Product Code Database
A display resolution standard is a commonly used width and height dimension (display resolution) of an electronic visual display device, measured in . This information is used for electronic devices such as a computer monitor. Certain combinations of width and height are standardized (e.g. by VESA) and typically given a name and an Acronym which is descriptive of its dimensions.
The graphics display resolution is also known as the display mode or the video mode, although these terms usually include further specifications such as the image refresh rate and the color depth. The resolution itself only indicates the number of distinct pixels that can be displayed on a screen, which affects the sharpness and clarity of the image. It can be controlled by various factors, such as the type of display device, the signal format, the aspect ratio, and the refresh rate.
Some graphics display resolutions are frequently referenced with a single number (e.g. in "1080p" or "4K"), which represents the number of horizontal or vertical pixels. More generally, any resolution can be expressed as two numbers separated by a multiplication sign (e.g. "1920×1080"), which represent the width and height in pixels. Since most screens have a landscape format to accommodate the human field of view, the first number for the width (in columns) is larger than the second for the height (in lines), and this conventionally holds true for handheld devices that are predominantly or even exclusively used in portrait orientation.
The graphics display resolution is influenced by the aspect ratio, which is the ratio of the width to the height of the display. The aspect ratio determines how the image is scaled and stretched or cropped to fit the screen. The most common aspect ratios for graphics displays are , (equal to 8:5), , and . The aspect ratio also affects the perceived size of objects on the screen.
The native screen resolution together with the physical dimensions of the graphics display can be used to calculate its pixel density. An increase in the pixel density often correlates with a decrease in the size of individual pixels on a display. Some graphics displays support multiple resolutions and aspect ratios, which can be changed by the user or by the software. In particular, some devices use a hardware/native resolution that is a simple multiple of the recommended software/virtual resolutions in order to show finer details; marketing terms for this include "Retina display".
| + Graphic display resolutions by vertical resolution and aspect ratio ! rowspan="3" scope="col" title="vertical, lower number of pixels" | Height (px) ! colspan="10" scope="colgroup" | Width (px) and standard classification if available |
The 4:3 aspect ratio was common in older television cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, which were not easily adaptable to a wider aspect ratio. When good quality alternate technologies (i.e., liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and ) became more available and less costly, around the year 2000, the common computer displays and entertainment products moved to a wider aspect ratio, first to the 16:10 ratio. The 16:10 ratio allowed some compromise between showing older 4:3 aspect ratio broadcast TV shows, but also allowing better viewing of widescreen movies. However, around the year 2005, home entertainment displays (i.e., TV sets) gradually moved from 16:10 to the 16:9 aspect ratio, for further improvement of viewing widescreen movies. By about 2007, virtually all mass-market entertainment displays were 16:9. In 2011, (Full HD, the native resolution of Blu-ray) was the favored resolution in the most heavily marketed entertainment market displays. The next standard, (4K UHD), was first sold in 2013.
Also in 2013, displays with (aspect ratio 64:27 or 2., however commonly referred to as "21:9" for easy comparison with 16:9) appeared, which closely approximate the common CinemaScope movie standard aspect ratio of 2.35–2.40. In 2014, "21:9" screens with pixel dimensions of (actual aspect ratio 43:18 or 2.3) became available as well.
The computer display industry maintained the 16:10 aspect ratio longer than the entertainment industry, but in the 2005–2010 period, computers were increasingly marketed as dual-use products, with uses in the traditional computer applications, but also as means of viewing entertainment content. In this time frame, with the notable exception of Apple, almost all desktop, laptop, and display manufacturers gradually moved to promoting only 16:9 aspect ratio displays. By 2011, the 16:10 aspect ratio had virtually disappeared from the Windows laptop display market (although Mac laptops are still mostly 16:10, including the 15" Retina MacBook Pro and the 13" Retina MacBook Pro). One consequence of this transition was that the highest available resolutions moved generally downward (i.e., the move from laptop displays to displays).
In response to usability flaws of now common 16:9 displays in office/professional applications, Microsoft and Huawei started to offer notebooks with a 3:2 aspect ratio. By 2021, Huawei also offers a monitor display offering this aspect ratio, targeted towards professional uses.
| + HD-based display resolutions !colspan=2 | VESA |
All standard HD resolutions share a aspect ratio, although some derived resolutions with smaller or larger ratios also exist, e.g. and , respectively. Most of the narrower resolutions are only used for storing, not for displaying videos, while the wider resolutions are often available as physical displays. YouTube, for instance, recommends users upload videos in a 16:9 format with 240, 360, 480 (SD), 720, 1080 (HD), 1440, 2160 (4K) or 4320 (8K) lines.
