at 60 Hz. Other common display modes also defined as VGA include 320×200 at 256 colours (8 bpp) (standard VGA resolution for DOS games that stems from halving the pixel rate of 640×400, but doubling color depth) and a text mode with 720×400 pixels; these modes run at 70 Hz and use non-square pixels, so 4:3 aspect correction is required for correct display.

Furthermore, VGA displays and adapters are generally capable of Mode X graphics, an undocumented mode to allow increased non-standard resolutions, most commonly 320×240 (with 8 bpp and square pixels) at 60 Hz.

The high-resolution mode introduced by 8514/A became a de facto general standard in a succession of computing and digital-media fields for more than two decades, arguably more so than SVGA, with successive IBM and clone videocards and CRT monitors (a multisync monitor"s grade being broadly determinable by whether it could display 1024×768 at all, or show it interlaced, non-interlaced, or "flicker-free"), LCD panels (the standard resolution for 14" and 15" 4:3 desktop monitors, and a whole generation of 11–15" laptops), early plasma and HD ready LCD televisions (albeit at a stretched 16:9 aspect ratio, showing down-scaled material), professional video projectors, and most recently, tablet computers.

An IBM display standard introduced in 1990. XGA built on 8514/A"s existing 1024×768 mode and added support for "high colour" (65,536 colours, 16 bpp) at 640×480. The second revision ("XGA-2") was a more thorough upgrade, offering higher refresh rates (75 Hz and up, non-interlaced, up to at least 1024×768), improved performance, and a fully programmable display engine capable of almost any resolution within its physical limits. For example, 1280×1024 (5:4) or 1360×1024 (4:3) in 16 colours at 60 Hz, 1056×400 [14h] Text Mode (132×50 characters); 800×600 in 256 or 64k colours; and even as high as 1600×1200 (at a reduced 50 Hz scan rate) with a high-quality multisync monitor (or an otherwise non-standard 960×720 at 60 Hz on a lower-end one capable of high refresh rates at 800×600, but only interlaced mode at 1024×768).I, 640×480×16 NI, high-res text) were commonly used outside Windows and other hardware-abstracting graphical environments.

Although not an official name, this term is now used to refer to 1152×864, which is the largest 4:3 array yielding less than a binary megapixel (2^20, 1048576 pixels, 1048 decimal kilopixels), thus allowing the greatest "normal" resolution at common colour depths with a standard amount of video memory (128 kB, 512 kB, 1 MB, 2 MB, etc.). Variants of this were used by Apple Computer (at 1152×870) and Sun Microsystems (at 1152×900) for 21" CRT displays.

A widely used aspect ratio of 5:4 (1.25:1) instead of the more common 4:3 (1.33:1), meaning that even 4:3 pictures and video will appear letterboxed on the narrower 5:4 screens. This is generally the native resolution—with, therefore, square pixels—of standard 17" and 19" LCD monitors. It was often a recommended resolution for 17" and 19" CRTs also, though as they were usually produced in a 4:3 aspect ratio, it either gave non-square pixels or required adjustment to show small vertical borders at each side of the image. Allows 24-bit colour in 4 MB of graphics memory, or 4-bit colour in 640 kB.

An enhanced version of the WXGA format. This display aspect ratio was common in widescreen notebook computers, and many 19" widescreen LCD monitors until ca. 2010.

A wide version of the SXGA+ format, the native resolution for many 22" widescreen LCD monitors, also used in larger, wide-screen notebook computers until ca. 2010.

This display aspect ratio is the native resolution for many 24" widescreen LCD monitors, and is expected to also become a standard resolution for smaller-to-medium-sized wide-aspect tablet computers in the near future (as of 2012).

