The
graphics display resolution describes the width and height dimensions of a display, such as a
computer monitor, in
pixels. Certain combinations of width and height are standardized and typically given a name and an
acronym that is descriptive of its dimensions. A higher display resolution means that displayed content appears sharper and smaller (depending on the physical size of the display).
Video graphics array
VGA (480p)
WVGA (480p)
Wide VGA or
WVGA an
abbreviation for
Wide Video Graphics Array is any
display resolution with the same 480
pixel height as
VGA but wider, such as 800×480, 848×480, or 854×480. It is a common resolution among
LCD projectors and later portable and hand-held internet-enabled devices (such as
MID and
Netbooks) as it is capable of rendering web sites designed for an 800px-wide window in full page-width. A well-known example is the
ASUS Eee PC 700 series, but also the
Nokia 770,
N800,
N810 and
N900 models.
As of 2010, high-end mobile phones with WVGA display resolution are becoming more common such as the:
HTC Desire / (HD)
HTC EVO 4G
Google Nexus One
Motorola Droid/Milestone A853
Samsung Wave
Samsung Galaxy S
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10
HTC Droid Incredible
FWVGA (480p)
FWVGA an
abbreviation for
Full Wide Video Graphics Array referring to a display resolution of 854×480 pixels, rounded up from 853.333…. (480 x = 853.333…. Since a pixel must be a whole number, rounding up to 854 ensures inclusion of the entire image.) 854×480 is approximately the resolution of
anamorphically "un-squeezed" NTSC DVD widescreen video and considered a "safe" resolution that would not crop any of the image. It's called
Full WVGA as it represents true 16:9
aspect ratio which can display
High-definition video without cropping (i.e. full width, albeit with considerable
reduction in size.) .
As of 2010 high-end mobile phones with FWVGA display resolution are:
Motorola Droid
Motorola Droid X
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
QVGA (240p)
The Quarter Video Graphics Array (also known as Quarter VGA, QVGA, or qVGA) is a popular term for a computer display with 320×240 display resolution. QVGA displays are most often used in mobile phones, PDAs, and some handheld game consoles. Often the displays are in a “portrait” orientation (i.e., taller than they are wide, as opposed to “landscape”) and are referred to as 240×320.
The name comes from having a quarter of the 640×480 maximum resolution of the original IBM VGA display technology, which became a de facto industry standard in the late 1980s. QVGA is not a standard mode offered by the VGA 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 digital cameras with video recording capability, and some mobile phones. Each frame is an image of 320×240 pixels. QVGA video is typically recorded at 15 or 30 frames per second. 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 4 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 SI prefixes like k/K and m/M, but this is not a consistent usage.
WQVGA (240p)
Wide QVGA or
WQVGA is any
display resolution having the same height in pixels as
QVGA, but wider. This definition is consistent with other 'wide' versions of computer displays.
Since QVGA is 320 pixels wide and 240 pixels high (aspect ratio of 4:3), a WQVGA screen might be 384 pixels wide for 8:5 aspect ratio, 400 for 5:3, or 432 for 9:5. As with WVGA, ratios of N:9 are not practical because 240/9 is not an integer.
WQVGA has also been used to describe displays that are not 240 pixels high, for example Sixteenth HD1080 displays which are 270 or 272 pixels high or displays like 480×272. This may be due to QVGA having the nearest screen height.
WQVGA resolutions are common used in touch screen mobile phones, such as 240×400, 240×432, and 240×480. Other devices like Apple iPod nano uses a WQVGA screen, 240x376 pixels.
HQVGA (160p)
Half-QVGA denotes a display screen resolution of 240×160 or 160×240 pixels, as seen on the
Game Boy Advance. This resolution is half of
#QVGA, which is itself a quarter of
VGA, which is 640×480 pixels.
QQVGA (120p)
Quarter-QVGA (QQVGA or qqVGA) denotes a resolution of 160×120 or 120×160
pixels, usually used in displays of handheld devices. The term Quarter-QVGA signifies a resolution of one fourth the number of pixels in a
#QVGA display (half the number of vertical and half the number of horizontal pixels) which itself has one fourth the number of pixels in a
VGA display.