While the monikers for those resolutions originally all used a letter prefix with "HD" for the multiplier, and possibly a "+" suffix for intermediate or taller formats, the newer, larger formats tend to be used with "K" notation for thousands of pixels of horizontal resolution, but may be disambiguated by a system qualifier that includes "HD", e.g. "8K UHD" instead of just "8K".
qHD is a display resolution of pixels, which is exactly one-quarter of a Full HD (1080p) frame, in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Notably, it is neither "qFHD" nor which would be quarter of "HD" resolution (720p).
Some of the few tabletop TVs to use this as its native resolution from around 2005 were the Sony XEL-1 and the Sharp Aquos. Sharp marketed its ED TV sets with this resolution as PAL optimal.
Similar to DVGA, this resolution became popular for high-end smartphone displays in early 2011. Mobile phones including the Jolla, Sony Xperia C, HTC Sensation, Motorola Droid RAZR, LG Optimus L9, Microsoft Lumia 535, and Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini have displays with the qHD resolution, as does the PlayStation Vita portable game system.
In the mid-2000s, when the digital HD technology and standard debuted on the market, this type of resolution was often referred to by the branded name "HD ready" or "HDr" for short, which had specified it as a minimum resolution for devices to qualify for the certification. However, few screens have been built that use this resolution natively. Most employ 16:9 panels with 768 lines instead (WXGA), which resulted in odd numbers of pixels per line, i.e. 1365 are rounded to 1360, 1364, 1366 or even 1376, the next multiple of 16.
Sometimes, this resolution is referred to simply as HD, as is evident from derived terms like qHD ( quarter), which have a half of the lines and columns of their common base , whereas QHD ( quadruple) has double the dimensions of instead.
When set in relation to higher resolutions, is also referred to as 2K because it has roughly 2000 pixels of horizontal resolution.
The next bigger resolution from in vertical direction is (), which is hence called FHD+ by some producers, but is elsewhere known as WUXGA, the wider variant of UXGA.
There are other, non-standard display resolutions with 1080 lines whose aspect ratios fall between the usual and the ultra-wide , e.g. , , and . They are mostly used in smartphones or phablets and do not have established names, but may be subsumed under the umbrella term ultra-wide (full) HD.
QHD (Quad HD) or 1440p is a display resolution of pixels. 2560 x 1440 (QHD) - Flat Screen & Widescreen Monitors on dell.com The name "QHD" reflects the fact that it has four times as many pixels as HD (720p). It is also sometimes called "WQHD"; the W is technically redundant since the HD resolutions are all widescreen, but it emphasizes the distinction between QHD and qHD ().
This resolution was under consideration by the ATSC in the late 1980s to become the standard HDTV format, because it is exactly 3 times the height of SDTV NTSC television signals, with a wider aspect ratio. Pragmatic technical constraints made them choose the now well-known 16:9 formats of (1.5x NTSC/VGA height) and (2x PAL height of 540 lines) instead.
In October 2006, Chi Mei (CMO) announced a 47-inch 1440p LCD panel to be released in Q2 2007; the panel was planned to debut at FPD International 2008 in a form of autostereoscopy 3D display. As of the end of 2013, monitors with this resolution were becoming more common.
The 27-inch version of the Apple Cinema Display monitor introduced in July 2010 has a native resolution of , as did its successor, the 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display.
The resolution is also used in portable devices. In September 2012, Samsung announced the Series 9 WQHD laptop with a 13-inch display. In August 2013, LG announced a 5.5-inch QHD smartphone display, which was used in the LG G3. In October 2013 Vivo announced a smartphone with a display. Other phone manufacturers followed in 2014, such as Samsung with the Galaxy Note 4, and Google and Motorola with the Nexus 6 smartphone. By the mid-2010s, it was a common resolution among flagship phones such as the HTC 10, the Lumia 950, and the Galaxy S6 and S7.
The first products announced to use this resolution were the 2013 HP Envy 14 TouchSmart Ultrabook and the 13.3-inch Samsung Ativ Q.
This resolution has been referred to as UW4K, WQHD+, UWQHD+ or QHD+, though no single name is agreed upon.
was chosen as the resolution of the ''UHDTV1'' format defined in SMPTE ST 2036-1, as well as the ''4K UHDTV'' system defined in ITU-R BT.2020 and the ''UHD-1'' broadcast standard from DVB. It is also the minimum resolution requirement for CEA's definition of an ''Ultra HD'' display. Before the publication of these standards, it was sometimes casually referred to as "QFHD" (Quad Full HD).
The first commercial displays capable of this resolution include an 82-inch LCD TV revealed by Samsung in early 2008, the Sony SRM-L560, a 56-inch LCD reference monitor announced in October 2009, an 84-inch display demonstrated by LG in mid-2010, and a 27.84-inch 158pixel density 4K IPS monitor for medical purposes launched by Innolux in November 2010. In October 2011 Toshiba announced the REGZA 55x3, which is claimed to be the first 4K glasses-free 3D TV.