A wide version of the UXGA format. This display aspect ratio was popular on high-end 15" and 17" widescreen notebook computers, as well as on many 23–27" widescreen LCD monitors, until ca. 2010. It is also a popular resolution for home cinema projectors, besides 1080p, in order to show non-widescreen material slightly taller than widescreen (and therefore also slightly wider than it might otherwise be), and is the highest resolution supported by single-link DVI at standard colour depth and scan rate (i.e., no less than 24 bpp and 60 Hz non-interlaced)

A version of the XGA format, the native resolution for many 30" widescreen LCD monitors. Also, the highest resolution supported by dual-link DVI at a standard colour depth and non-interlaced refresh rate (i.e. at least 24 bpp and 60 Hz). Used on MacBook Pro with Retina display (13.3"). Requires 12 MB of memory/bandwidth for a single frame.

Our guide to the best monitors for PC gaming explains why those monitors are ideal for playing games at high resolutions and high framerates, but it doesn’t dig deep into the details of monitor technology. That’s what this guide is for: it breaks down what you need to know about modern displays: resolutions, aspect ratios, refresh rates, and the differences between panel types like IPS, VA, and TN.

While you might be inclined to go after the highest pixel count you can find or afford, this isn"t always the best strategy for finding an optimal display. Higher resolutions offer greater detail but require faster graphics cards for gaming purposes, and Windows" DPI scaling still isn"t perfect. How you use your PC as well as your hardware will help determine the ideal resolution and size for your next display.

LCD displays have a native resolution, and running games (or the desktop) below that resolution degrades image quality due to the scaling process of enlarging the image. Using lower resolution modes isn"t really a substitute for picking the right number of pixels in the first place.

1440p has become our recommendation as the best overall option. It"s great for office work, professional work, and gaming. You can still get higher refresh rate 144Hz panels (see below), plus G-Sync or FreeSync, and you can run at 100 percent scaling in Windows. For gaming purposes, however, you"ll want at least a GTX 1070/RTX 2060 or RX Vega 56 (or equivalent) graphics card.

Beyond 1440p, gaming gets dicey and expensive multi-GPU setups are often required for acceptable performance (though many games don"t even support multi-GPU, so that"s not always a viable solution). 4k displays are where most PCs top out, and while 5k and even 8k displays exist, those resolutions represent the bleeding edge of monitor design and generally aren"t useful for gaming purpose.

The most common and least expensive LCD panels are based on TN, or Twisted Nematic designs. Since TN screens are made on a vast scale and have been around a long time, they are very affordable. Online retailers stock an abundance of attractive 27-inch 1080p monitors(opens in new tab) with reasonable features starting at just $150. The price is nice, but the pixel density isn’t—and neither are the color quality or viewing angles, TN’s greatest weaknesses.

All TFT LCDs work by passing light, such as an LED, through a pair of polarized screens, a color filter, and liquid crystals that twist when current is applied to them. The more current applied, the more the liquid crystals twist and block light. Precise adjustments allow virtually any color or shade to be reproduced, but TN implementations have some limits.

Each pixel in an LCD display is made of red, green and blue subpixels. Colors are made by mixing varying brightness levels for these pixels, resulting in a perceived solid color to the user. The problem with TN is its widespread adoption of a 6-bit per channel model, instead of the 8-bit per channel used in better displays.

TN compensates for this shortcoming via FRC (Frame Rate Control), a pixel trick that uses alternating colors to produce a perceived third, but it"s a poor substitute for proper 24-bit color reproduction. When combined with the inversion and washout that comes from narrow viewing angles, TN"s elderly status in the LCD display world becomes clear.

IPS, short for In-Plane-Switching, was designed to overcome TN"s shortcomings as a display technology. IPS screens also use liquid crystals, polarized filters, and transmitters, but the arrangement is different, with the crystals aligned for better color visibility and less light distortion. Additionally, IPS panels typically use 8-bit depth per color instead of TN"s 6-bit, resulting in a full 256 shades to draw upon for each color.