The acronym qqVGA may be used to distinguish quarter from quad, just like qVGA.
HVGA (320p)
HVGA (
Half-size VGA) screens have 480x320 pixels (3:2 aspect ratio), 480x360 pixels (4:3 aspect ratio), 480x272 (~16:9 aspect ratio) or 640×240 pixels (8:3 aspect ratio).
The former is used by a variety of
PDA devices, starting with the
Sony Clié PEG-NR70 in 2002, and standalone PDAs by
Palm. The latter was used by a variety of
Handheld PC devices. VGA resolution is 640x480.
Examples of devices that use HVGA include The Blackberry Bold 9000, the Apple iPhone, the Palm Pre, the LG GW620 Eve, the Samsung M900 Moment, HTC Hero and HTC Dream.
Texas Instruments is producing the DLP Pico Projector that supports HVGA resolution.
HVGA was the highest resolution supported on the first stages of Google Android (up until release 1.5). Other higher and lower resolutions are now 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, leading to objects having jagged edges on the top and bottom if the edges were not anti-aliased.
WSVGA (576p)
The Wide version of SVGA is known as WSVGA, featured on
Ultra-Mobile PCs. On most
netbooks, the wide is either 1024x600px resolution or 1024x576px.
Extended graphics array
XGA (768p)
XGA, the
Extended Graphics Array, is an
IBM display standard introduced in 1990. Today, it is the most common appellation of the 1024×768
pixels
display resolution, but the official definition is broader than that. It was not a new and improved replacement for
Super VGA, but rather became one particular subset of the broad range of capabilities covered under the "Super VGA" umbrella.
The initial version of XGA expanded upon IBM's VGA, adding support for two resolutions:
800×600 pixels with high color (16 bits per pixel; i.e.. 65,536 colors).
1024×768 pixels with a palette of 256 colors (8 bits per pixel)
Like its predecessor (the IBM 8514), XGA offered fixed function hardware acceleration to offload processing of 2D drawing tasks. XGA and 8514 could offload line-draw, bitmap-copy (bitblt), and color-fill operations from the host CPU. XGA's acceleration was faster than 8514's, and more comprehensive in that it supported more drawing primitives and XGA's 16 bits per pixel (65,536 color) display-mode.
XGA-2 added Truecolor mode for 640×480, high color mode and higher refresh rates for 1024×768, and improved accelerator performance. All XGA modes have a aspect ratio rounded to 8 pixels.
XGA should not be confused with EVGA (Extended Video Graphics Array), a contemporaneous VESA standard.
WXGA (768p)
The
HXGA display standard and its derivatives are a relatively new (as of 2005) standard in display technology. Their high pixel counts and heavy display hardware requirements mean that there is currently no
monitor that singly displays at these levels. These terms are currently relegated to the highest-end scientific and professional
digital camera hardware. An example can be found in
HIPerSpace of a case where multiple
WQXGA displays must be stacked to exceed HXGA or WHXGA resolution.
There was one series of WQUXGA displays in the consumer marketplace, but it was discontinued in Q2 of 2005. That series of displays had prices which were well above even the higher end displays used by graphic professionals. In addition, the lower refresh rates, 41 Hz and 48 Hz, made them less attractive for many applications.
HXGA (3072p)
HXGA an
abbreviation for
Hex
[adecatuple] E
xtended
Graphics
Array is a
display standard that can support a
resolution of 4096×3072
pixels (or 3200 pixels) with a
4:3 aspect ratio. The name comes from the fact that it has sixteen (
hexadecatuple) times as many pixels as an
XGA display. As of 2005, this is the highest experimental and non-widescreen resolution, and there are no devices that can render images at such high resolution, but several digital cameras can record such images. A related display size is WHXGA, which is a
wide screen version.