DisplayPort supports at 30Hz in version 1.1 and added support for up to 75Hz in version 1.2 (2009) and 120Hz in version 1.3 (2014), while HDMI added support for at 30Hz in version 1.4 (2009) and 60Hz in version 2.0 (2013).
When support for 4K at 60Hz was added in DisplayPort 1.2, no DisplayPort timing controllers (TCONs) existed which were capable of processing the necessary amount of data from a single video stream. As a result, the first 4K monitors from 2013 and early 2014, such as the Sharp PN-K321, Asus PQ321Q, and Dell UP2414Q and UP3214Q, were addressed internally as two monitors side by side instead of a single display and made use of DisplayPort's Multi-Stream Transport (MST) feature to multiplex a separate signal for each half over the connection, splitting the data between two timing controllers. Newer timing controllers became available in 2014, and after mid-2014 new 4K monitors such as the Asus PB287Q no longer rely on MST tiling technique to achieve 4K at 60Hz, instead, using the standard SST (Single-Stream Transport) approach.
In 2015, Sony announced the Xperia Z5 Premium, the first smartphone with a 4K display, and in 2017 Sony announced the Xperia XZ Premium, the first smartphone with a 4K HDR display.
HDMI added support for at 24Hz in version 1.4 and 60Hz in version 2.0.
The first display with this resolution was the Dell UltraSharp UP2715K, announced on September 5, 2014. On October 16, 2014, Apple announced the iMac with Retina Display.
DisplayPort version 1.3 added support for 5K at 60Hz over a single cable, whereas version 1.2 was only capable of 5K at 30Hz. Early 5K 60Hz displays such as the Dell UltraSharp UP2715K and HP DreamColor Z27q that lacked DisplayPort1.3 support required two DisplayPort1.2 connections to operate at 60Hz, in a tiled display mode similar to early 4K displays using DP MST.
DisplayPort1.3, finalized by VESA in late 2014, added support for at 30Hz (or 60Hz with 4:2:0 subsampling). VESA's Display Stream Compression (DSC), which was part of early DisplayPort1.3 drafts and would have enabled 8K at 60Hz without subsampling, was cut from the specification prior to publication of the final draft.
DSC support was reintroduced with the publication of DisplayPort1.4 in March 2016. Using DSC, a "visually lossless" form of compression, formats up to (8K UHD) at 60Hz with HDR and 30bit/px color depth are possible without subsampling.
| + VGA-based display resolutions ! Name | H (px) !! V (px) !! H:V !! H × V (Mpx) !! VESA |
The abbreviation qqVGA may be used to distinguish quarter from quad, just like qVGA.
The name comes from having a quarter of the maximum resolution of the original IBM Video Graphics Array display technology, which became a de facto industry standard in the late 1980s. QVGA is not a standard mode offered by the video BIOS, even though VGA and compatible chipsets support a QVGA-sized Mode X. The term refers only to the display's resolution and thus the abbreviated term QVGA or Quarter VGA is more appropriate to use.
QVGA resolution is also used in digital video recording equipment as a low-resolution mode requiring less data storage capacity than higher resolutions, typically in still with video recording capability, and some mobile phones. Each frame is an image of pixels. QVGA video is typically recorded at 15 or 30 frame rate. QVGA mode describes the size of an image in pixels, commonly called the resolution; numerous video file formats support this resolution.
While QVGA is a lower resolution than VGA, at higher resolutions the "Q" prefix commonly means quad(ruple) or four times higher display resolution (e.g., QXGA is four times higher resolution than XGA). To distinguish quarter from quad, lowercase "q" is sometimes used for "quarter" and uppercase "Q" for "Quad", by analogy with Metric prefix like m/M and p/P, but this is not a consistent usage.
Some examples of devices that use QVGA display resolution include the iPod Classic, Samsung i5500, LG Optimus L3-E400, Galaxy Fit, Y and Pocket, HTC Wildfire, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini and Mini pro and Nintendo 3DS' bottom screen.
| + WQVGA and similar display resolutions
! Name !! H (px) !! V (px) !! H:V !! H × V (Mpx) !! VESA !! Sources |
Wide QVGA or WQVGA are some display resolutions having the same height in pixels as QVGA, but wider. Sony NW-ZX100HN Specifications with WQVGA (400 × 240) on sony.com
Since QVGA is 320 pixels wide and 240 pixels high (aspect ratio of 4:3), the resolution of a WQVGA screen might be (3:2 aspect ratio), (16:10 aspect ratio), (5:3 – such as the Nintendo 3DS screen), , (≈16:9 ratio) or (18:10 aspect ratio). As with WVGA, exact ratios of n:9 are difficult because of the way VGA controllers internally deal with pixels. For instance, when using graphical combinatorial operations on pixels, VGA controllers will use 1 bit per pixel. Since bits cannot be accessed individually but by chunks of 16 or an even higher power of 2, this limits the horizontal resolution to a 16-pixel granularity, i.e., the horizontal resolution must be divisible by 16. In the case of the 16:9 ratio, with 240 pixels high, the horizontal resolution should be 240 / 9 × 16 = 426. (426), the closest multiple of 16 is 432.
