A display resolution standard is a commonly used width and height dimension (display resolution) of an electronic visual display device, measured in pixels. 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 initialism 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 4:3, 16:10 (equal to 8:5), 16:9, and 21:9. 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".

Table of display resolution standards

+ Graphic display resolutions by vertical resolution and aspect ratio Height (px) Width (px) and standard classification if availableFullWideUltra-wide (1.25) (1.) (1.5) (1.6) (1.) (1.775–1.) (1.) (2.0–2.) (2.–2.4) (3.) 120 160 QQVGA 240 144 192 160 213 240 HQVGA 320 240 320 QVGA 360 WQVGA 384 WQVGA 400 WQVGA 432 FWQVGA () 480 320 426 480 HVGA 640 480 600 640 VGA 720 WVGA 768 WVGA 800 WVGA 848, 854 FWVGA 960 FWVGA 540 675 720 960 qHD 1080 576 720 PAL 768 PALPAL is a colour video encoding system, rather than a display standard 1024 WSVGA 1152 600 750 800 SVGA 1024 WSVGA (≈) 1200 640 800 960 DVGA 1136 1280 720 900 960 1280 HD 1440 768 960 1024 XGA 1152 WXGA 1280 WXGA 1360, 1366 (F)WXGA 1536 800 1000 1280 WXGA 1600 864 1080 1152 XGA+ 1280 WXGA+ 1732 900 1152 1440 WXGA+ 1600 HD+ 1800 960 1200 1280 SXGA− 1440 FWXGA+ 1920 1024 1280 SXGA 1536 DXGA 1600 WSXGA () 2048 1050 1313 1400 SXGA+ 1680 WSXGA+ 2100 1080 1280 () 1350 (5:4) 1440 1920 (F)HD 2048 DCI 2K 2160 2560 UWFHD 3840 DFHD 1152 1440 QPAL (5:4) 1536QPAL 2048 QWXGA 2304 1200 1500 1600 UXGA 1800 1920 WUXGA 2000 2400 1280 1600 2560 1440 1800 2160 2560 (W)QHD 2880 3440 UWQHD () 5120 DQHD 1536 1920 2048 QXGA 3072 1600 2000 2560 WQXGA 3200 3840 UW4K (21.6:9) 1620 2025 2880 3K 3240 1800 2250 2880 WQXGA+ 3200 QHD+ 3600 1920 2048 2560 QSXGA 3200 WQSXGA () 4096 2100 2625 2800 QSXGA+ 4200 2160 2700 3840 4K UHD 4096 DCI 4K 4320 5120 UW5K 7680 DUHD 2400 3000 3200 QUXGA 3840 WQUXGA 4800 2880 3200 5120 5K 5760 4320 5250 7680 8K UHD 8640 10240 10K Full Wide Ultra-wide

Aspect ratio

The favored aspect ratio of mass-market display industry products has changed gradually from 4:3, then to 16:10, then to 16:9, and has now changed to 18:9 for smartphones. The 4:3 aspect ratio generally reflects older products, especially the era of the cathode ray tube (CRT). The 16:10 aspect ratio had its largest use in the 1995–2010 period, and the 16:9 aspect ratio tends to reflect post-2010 mass-market computer monitor, laptop, and entertainment products displays. On CRTs, there was often a difference between the aspect ratio of the computer resolution and the aspect ratio of the display causing non-square pixels (e.g. or on a 4:3 display).

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 plasma displays) 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.

High-definition

+ HD-based display resolutions Name H (px) V (px) H:V H × V (Mpx) VESA qHD 960 540 16:9 0.518 HD 1280 720 16:9 0.922 HD+ 1600 900 16:9 1.440 FHD 2K 1920 1080 16:9 2.074 (W)QHD 2560 1440 16:9 3.686 QHD+ 3200 1800 16:9 5.760 UHD 4K 3840 2160 16:9 8.294 5K 5120 2880 16:9 14.746 8K 7680 4320 16:9 33.178 16K 15360 8640 16:9 132.710

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) Note: qHD is quarter HD; QHD is quad HD

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 P50. 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.

=== (HD)===

The HD or 720p resolution of pixels stems from high-definition television (HDTV), where it originally used 50 or 60 frames per second. With its 16:9 aspect ratio, it is exactly 2 times the width and times the height of 4:3 VGA (), which shares its aspect ratio and 480 line count with NTSC. HD, therefore, has exactly 3 times as many pixels as VGA, i.e. almost 1 megapixel.

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", 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.

(HD+)

The HD+ resolution of pixels in a 16:9 aspect ratio is often referred to as "900p".

(FHD)

FHD (Full HD) is the resolution used by the 1080p and 1080i HDTV video formats. It has a 16:9 aspect ratio and 2,073,600 total pixels, i.e. very close to 2 megapixels, and is exactly 50% larger than 720p HD () in each dimension for a total of 2.25 times as many pixels. When using interlacing, the uncompressed bandwidth requirements are similar to those of 720p at the same field rate (a 12.5% increase, as one field of 1080i video is 1,036,800 pixels, and one frame of 720p video is 921,600 pixels). Although the number of pixels is the same for 1080p and 1080i, the effective resolution is somewhat lower for the interlaced format, as it is necessary to use some vertical low-pass filtering to reduce temporal artifacts such as interline twitter.

Sometimes, this resolution is referred to simply as HD. This 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.

(DCI 2K)

DCI 2K is a standardized format established by the Digital Cinema Initiatives consortium in 2005 for 2K video projection. This format has a resolution of (2.2 megapixels) with an aspect ratio of (1.8) or roughly "". This is the native resolution for DCI-compliant 2K digital projectors – active displays with this resolution are rare. The display aspect ratio is frequently wider than the native one, requiring non-square pixels.

(UWFHD)