OneStat.com today reported that more and more internet users choose for screen resolution 1024×768 (54%) which is the most popular screen resolution for exploring the internet. While 800×600 has fell from 32% last year down to 25% this year, it is still holds a huge share among users and so developers should still be considering these users when designing their desktop applications. Other resolutions include: 1280×1024 14.1%, 1152×864 4%, 640×480 0.6%, 1600×1200 0.8%, 1152×870 0.1%.
Most Common Screen Resolution is 1024×768 for Surfers
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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How come no stat for 1600×1024? It’s probably related to why I have to add my own modeline in X each time I install it.
Probably not much more popular than 1152×870. Around 0.1 to 0.2%, I would think.
Hey where is the two monitors choice? Well, I guess I settle for 1600×1200. Somehow I always end up as a minority, using Linux, Mozilla and high screen resolution.
But pay attention web designers. Do NOT optimize for a specific screen resolution. Make the webpage look good in any resolution.
Well … if 1600×1200 is less than 1% – I guess my Dell D800 at 1920X1200 puts me at 0.00000001%
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/latit?c=us&cs…
>> But pay attention web designers. Do NOT optimize for a specific screen resolution. Make the webpage look good in any resolution. <<
important point! and not everyone maximizes their browser window anyways.
Not all useful web browsers are graphical in nature, and it’s easy for someone like me (who uses Links as much as a GUI browser) to see which webmasters take the time to do things right and which don’t.
This site, BTW, is one that does things *very* well, at least in terms of overall presentation. 🙂
i’ve been running 1600×1200 for the last 5 years, ever since i got a monitor big enough to support it. i can’t believe the percentage is still that low.
then again, not to many people have 19″ (i know 21″ is the recommended size for 1600×1200, but 19″ does it well enough)or larger CRTs or 20-21″ LCDs (rediculously priced imho).
Kind of funny that most people running 1280×1024 probably has a 4:3 monitor.
Application designers (notably in Windows) should also test to make sure their program works properly when set for “Large Fonts”. A LOT of software cuts off words or the bottoms of letters on this setting. And when you’re using a 15″ 1600×1200 screen, you pretty much have to use this setting to make everything readable.
Until problems like this are resolved, people will resist purchasing higher-resolution screens. I chose the 1400×1050 screen for my Dell laptop over a 1600×1200 for that very reason.
i am very tired of people who design web pages just like a printed paper. the web is about accessibility and flexibility. you can’t force a design on a reader using html (for better or worse).
But pay attention web designers. Do NOT optimize for a specific screen resolution. Make the webpage look good in any resolution.
I agree for not optimising a site for a specific resolution but not with making look good in any. It’s really a pain in the ass to develop sites for low-resolution (640×480) or ultra-high resoluton (1920×1200+) screens and the userbase (about 1% max for both) ain’t worth the trouble.
By the way, I do know that there’s a difference between desktop space & resolution but the most popular OS doesn’t.
I’m sure if these stats will be posted in 2 years time, I’m sure 1280×1024 (4:3) will be common, or the 1280×768 (16:9) and for the Power user Nerd person will be 1600×1200 or a bit higher..
Plus most people will be updating their hardware (2-5 year trend) so needless to say, I think everyone is going to be wearing much need glasses by this time, or at least sitting a bit closure to your monitor..
And plus today’s video cards will support extreme resolutions, but the Monitor end of computers have been dragging alone. So that keeps people from trying new resolutions. SVGA is probably a very common standard. where as VGA used to be cool, now it’s SVGA, WXGA, etc.. More covered here (http://www.monitorworld.com/Cables/video_standards.html)
I would like to see better DVI monitors .. but the future holds the key
i’ve been running 1600×1200 for the last 5 years, ever since i got a monitor big enough to support it. i can’t believe the percentage is still that low.
The fonts are usually too small for most people. I was quite comfortable with 1600×1200 but I had switched back to 1280×1024 because my girlfriend kept complaining that everything was too small. Sure, you can set “large fonts” or use a competent window server that can dynamically adjust the DPI but pictures will still look small because of their bitmap nature.