WQVGA has also been used to describe displays that are not 240 pixels high, for example, Sixteenth HD1080 displays which are 480 pixels wide and 270 or 272 pixels high. This may be due to WQVGA having the nearest screen height.
WQVGA resolutions were commonly used in touchscreen mobile phones, such as , , and . For example, the Hyundai MB 490i, Sony Ericsson Aino and the Samsung Instinct have WQVGA screen resolutions – . Other devices such as the Apple iPod Nano also use a WQVGA screen, pixels. The Nintendo 3DS line is probably the most famous device to have a WQVGA screen.
| + HVGA and similar display resolutions
! Name !! H (px) !! V (px) !! H:V !! H × V (Mpx) !! VESA !! Sources |
HVGA ( Half-size VGA) screens have pixels (3:2 aspect ratio), pixels (4:3 aspect ratio), (≈16:9 aspect ratio), or pixels (8:3 aspect ratio). The former is used by a variety of PDA devices, starting with the Sony CLIÉ PEG-NR70 in 2002, Sony Xperia E dual Specifications with HVGA (480 × 320) on sony.com and standalone PDAs by Palm. The latter was used by a variety of handheld PC devices. VGA resolution is .
Examples of devices that use HVGA include the Apple iPhone (1st generation through 3GS), iPod Touch (1st Generation through 3rd), BlackBerry Bold 9000, HTC Dream, HTC Hero, Wildfire S, LG GW620 Eve, MyTouch 3G Slide, Nokia 6260 Slide, Palm Pre, Samsung M900 Moment, Sony Ericsson Xperia X8, mini, mini pro, active and live and the Sony PlayStation Portable.
Texas Instruments produces the DLP pico projector which supports HVGA resolution.
HVGA was the only resolution supported in the first versions of Google Android, up to release 1.5. Other higher and lower resolutions became available starting on release 1.6, like the popular WVGA resolution on the Motorola Droid or the QVGA resolution on the HTC Tattoo.
Three-dimensional computer graphics common on television throughout the 1980s were mostly rendered at this resolution, causing objects to have jagged edges on the top and bottom when edges were not anti-aliased.
In the field of video, the resolution of 480i supports 640 samples per line (corresponding to 640x480) corresponding to Standard Definition ( SD), in contrast to high-definition (HD) resolutions like and .
| + WVGA and similar display resolutions
! Name !! H (px) !! V (px) !! H:V !! H × V (Mpx) !! VESA !! Sources |
Wide VGA or WVGA, Elo User Manual Touchmonitor 0700L with WVGA (800 × 480) by elotouch.com, p. 4 (Chapter 1 - Introduction), (DOC) JVC GY-HC500E Camcorder with Operation Panel Resolution WVGA (800 × 480) on jvc.com Sony NW-A37HN Specifications with Display Resolution WVGA (800 × 480) on sony.com sometimes just WGA are some display resolutions with the same 480-pixel height as VGA but wider, such as (3:2 aspect ratio), (5:3), , , , or (≈16:9). It was a common resolution among LCD projectors and later portable and hand-held internet-enabled devices (such as MID and ) as it is capable of rendering websites designed for an 800 wide window in full page-width. Examples of hand-held internet devices, without phone capability, with this resolution include: Spice stellar nhance mi-435, ASUS Eee PC 700 series, Dell ZTE Blade, Nokia 770, N800, and N810.
The 854 pixel width is rounded up from 853.:
In 2010, mobile phones with FWVGA display resolution started to become more common. (See also: list of mobile phones with FWVGA display.) In addition, the Wii U GamePad for Nintendo's Wii U gaming console includes a 6.2-inch FWVGA display.
Originally, it was an extension to the VGA standard first released by IBM in 1987. Unlike VGA – a purely IBM-defined standard – Super VGA was defined by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), an open consortium set up to promote interoperability and define standards. When used as a resolution specification, in contrast to VGA or XGA for example, the term SVGA normally refers to a resolution of pixels.
The marginally higher resolution is the highest 4:3 resolution that is not greater than 219 pixels while also having a horizontal dimension that is a multiple of 32 pixels. The pixel count limit enables it to fit within a framebuffer of 512Kilobyte (512 × 2 bytes), and the common multiple of 32 pixels is related to data structure alignment. For these reasons, this resolution was available on the Macintosh LC III and other systems.
is the 16:9 equivalent for PAL (576 lines) on a display with square pixels, resulting in a pixel aspect ratio of or depending on the native resolution of PAL.