The differences are pretty dramatic. While TN displays wash out at shallow angles and never truly "pop" with color no matter how well they are calibrated, IPS panels have rich, bright colors that don"t fade or shift when viewed from the sides. Moreover, pressing a finger on an IPS screen doesn"t cause trailing distortions, making them especially useful for touchscreen applications.

The complexity introduces additional overhead that reduces panel responsiveness. Most IPS displays clock in a few milliseconds slower than TN panels, with the best models managing 5ms grey-to-grey, and the more common 8ms panels can have noticeable blurring in gaming. Most IPS displays use a 60Hz refresh rate, though the best gaming displays now utilize IPS panels with 144Hz refresh rates, and a price to match.

A lot of research has been done with IPS and many variants exist, including Samsung"s popular PLS panels and AU Optronics AHVA (Advanced Hyper-Viewing Angle). The differences amount to subtle manufacturer variations or generational improvements on the technology, which has been around since 1996.

In between the high speed of TN and the color richness of IPS sits a compromise technology, the VA, or Vertically Aligned, panel. VA and its variants (PVA and MVA, but not AHVA) normally take the IPS approach with 8-bit color depth per channel and a crystal design that reproduces rich colors but retains some of the low latency and high refresh speed of TN. The result is a display that"s theoretically almost as colorful as IPS and almost as fast as TN.

VA panels have a few unique qualities, both positive and negative. They have superior contrast to both IPS and TN screens, often reaching a static 5000:1 ratio, and produce better black levels as a result. Advanced VA variants, such as the MVA panel used by Eizo in the Foris FG2421, support 120Hz officially and offer pixel latencies on par or better than IPS.

The flood of innovation in the display market shows no signs of abating, with TVs on one side and smartphones on the other driving new technologies such as curved screens and desktop-grade OLED panels that promise speeds, contrast and color beyond anything seen so far.

Most standard TFT-LCDs support a refresh rate of 60Hz, which means the screen is redrawn 60 times each second. While 60Hz may be sufficient for many desktop applications, higher refresh rates are desirable since they provide a smoother experience moving windows, watching video, and especially when gaming.

One method popular in gaming monitors is the inclusion of a strobed backlight, which disrupts eye tracking blur by cutting off the backlight for an instant, creating a CRT-like stable image. A strobed 120Hz display is more blur-free than a non-strobed 144Hz panel, but flickering the backlight understandably cuts down on the overall brightness of the image. Users with sensitive eyes can suffer from eyestrain and headaches induced from the flicker as well.

There"s a final, mostly hidden factor that affects display responsiveness: input latency. Latency stems from the delay caused by post-processing done to the video signal after it leaves the GPU but before it"s displayed on the monitor"s screen. Few if any manufacturers actually list this figure, stressing GTG numbers instead, as latency has been getting worse due to feature bloat. This makes determining latency difficult, but there"s a common sense guideline to selecting a display without excess input lag—more features mean more latency.

How big is big enough? When it comes to computer monitors, you want something that can fit comfortably on your desk while giving you plenty of screen real estate. While in the past sub-20-inch monitors were commonplace, today, unless you’re really constrained for space, there’s no real need to buy anything under 22 inches. For most, 24 inches is going to be a baseline, as you can pick up a number of screens at that size for around $100, and they look fantastic at 1080p.

Anywhere between 24 and 30 inches is going to be perfectly fine for most users. They let you make the most of modern resolutions and color clarity, and they also fit a couple of different web pages open at the same time without needing to use two monitors, which is handy for many professionals. They don’t tend to be too expensive at that size, either, unless you opt for the top-end models.

Today, all the best screens are still LCD monitors that use LED technology for a slim product that saves energy while providing ideal backlighting. We’ve been waiting years for OLED technology to make the transition to PC monitors, it isfinally beginning thanks to brands like LG, but the technology is still relatively rare.