So far on my server the most common is 800*600!
Infact when I look at any stats its 800*600
its like saying WinXP is the most used OS by web serfers. When it is actualy Win98!
“Hey where is the two monitors choice?”
There’s no point to it. Who uses a web browser stretched across _both_ monitors? It’s the most annoying thing ever, and since no pages are even set to take advantage of it, you don’t even get something extra for your troubles.
I am the biggest proponent ever of multi-monitor setups, but there’s stuff they work for, and stuff they don’t…
-Erwos
I was quite comfortable with 1600×1200 but I had switched back to 1280×1024 because my girlfriend kept complaining that everything was too small.
I hope you know that using that 5:4 resolution will result in a distorted image on your 4:3 screen. I believe the resolution you’re looking for is 1280×960.
Isn’t that the default Apple Powerbook resolution? Are there other machines that use this resolution a lot? Considering worldwide marketshare, 4% seems very high to me?
As a Mac guy, it also strikes me as a Good Thing ™, but the number still caught my eye.
shouldn’t fonts be re-scalable so that they maintain the same (sane) size?
personally i would like to have super high resolutions to get text and picturs that look like printed paper,
but as it stands the text shrinks to invisible smallness.
>Isn’t that the default Apple Powerbook resolution?
>Are there other machines that use this resolution a lot?
Of course they are. My 17″ monitor on my Celeron uses that resolution better than any other (at 80Hz no less), not just Apple.
RE: why so low?!
I hope you know that using that 5:4 resolution will result in a distorted image on your 4:3 screen. I believe the resolution you’re looking for is 1280×960.
Yeah, I know that. I do use 1280×960 in MS Windows but 1280×1024 looks better in Linux/GNOME for some reason or another. The left/right sides are “compressed” in 1280×960. Perhaps that’s because I have a CRT monitor with an aperture grille (NEC MultiSync FE991SB). I don’t have this problem in 1600×1200. I’m aware of the Screen Resolution applet in GNOME that is user-specific but I can’t set “1600×1200” in my xorg.conf. GDM will be in 1600×1200 if I do…
—
RE: 1152 x 864 at 4%?
Isn’t that the default Apple Powerbook resolution? Are there other machines that use this resolution a lot?
I was using that resolution on my old 17″ CRT.
Back when I still used windows, 1152×864 was my resolution of choice for YEARS. It just looked the best on my box.
When I switched to Linux full time I switched to 1280×1024 though. Linux looks better at this resolution, well, on my box with my drivers, vid card, and monitor anyway.
of Notebooks. This notebook is 1024×768. A lot of my co-workers use 1024×768 too. I’m not really sure why other than possible eye-sight.
For the last two years, I surf on the web only using windows around 800px wide on 1280px wide screens (what ever OS – WiXP, OSX, Linux, BSD, etc …). This is good enough and I can switch between differents applications more easily.
Are they lot of people still browsing fullscreen ?
I like 1600×1200, but because of the adjustments I have to make to my moniter to make it look ok in windows, I can’t make it look ok in Linux. So I just set it back to good ol’ 1200×1024.
shouldn’t fonts be re-scalable so that they maintain the same (sane) size?
Yes, by adjusting the DPI. For the OS to do this automatically, it needs to know the physical dimensions of the screen. Or, any semi-decent OS should let you specify it manually.
The big problem is a *lot* of applications hardwire their font sizes and/or use fonts that can’t be scaled. Websites are even worse for this sort of thing.
Most of these polls get it wrong every time.
They ask what the screen resolution/screen size users use to browse web pages. That’s not what they should be asking! They should ask what the browser size is or what the browser viewport size is.
I can’t believe people can stand browsing in fullscreen. I tend to do too much and watch too many things onscreen at one time. I can’t have an app taking the entire screen up!
I prefer websites to be flexible and adjust to any screensize above 640×480. I hate sites that force a fixed size greater than 800×600! Space hoggers and bloatmongers.. all of them!
Isn’t that the default Apple Powerbook resolution? Are there other machines that use this resolution a lot? Considering worldwide marketshare, 4% seems very high to me?