Examples of devices that use DVGA include the Meizu MX mobile phone and the Apple iPhone 4 and 4S with the iPod Touch 4, where the screen is called the "Retina Display".
iPhone 5 introduced a wide, 16:9 variant at pixels, which also has no official acronym.
It is sometimes unofficially called SXGA− to avoid confusion with the SXGA standard (). Elsewhere, this 4:3 resolution was supposedly also called UVGA ( Ultra VGA), or SXVGA ( Super eXtended VGA).
| + XGA-based display resolutions
! Name !! H (px) !! V (px) !! data-sort-type="text" | H:V !! H × V (Mpx) !! VESA !! Sources |
The initial version of XGA expanded upon IBM's older VGA by adding support for four new screen modes, including one new resolution:
XGA-2 added a 24-bit DAC, but this was used only to extend the available master palette in 256-color mode, e.g. to allow true 256-greyscale output. Other improvements included the provision of the previously missing resolution in up to 65,536 colors, faster screen refresh rates in all modes (including non-interlace, flicker-free output for ), and improved accelerator performance and versatility.
All standard XGA modes have a aspect ratio with square pixels, although this does not hold for certain standard VGA and third-party extended modes (, ).
| + WXGA and similar display resolutions
! Name !! H (px) !! V (px) !! data-sort-type="text" | H:V !! H × V (Mpx) !! VESA !! Source |
Wide XGA ( WXGA) is a set of non-standard resolutions derived from XGA () by widening it to with a widescreen aspect ratio of nearly 16:9 or to with an aspect ratio of 16:10. WXGA is commonly used for low-end LCD TVs and LCD computer monitors for widescreen presentation. The exact resolution offered by a device described as "WXGA" can be somewhat variable owing to a proliferation of several closely related timings optimised for different uses and derived from different bases.
In Microsoft Windows operating system specifically, the larger taskbar of Windows 7 occupies an additional 16-pixel lines by default, which may compromise the usability of programs that already demanded a full (instead of, e.g. ) unless it is specifically set to use small icons; an "oddball" 784-line resolution would compensate for this, but has a simpler aspect and also gives the slight bonus of 16 more usable lines. Also, the Windows Sidebar in Windows Vista and 7 can use the additional 256 or 336 horizontal pixels to display informational "widgets" without compromising the display width of other programs, and Windows 8 is specifically designed around a "two-pane" concept where the full 16:9 or 16:10 screen is not required. Typically, this consists of a 4:3 main program area (typically , or ) plus a narrow sidebar running a second program, showing a toolbox for the main program or a pop-out OS shortcut panel taking up the remainder.
Following the introduction of the European HD ready logo in 2005, a year later was the most popular resolution for liquid crystal display televisions (versus XGA for Plasma display TVs flat panel displays); By 2013, even this was relegated to only being used in smaller or cheaper displays (e.g. "bedroom" LCD TVs, or low-cost, large-format plasmas), cheaper laptop and mobile tablet computers, and midrange home cinema projectors, having otherwise been overtaken by higher "full HD" resolutions such as .
A common variant on this resolution is also (unnamed or named FWXGA), which confers several technical benefits, most significantly a reduction in memory requirements from just over to just under 1MB per 8-bit channel ( needs 1024.5KB per channel; needs 1020KB; 1MB is equal to 1024KB), which simplifies architecture and can significantly reduce the amount–and speed–of VRAM required with only a very minor change in available resolution, as memory chips are usually only available in fixed megabyte capacities. For example, at 32-bit color, a framebuffer would require only 4MB, whilst a one may need 5, 6, or even 8MB depending on the exact display circuitry architecture and available chip capacities. The 6-pixel reduction also means each line's width is divisible by 8 pixels, simplifying numerous routines used in both computer and broadcast/theatrical video processing, which operate on 8-pixel blocks. Historically, many video cards also mandated screen widths divisible by 8 for their lower-color, planar modes to accelerate memory accesses and simplify pixel position calculations (e.g. fetching 4-bit pixels from 32-bit memory is much faster when performed 8 pixels at a time, and calculating exactly where a particular pixel is within a memory block is much easier when lines do not end partway through a memory word), and this convention persisted in low-end hardware even into the early days of widescreen, LCD HDTVs; thus, most 1366-width displays also quietly support display of 1360-width material, with a thin border of unused pixel columns at each side. This narrower mode is even further removed from the 16:9 ideal, but the error is still less than 0.5% (technically, the mode is either 15.94:9.00 or 16.00:9.04) and should be imperceptible.
| + XGA+ and similar display resolutions
! Name !! H (px) !! V (px) !! data-sort-type="text" | H:V !! H × V (Mpx) !! VESA !! Usage |
XGA+ stands for Extended Graphics Array Plus and is a computer display standard, usually understood to refer to the resolution with an aspect ratio of 4:3. Until the advent of widescreen LCDs, XGA+ was often used on 17-inch desktop CRT monitors. It is the highest 4:3 resolution not greater than 2 pixels (≈1.05 ), with its horizontal dimension a multiple of 32 pixels. This enables it to fit closely into a video memory or framebuffer of 1Megabyte (1 × 2 ), assuming the use of one byte per pixel. The common multiple of 32 pixels constraint is related to alignment.