1440p: The oft-forgotten stepchild in the gradual marriage of consumers and 4K, 1440p is still the suggested resolution for gamers, as it offers a noticeable improvement in visuals over 1080p but doesn’t overly tax your graphics card. It’s also far more affordable if you’re interested in extra features like high refresh rates. It is also commonly referred to as Quad HD/QHD.

5K:This resolution made headlines when Apple debuted it on its iMac, but it’s far from a common resolution even years later. Dell’s UP2715K is a great-looking display, but we would recommend many high-end 4K monitors before it, as you won’t be able to see too much difference between them.

While the above are the most common resolutions you’ll find on monitors, some fall into more niche categories. The best ultrawide monitors offer unique aspect ratios and resolutions with broad horizontal pixel counts, but less on the vertical dimension.

Aspect ratio: The aspect the screen shows images in (length compared to height). A common standard, and your best bet, is 16:9. It works with plenty of content, and it’s great for movies or games. Some fancy monitors like to stretch things out with ratios like 21:9, but that is more suitable for unusual work situations or hardcore gaming. Another common format, 16:10, provides slightly more vertical space for viewing multiple open documents or images. 3:2 is becoming more commonplace in laptops for better web viewing, but that’s rare on stand-alone displays.

The type of panel used to make your new display can have a major impact on what it looks like and how it performs. They all have their strengths and their weaknesses, making them better suited to different sorts of PC users. While manufacturers have made valiant attempts to bridge the gaps between the types, each tends to still have its evangelists, and depending on what you spend most of your time doing while on your PC, you’ll likely want to opt for one over the other. There can be a cost to pay for certain features, though.

TN: The most common panel type, Twisted Nematic (TN) displays offer good visuals and some of the fastest response times, making them great for gamers. But colors can look a little washed out, and viewing angles aren’t great. Displays with TN panels tend to be the most affordable.

VA:VA panels, sometimes referred to as MVA or PVA, have slightly better colors and good viewing angles, but can suffer from ghosting. While their response times can be good on paper, they don’t always translate well into real-world usage.

IPS: Displays with IPS panels tend to be the most expensive of the bunch, but what you get for your money is much richer colors and clear viewing angles that are near horizontal. The downside of IPS panels is that they don’t tend to have as fast response times as TN displays, so some consider them inferior for gaming. There are, however, gaming IPS displays, like the fantastic Asus PG279Q, which make good ground on their TN counterparts. Some IPS monitors suffer from quality control issues, though, and most IPS displays have a telltale glow when displaying dark images due to backlight bleeding.

There are also curved monitors to consider. They don’t have different resolutions than their flat counterparts, but present a concave curved screen, which can make a difference to the experience and tasks they’re best suited for.

There are a few different ports you should look for on your monitor. Where VGA and DVI were standards of yesteryear, today, new displays ship with HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C connections most commonly. To make things more confusing, each of those has its own multitude of generations, which you need to be aware of if you’re planning on running a high-resolution or high refresh rate display.

To run a display at 4K resolution, you’ll need to use HDMI 1.4 at the very least, though HDMI 2.0 would be required if you want to support a refresh rate of 60Hz, which should be a bare minimum unless all you do is watch movies on it (with HDMI 2.1 being the newest version of the standard). If you want to do high refresh rate gaming, especially at higher resolutions, DisplayPort 1.4 monitors can handle up to 8K at 60Hz and 4K at up to 200Hz, so they’re better suited than HDMI in that regard. DisplayPort 2.0 is also on the way.

The most common computer monitors are compact enough to sit on a table, desk, or stand. However, if you’re in the market for an enormous monitor, the most space-efficient choice is to mount the monitor onto a wall, thereby freeing up precious floor space. In this case, look for monitors thatcome with VESA standard mountingoptions or which are compatible with them. That way, you’ll have a larger selection of mounting arms from a variety of manufacturers to choose from, rather than being limited by specific mounting options.