It’s the “optimal” resolution for most 19″ CRTs and is also often used by people “overdriving” their 17″ CRTs. The increasing popularity of 17″ and 19″ CRTs on consumer machines is probably driving this trend.
I run my desktop Linux box in 1280×1024, but I never, ever, maximise my browser window. I always keep it about 1/2 – 2/3 the screen so I still have some real-estate for other programs to be there.
(Weird thing is, I work with Windows, where I’ll keep everything maximised all the time, yet when I’m Linux I prefer everything to be non-maximised. Weird.)
I think a lot of the reason why the lower resolutions remain the most people is because lots of people don’t really even know what their screen resolution is, much less how to change it. Case in point, my mother uses 800×600. She has no idea what that means or how to change it. She doesn’t even know how to change her wallpaper unless I show her and she forgets as soon as it’s changed….
EDIT: I meant “the most popular”, not “people”.
Hi Eugenia,
I’ve been meaning to mention something to you directly, but in seems on-topic here:
The layout of your site needs resizing the font size (which is expected, most sites do). However, when I maximize windows, the content still only shows up in a narrow band in the center. Is it possible to grow the center to expand the full width?
Like another poster, I have a laptop with 1900×1200 (I think it’s actually 1260 on Windows). Anyway, as long as I use QT apps, the fonts are OK (and configureable). But, if I try to run gtk apps, the fonts become illegible.
Anyone know how to make the gtk apps display with better fonts? Compare for yourself:
http://orca.st.usm.edu/~dcrotche/OSNEWS/qt.png
http://orca.st.usm.edu/~dcrotche/OSNEWS/gtk.png
I realize I can increase the fontsize of the html in mozilla. But, I’m referring to the menu items.
run 1600×1200 if could but my monitor doesn’t support that resolution
Ive been using 1280 x 1024 on my 15″ monitor for years, anything else makes the text look too big, and I havent tried any higher….because the monitor wont support it
…1400×1050? C’mon, there’ve got to be *some* SXGA+ users out there!
Anyone know how to make the gtk apps display with better fonts? Compare for yourself:
The easiest solution I found to your problem (I have it too) is to run gnome-font-properties and close it when you start X. You could also start and kill it after a few seconds in your .xinitrc.
RE: 1900×1200
I believe that GTK+ applications are not using the DPI resolution of the X server like QT do… Well, that’s what I believe, given that you can change manually that resolution in the Font Preferences applet coming with GNOME.
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RE: Grr… stupid polls
They ask what the screen resolution/screen size users use to browse web pages. That’s not what they should be asking! They should ask what the browser size is or what the browser viewport size is.
Um… Did you actually read the article? They did not made a poll. Their software queried the web browser of millions of people. I don’t think they can get the viewport size that way. Anyway, it would be pretty much pointless for them to ask what viewport size are we using as most people probably doesn’t even know what it is….
I can’t believe people can stand browsing in fullscreen. I tend to do too much and watch too many things onscreen at one time. I can’t have an app taking the entire screen up!
I do… and everybody I know do. I use multiple virtual screens, though.
RE: 1900×1200
I believe that GTK+ applications are not using the DPI resolution of the X server like QT do… Well, that’s what I believe, given that you can change manually that resolution in the Font Preferences applet coming with GNOME.
—
RE: Grr… stupid polls
They ask what the screen resolution/screen size users use to browse web pages. That’s not what they should be asking! They should ask what the browser size is or what the browser viewport size is.
Um… Did you actually read the article? They did not made a poll. Their software queried the web browser of millions of people. I don’t think they can get the viewport size that way. Anyway, it would be pretty much pointless for them to ask what viewport size are we using as most people probably doesn’t even know what it is….
I can’t believe people can stand browsing in fullscreen. I tend to do too much and watch too many things onscreen at one time. I can’t have an app taking the entire screen up!
I do… and everybody I know do. I use multiple virtual screens, though.