Historically, the resolution also relates to the earlier standard of pixels, which was adopted by Sun Microsystems for the Sun-2 workstation in the early 1980s. A decade later, Apple Computer selected the resolution of for their 21-inch CRT monitors, intended for use as two-page displays on the Macintosh II computer. These resolutions are even closer to the limit of a 1MB framebuffer, but their aspect ratios differ slightly from the common 4:3.
XGA+ is the next step after XGA (), although it is not approved by any standard organizations. The next step with an aspect ratio of 4:3 is (QuadVGA) or (SXGA+).
WXGA+ can be considered enhanced versions of WXGA with more pixels. The aspect ratio is (widescreen). WXGA+ resolution is common in 19-inch widescreen desktop monitors (a very small number of such monitors use WSXGA+), and is also optional, although less common, in laptop LCDs, in sizes ranging from 12.1 to 17 inches.
The resolution is not the standard 4:3 aspect ratio, instead it is a 5:4 aspect ratio (1.25:1 instead of 1.:1). A standard 4:3 monitor using this resolution will have rectangular rather than square pixels, meaning that unless the software compensates for this the picture will be distorted, causing circles to appear elliptical.
SXGA is the most common native resolution of 17-inch and 19-inch LCD monitors. An LCD monitor with SXGA native resolution will typically have a physical 5:4 aspect ratio, preserving a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio.
Sony manufactured a 17-inch CRT monitor with a 5:4 aspect ratio designed for this resolution. It was sold under the Apple brand name.
SXGA is also a popular resolution for cell phone cameras, such as the Motorola Razr and most Samsung and LG phones. Although having been taken over by newer UXGA (2.0-megapixel) cameras, the 1.3-megapixel was the most common around 2007.
Any CRT that can run can also run (QuadVGA or sometimes SXGA-), which has the standard 4:3 ratio. A flat panel TFT screen, including one designed for , will show stretching distortion when set to display any resolution other than its native one, as the image needs to be interpolated to fit in the fixed grid display. Some TFT displays do not allow a user to disable this, and will prevent the upper and lower portions of the screen from being used forcing a "letterbox" format when set to a 4:3 ratio.
The resolution became popular because at 24bit/px color depth it fits well into 4 megabytes of video RAM. At the time, memory was extremely expensive. Using at 24-bit color depth allowed using 3.75MB of video RAM, fitting nicely with VRAM chip sizes which were available at the time (4MB):
In desktop LCDs, SXGA+ is used on some low-end 20-inch monitors, whereas most of the 20-inch LCDs use UXGA (standard screen ratio), or WSXGA+ (widescreen ratio).
A rare resolution of , i.e. with double the pixels horizontally and vertically, is known as QSXGA+.
WSXGA+ is the widescreen version of SXGA+. The next highest resolution (for widescreen) after it is WUXGA, which is pixels.
UXGA has been the native resolution of many fullscreen monitors of 15 inches or more, including laptop LCDs such as the ones in the IBM ThinkPad A21p, A30p, A31p, T42p, T43p, T60p, Dell Inspiron 8000/8100/8200 and Latitude/Precision equivalents; some Panasonic Toughbook CF-51 models; and the original Alienware Area 51M gaming laptop. However, in more recent times, UXGA is not used in laptops at all but rather in desktop monitors that have been made in sizes of 20 inches and 21.3 inches. Some 14-inch laptop LCDs with UXGA have also existed (such as the Dell Inspiron 4100), but these are very rare.
There are two different widescreen cousins of UXGA, one called UWXGA with (750) and one called WUXGA with resolution.
The 16:10 aspect ratio (as opposed to the 16:9 used in widescreen televisions) was chosen because this aspect ratio is appropriate for displaying two full pages of text side by side.
WUXGA resolution has a total of 2,304,000 pixels. One frame of uncompressed 8Color depth RGB WUXGA is 6.75MiB (6.912MB). Initially, it was available in widescreen CRTs such as the Sony GDM-FW900 and the Hewlett-Packard A7217A (introduced in 2003), and in 17-inch laptops. Most QXGA displays support . WUXGA is also available in some mobile phablet devices such as the Huawei Honor X2 Gem.
The next lower standard resolution (for widescreen) before it is WSXGA+, which is pixels (1,764,000 pixels, or 30.61% fewer than WUXGA); the next higher resolution widescreen is an unnamed resolution (supported by the above GDM-FW900 and A7217A) and then the more common WQXGA, which has pixels (4,096,000 pixels, or 77.78% more than WUXGA).