The predominant display aspect ratio on today’s PC market, including laptops, 2-in-1 hybrids, tablets, and monitors, is 16:9. Also referred to as widescreen aspect ratio, it is suitable for movies and YouTube videos. Narrower screens such as those on Microsoft Surface devices with 3:2 aspect ratio are better optimized for productivity. The latter are closer to aspect ratios of paper documents and have ability to display more rows of text than the comparable 16:9 panels. Another widescreen aspect ratio you can find on mobile computers today is 16:10, but it is used on small number of devices. Primarily on compact 2-in-1 laptop / tablet PC hybrids.

Resolution refers to number of pixels that make up the image on a screen. A higher pixel count on a screen means sharper pictures, movies and text. It also means more space for displaying web pages and applications and side-by-side program use. Display resolution is expressed using horizontal and vertical pixel counts. The most frequently used resolutions on laptop and 2-in-1 PCs nowadays are 1366-by-768 (also known as HD) and 1920-by-1080 (Full HD or 1080p). 1920-by-1080 is the most appropriate screen resolution for laptops, in our opinion. Many of the affordable notebooks come with 1366-by-768 panels, which provide usable but not so sharp picture. However, inclusion of a Full HD display means a higher overall cost of a device and a somewhat greater power consumption. On the other hand, on smaller notebooks such as the popular low-priced 11.6-inchers, 1366×768 provides acceptable crispiness due to higher pixel per square inch (PPI) value.

Some high-end notebooks, regardless of their screen sizes, come with above-1080p resolutions, such as 3200×1800 and 3840×2160, popularly known as QHD+ 3K and Ultra HD (UHD) 4K. They have 3 and 4 times more pixels respectively than Full HD. 3K and 4K deliver breathtaking sharpness of displayed content, but there are some of disadvantages, too. First of all, user interface elements of Windows and programs appear by default very small on 3K and 4K resolutions. In order to make them better visible, users must use Windows’ built-in scaling functionality, allowing enlargement of UI elements. But, not all programs and parts of Windows itself respond well to scaling, which results in blurry fonts, menus, buttons, and dialog boxes. Another way is to decrease the native resolution using Screen Resolution settings in Windows’ Control Panel, but that makes investments in expensive high-res screens absurd and Windows environment may still look blurry. Furthermore, displays with huge number of pixels require more graphics computing resources and tend to consume more power, thus reducing battery life.

How good viewing angles on a display are, depends on panel technology. Two most common types are IPS (In Plane Switching) and TN (Twisted Nematic). IPS provides great viewing angles, close to 180 degrees, so picture on IPS displays looks good from any angle. Older and cheaper TN panels have problematic horizontal viewing angles. If you look at a TN display from a low perspective, color inversion will occur. For instance, black color will look gray, as shown on the first image below. Also, if you look at a TN display from a high perspective, content will appear washed-out.

There are two types of LCD panel coating: anti-glare or matte and glare-type or glossy. The former does a good job of preventing light reflections which are present in bright environments, such as well-lit offices and outdoors. Anti-glare displays, however, tend to show less vibrant colors than their glossy counterparts. The former are usually found on business-class notebooks, while the latter are used on consumer-oriented and touchscreen machines, with a few exceptions. What can help with outdoor usability is good display brightness, preferably above 300 cd/m². Many mainstream and budget laptops, 2-in-1s, and tablets have brightness of around 250 cd/m² and sometimes even as low as 200 cd/m².

A special kind of touch panels are those with active digitizer technology, supporting pressure-sensitive pen input. An example of pen-enabled devices is the Microsoft Surface series.

To sum things up, a high quality laptop display in our opinion has at least Full HD resolution for sharp picture and IPS technology to enable wide viewing angles as bare minimums. Lower resolutions are acceptable only on devices with small screens. Getting premium-priced PC devices with 3K or 4K resolutions doesn’t make much sense currently, due to a noticeably greater power consumption and the aforementioned scaling problem. Folks planning to use their computers outdoors should additionally require a high-brightness screen and anti-glare coating. Imaging professionals and multimedia enthusiasts, should be interested in the rest of the specs, primarily color gamut, accuracy, and contrast, but also willing to spend more money since notebooks with top-quality displays wear hefty price tags. As for gamers who want the best gaming experience possible, they should pay attention to the screen refresh rate which greatly affects smoothness of gameplays.