WHXGA (3072p)
WHXGA an
abbreviation for
Wide
Hex
[adecatuple] E
xtended
Graphics
Array is a
display standard that can support a
resolution of roughly 5120×3200
pixels with a
16:10 aspect ratio. The name comes from the fact that it is a wide version of HXGA, which in turn has sixteen (
hexadecatuple) times as many pixels as an
XGA display. As of 2007, there are only high-end digital cameras capable of rendering images at this resolution. It would require four
WQXGA devices to display at this resolution. A resolution of 5120×3072 should, in theory, also qualify as WHXGA, if such a display were to be made.
HSXGA (4096p)
HSXGA, an
abbreviation for
Hex
[adecatuple] Super E
xtended
Graphics
Array, is a
display standard that can support a
resolution of roughly 5120×4096 pixels with a
5:4 aspect ratio. The name comes from the fact that it has sixteen (
hexadecatuple) times as many pixels as an
SXGA display.
As of January 2007 there is no display with a maximum resolution 5120×4096, But if this display were to exist, it would have a maximum resolution ten (10) times that of HD (Full HD, True HD, 1080p).
WHSXGA (4096p)
WHSXGA, an
abbreviation for
Wide
Hex
[adecatuple] Super E
xtended
Graphics
Array, is a
display standard that can support a
resolution up to 6400 x 4096
pixels, assuming a
1.56:1 aspect ratio. The name comes from the fact that it has sixteen (
hexadecatuple) times as many pixels as an
WSXGA display.
HUXGA (4800p)
HUXGA, an
abbreviation for
Hex
[adecatuple] Ultra E
xtended
Graphics
Array, is a
display standard that can support a
resolution of roughly 6400×4800 pixels with a
4:3 aspect ratio. The name comes from the fact that it has sixteen (
hexadecatuple) times as many pixels as an
UXGA display.
WHUXGA (4800p)
WHUXGA an
abbreviation for
Wide
Hex
[adecatuple] Ultra E
xtended
Graphics
Array, is a
display standard that can support a
resolution up to 7680 × 4800
pixels, assuming a
16:10 aspect ratio. The name comes from the fact that it has sixteen (
hexadecatuple) times as many pixels as a
WUXGA display. A WHUXGA image consists of 36,864,000 pixels (approximately 37 megapixels).
A monitor of 7680 × 4320 would also qualify as a WHUXGA display.
UHDTV video requires a display of similar resolution (7680 × 4320) for properly displaying UHDTV content, which is 16 times the resolution (four times the horizontal resolution and four times the vertical resolution) of 1080p "Full HD".
Multiples of 720p and 1080p
WQHD (1440p)
The
WQHD, or
Wide Quad High Definition, display standard is a resolution of 2560 x 1440
pixels in a 16:9
aspect ratio. It is four times the resolution of the
720p display standard, hence the name. Their high pixel counts and heavy display hardware requirements mean that there are currently few
LCD monitors which have pixel counts at these levels. It is a resolution found in some displays, such as the Dell UltraSharp U2711, NEC MultiSync PA271W, and the 27"
iMac.
It was in autumn 2006, that Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) announced a 47" 1440p LCD panel to be released in Q2 2007; the panel was planned to finally debut at FPD International 2008 in a form on autostereoscopic 3D display.
QFHD (2160p)
QFHD (
Quad Full High Definition) is a
non-standard display resolution of 3840 x 2160
pixels arranged in a 16:9
aspect ratio. It is four times the resolution of the
1080p display standard, hence the name.
In early 2008, Samsung revealed a proof-of-concept 82-inch LCD TV set capable of this resolution and LG has demonstrated an 84-inch display.
Eyevis produces a 56" LCD named EYELCD 56 QHD HD while Toshiba makes the P56QHD, and Sony the SRM-L560, all which can deliver a resolution of 3840 x 2160.
Comparison chart
References
See also
VGA
720p
1080p
4K resolution
320x240 (festival), a festival involving movies made in the resolution.
Mode 13h and Mode X, video modes in VGA (including VGA-compatible and successors to VGA, such as VESA) hardware with a resolution profile similar to QVGA
Category:Computer display standards