If taken as a starting point that WXGA has a display resolution of or a display with a size 4-times of WXGA should have or pixels, but the first is non-existent and the latter is named WQXGA. Conversely, the quarter of QWXGA () would have pixels but this is named WSVGA.
A few QWXGA LCD monitors were available in 2009 with 23- and 27-inch displays, such as the Acer B233HU (23-inch) and B273HU (27-inch), the Dell SP2309W, and the Samsung 2343BWX. As of 2011, most monitors have been discontinued, and as of 2013, no major manufacturer produces monitors with this resolution.
Examples of LCDs with this resolution are the IBM T210 and the Eizo G33 and R31 screens, but in CRT monitors this resolution is much more common; some examples include the Sony F520, ViewSonic G225fB, NEC FP2141SB or Mitsubishi DP2070SB, Iiyama Vision Master Pro 514, and Dell and Hewlett-Packard P1230. Of these monitors, none are still in production.
A related display size is WQXGA, which is a wide screen version.
IDTech manufactured a 15-inch QXGA E-IPS panel, used in the IBM ThinkPad R50p. NEC sold laptops with QXGA screens in 2002–05 for the Japanese market. The iPad (from 3rd through 6th generation and Mini 2) also have a QXGA display.
By some producers it is called QHD+ UHD+ (3840 x 2400) referring to QHD (). ( QHD+ is sometimes also used for the resolution (QHD+).)
To obtain a vertical refresh rate higher than 40Hz with DVI, this resolution requires Dual-link DVI DVI cables and devices. To avoid cable problems monitors are sometimes shipped with an appropriate dual link cable already plugged in. Many video cards support this resolution. One feature that was unique to the 30-inch WQXGA monitors is the ability to function as the centerpiece and main display of a three-monitor array of complementary aspect ratios, with two UXGA () 20-inch monitors turned vertically on either side. The resolutions are equal, and the size of the 1600 resolution edges is within a tenth of an inch (16-inch vs. 15.89999"), presenting a "picture window view" without the extreme lateral dimensions, small central panel, asymmetry, resolution differences, or dimensional difference of other three-monitor combinations. The resulting composite image has a 3.1:1 aspect ratio. This also means one UXGA 20-inch monitor in portrait orientation can also be flanked by two 30-inch WQXGA monitors for a composite image with an 11.85:3 (79:20, 3.95:1) aspect ratio.
An early consumer WQXGA monitor was the 30-inch Apple Cinema Display, unveiled by Apple in June 2004. At the time, dual-link DVI was uncommon on consumer hardware, so Apple partnered with Nvidia to develop a special graphics card that had two dual-link DVI ports, allowing simultaneous use of two 30-inch Apple Cinema Displays. The nature of this graphics card, being an add-in AGP card, meant that the monitors could only be used in a desktop computer, like the Power Mac G5, that could have the add-in card installed, and could not be immediately used with laptop computers that lacked this expansion capability.
In March 2009, Apple updated several Macintosh computers with a Mini DisplayPort adapter, such as the Mac mini and iMac. These allow an external connection to a display.
In 2010, WQXGA made its debut in a handful of home theater projectors targeted at the Constant Height Screen application market. Both Digital Projection Inc and projectiondesign released models based on a Texas Instruments DLP chip with a native WQXGA resolution, alleviating the need for an anamorphic lens to achieve 1:2.35 image projection. Many manufacturers have 27–30-inch models that are capable of WQXGA, albeit at a much higher price than lower resolution monitors of the same size. Several mainstream WQXGA monitors are or were available with 30-inch displays, such as the Dell 3007WFP-HC, 3008WFP, U3011, U3014, UP3017, the Hewlett-Packard LP3065, the Gateway XHD3000, LG W3000H, and the Samsung 305T. Specialist manufacturers like NEC, Eizo, Planar Systems, Barco NV (LC-3001), and possibly others offer similar models. As of 2016, LG Display make a 10-bit 30-inch AH-IPS panel, with wide color gamut, used in monitors from Dell, NEC, HP, Lenovo and Iiyama.
Released in November 2012, Google's Nexus 10 is the first consumer tablet computer to feature WQXGA resolution. Before its release, the highest resolution available on a tablet was QXGA (), available on the Apple iPad 3rd and 4th generations devices. Several Samsung Galaxy tablets, including the Note 10.1 (2014 Edition), Tab S 8.4, 10.5 and TabPRO 8.4, 10.1 and Note Pro 12.2, as well as the Gigaset QV1030, also feature a WQXGA resolution display.
In 2012, Apple released the 13 inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display that features a WQXGA display, and the new MacBook Air in 2018.
The LG Gram 17 introduced in 2019 uses a 17-inch WQXGA display.