If you’ve ever been shopping for a computer screen or TV you’ve undoubtedly come across one or both of these terms. Today we’ll be diving right in to give you all the info you need to know about monitor resolutions and aspect ratios so you can make the best decision when selecting the right monitor for you.

In addition to a monitor’s panel type, screen size, refresh rate, etc., monitor resolution is usually one of the first specifications considered when shopping for a new monitor. Monitor resolution describes the visual dimensions of any given display. Expressed in terms of width and height, monitor resolution is comprised of a specific number of pixels.

In the example above, the 25-inch monitor would have a pixel density of about 88 ppi, while the 32-inch monitor would have a pixel density of about 69 ppi. In this situation, it’s safe to say that there would be some noticeable differences in image quality between the two, with the 25-inch display providing better-looking images. To take things even further, it is common for smartphones nowadays to have pixel densities ranging from 300 ppi all the way up to over 500 ppi.

About 720p Resolution: 720p resolution, or 1280 x 720, is a progressive-style monitor resolution. Is it the lowest of the HD-capable resolutions, and is utilized by all widespread HDTV broadcasters.

Otherwise known as ‘fullscreen’, the four-by-three aspect ratio was once the standard for films, broadcasts, and computer monitors in the 20th century. With the advent of HD resolutions, 4:3 is no longer quite as common.

Besides the resolution and aspect ratios, the curvature of the monitor also affects your viewing experience. Learn about the differences between a flat-screen or curved panel here. Or discover a variety of monitors for different needs from ViewSonic here.

If your screen resolution is too high, icons and texts may appear too small and your hardware may be put under additional strain as the monitor struggles to hit the high resolutions. But if your screen resolution is set too low, it can result in poor image quality that takes up too much workspace and can also harm the results of your work.

The higher the number of pixels a screen can show, the sharper and more detailed the image quality. But, the number of pixels that a screen can show isn"t the only factor involved when it comes to image quality. There"s also pixel density. Monitors come in all kinds of sizes, as well as resolutions. You"ll often find monitors of different sizes that have the same number of pixels, for example a 24-inch monitor and a 32-inch monitor both with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080. The image quality on the smaller monitor can often look sharper and more vivid because of its pixel density. This is measured in PPI (Pixels Per Inch). The smaller screen will have a higher number of pixels per inch than the larger screen.

If you want to change the screen resolution, click the down arrow next to the resolution. This will show a list of all the other display resolutions your screen can handle. Click one, and the resolution will be applied – temporarily at least.

For people working with complex 3D models, such as architects, animators or game developers, going above 1920 x 1080 can begin to put a real strain on your machine"s GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). If you want to go for a higher resolution, make sure your hardware can handle it, otherwise you may find your PC performs very slowly when trying to render at those high resolutions.

For photographers, we"d recommend going for the highest resolution you can afford. Still images don"t require as much graphical grunt to display on high-resolution screens, and most photographs are taken at well above 1080p resolutions. For example, a camera that takes 21-megapixel photos is actually capturing images at 5,104 x 4,092 resolution. Even a 4K monitor won"t display that natively, but the higher the resolution of the screen, the better (and more accurately) your photos will appear.

The resolutions we mention above apply to standard widescreen monitors with a 16:9 aspect ratio. However, some devices have different aspect ratios – and therefore different display resolutions.

Other excellent laptops with high screen resolutions recommended for digital creatives include the Surface Book 2(opens in new tab) (with a 3,240 x 2,160 resolution), the Dell XPS 15(opens in new tab), which comes with either a 2,560 x 1,080 screen, or a 3,840 x 2,160 display.