Recent medical displays such as Barco Coronis Fusion 10MP or NDS Dome S10 have a native panel resolution of . These are driven by two dual-link DVI or DisplayPort outputs. They can be considered to be two seamless virtual QSXGA displays as they have to be driven simultaneously by both dual-link DVI or DisplayPort since one dual-link DVI or DisplayPort cannot single-handedly display 10 megapixels. A similar resolution of (4:3) was supported by a small number of CRT displays via VGA such as the Viewsonic P225f when paired with the right graphics card.
Some manufacturers refer to this resolution as UHD+ UHD+ (3840 x 2400) because it has some additional lines compared to UHD ().
Most Graphics card with a DVI connector are capable of supporting the resolution. However, the maximum refresh rate will be limited by the number of DVI links connected to the monitor. 1, 2, or 4 DVI connectors are used to drive the monitor using various tile configurations. Only the IBM T221-DG5 and IDTech MD22292B5 support the use of dual-link DVI ports through an external converter box. Many systems using these monitors use at least two DVI connectors to send video to the monitor. These DVI connectors can be from the same graphics card, different graphics cards, or even different computers. Motion across the tile boundary(ies) can show screen tearing if the DVI links are not synchronized. The display panel can be updated at a speed between 0Hz and 41Hz (48Hz for the IBM T221-DG5, -DGP, and IDTech MD22292B5). The refresh rate of the video signal can be higher than 41Hz (or 48Hz) but the monitor will not update the display any faster even if graphics card(s) do so.
In June 2001, WQUXGA was introduced in the IBM T220 LCD monitor using a LCD panel built by IDTech. LCD displays that support WQUXGA resolution include: IBM T220, IBM T221, Iiyama AQU5611DTBK, ViewSonic VP2290, ADTX MD22292B, and IDTech MD22292 (models B0, B1, B2, B5, C0, C2). IDTech was the original equipment manufacturer which sold these monitors to ADTX, IBM, Iiyama, and ViewSonic. However, none of the WQUXGA monitors (IBM, ViewSonic, Iiyama, ADTX) are in production anymore: they had prices that were well above even the higher end displays used by graphic professionals, and the lower refresh rates, 41Hz and 48Hz, made them less attractive for many applications.
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Some hardware devices, smartphones in particular, use non-standard resolutions for their displays. Still, their aspect ratio or one of the dimensions is often derived from one of the standards. Many of them have bend edges, rounded corners, notches or islands for sensors, which may make some pixels invisible or unused.
After having used VGA-based resolutions HVGA () and "Retina" DVGA () for several years in their iPhone and iPod products with a screen diagonal of 9cm or 3.5 inches, Apple started using more exotic variants when they adopted the aspect ratio to provide a consistent pixel density across screen sizes: first with the iPhone 5(c/s) and SE 1st for 10cm or 4 inch screens, and later the 1-megapixel resolution of with the iPhone 6 (s)/7/8 and SE 2nd/3rd for 12cm or 4.7 inch screens, while devices with 14cm or 5.5 inch screens used standard with the iPhone 6 (s)/7/8 Plus.
Keeping the pixel density of previous models, the iPhone X IPhone XS and 11 Pro introduced a resolution for 15cm or 5.8 inch screens, while the IPhone XS and 11 Pro Max introduced a resolution for 17cm or 6.5 inch screens (with a notch) all at an aspect ratio of roughly or, for marketing, . Subsequent Apple smartphones and stayed with that aspect ratio but increased screen size slightly with approximately constant pixel density. The resulting resolutions have longer sides divisible by 6 and hardly rounded shorter sides:
(iPhone 11, [[Xr|iPhone Xr]]),
(12/13 (Pro), 14),
(14 (Pro), 15 Pro),
(12/13 Pro Max, 14 Plus),
(14/15 Pro Max, 15 Plus).
The only Apple smartphone models that shared an ultra-wide resolution with Android phones were the iPhone 12/13 Mini with .
Other manufacturers have also introduced phones with irregular display resolutions and aspect ratios, such as Samsung's various "Infinity" displays with = aspect ratios (Galaxy S8/S9 and A8/A9) at resolutions of and .
is a resolution used by many smartphones since 2018. It has an aspect ratio of 18:9, matching that of the [[Univisium]] film format.
Other phones feature an aspect ratio with resolutions like (e.g. S10) and (S10e).
Even wider resolutions with the same aspect ratio of as iPhones are (e.g. S24+) or (Poco M3).
Some phones have an aspect ratio of ca. at resolutions like (e.g. S10 Lite) and (e.g. S20).
Phones with foldable displays, e.g. Samsung Galaxy Z series, usually have non-systematic resolutions and aspect ratios, which are either roughly square when folded along the longer edge ( Fold) or extremely tall when folded along the smaller edge ( Flip).
Some air traffic control monitors use displays with a resolution of , with an aspect ratio of 1:1, and similar consumer monitors at resolution of are also available aimed primarily at productivity tasks.
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