I use it on my 19″ crt. I had to make a modeline to make it work on the linux nvidia-driver, and that earned me an increase in refresh rate from 75hz to 87hz too
I used to run it at 1280×960@85hz, with an optimized modeline I can run it at 95hz. A good tip is to use gtf to generate your modeline and make sure sure the horizontal sync output of gtf doesn’t exceed the maximum supported by your monitor.
I can’t believe people can stand browsing in fullscreen. I tend to do too much and watch too many things onscreen at one time. I can’t have an app taking the entire screen up!
I agree with Wrawrat I always browse fullscreen and everyone else I know does too. It’s never a problem in Linux for me with virtual desktops though. I have 6 and I’m fine (One for browser, one for email, another for amsn and xmms and three others for word processing or whatever I’m doing at the time.)
I love my 20 inch LCD ViewSonic 😀 Cheaper and better video performance then Apple’s offerings, same cost (at the time of purchase) as Apple’s 17 inch. Oi Oi.
“its like saying WinXP is the most used OS by web serfers. When it is actualy Win98!”
No, it isn’t:
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/may04_pie.gif
I run 1600×1200 but run my web browser in an 800px wide window. Very few sites these days seem to have tourble with that.
My galeon window is 619x690px, with ~100px of menus and toolbars on the top, another 100px of tabs on the right side, and about 24px on the bottom for the status bar. So I’m left with a browser space of about 520x565px. Though I X is at 1280×1024. I have an old Sony laptop that I still get good use out of but the screen only supports 800×600 so I browse maximized, but all too often I get frustrated with how little vertically I can see, but I can find a good balance of toolbars and browser space. I just don’t like browsing full screen on either, so that is not a fix for my laptop gripe.
Eugenia, osnews looks great, btw.
by viviting the web stats on a typical web page. It usualy still says that win98 is still ahead. Butu then again most people use older machines.
They shouldn’t go beyond expecting 800×600 of anyone’s screen. Many people prefer not to give a large amount of screen realestate over to the web browser. I’d be annoyed if I had to maximize my browser window…
for us old folks with not so great eye sight i prefer 800X600 with nice BIG TTF fonts
I’m very sure that my CRT monitor here has a 4:3 aspect ratio, yet 1280×960 distorts things in the strange way (I can notice that squares are stretched upwards). Hence, I run 1280×1024. Perhaps it’s not really 4:3, I don’t know.
However, when I maximize windows, the content still only shows up in a narrow band in the center. Is it possible to grow the center to expand the full width?
I don’t think that’s so simple. Imagine how wide, and hence unreadable, each line of text would be at something like 1600×1200.
When I design sites I like to play around with the width, min-width, and max-width elements. That way you can make pages fill up, but not too much in the case of high resolutions. Of course, min/max-width isn’t supported in IE..
“I’m very sure that my CRT monitor here has a 4:3 aspect ratio, yet 1280×960 distorts things in the strange way (I can notice that squares are stretched upwards). Hence, I run 1280×1024. Perhaps it’s not really 4:3, I don’t know.”
Mine is also 4:3 but I run 1280×1024 because it doesn’t remember settings for 1280×960, and 1600×1200 it runs at 60Hz which is unusable. Oh well, time to move into a new monitor soon
.
1600×1200 on 15″ – are you using a magnifying glass?
I have the same but on a 21″ monitor (not LCD). They are down to $400-500 now. I often have 2 web pages side-by-side – dragging links from one to the other thereby avoiding the paging/tabbing back and forth. It works because a lot of pages are only 800 wide. But some are 1024 wide and I have to scroll. In think HDTV and Computer monitors/LCDs eventually will become one. HDTV is 1920×1080 e.g. 16:9 which also is movie format whereas current monitors are 4:3. If that happens then maybe the common web page width will change to 960?
Im running ,,The Most Popular” resolution. Im running mostly fullscreen VIm & and a browser. There’s not mutch on the screen, and I feel confortable with this resolution. There’s no reason to make my screen ,,biger” just to incrase fonts size. 😉
“Our software is the ultimate solution for each webmaster to measure screen resolutions of your website visitors,” said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of OneStat.com.
Since browsers don’t send your screen resolution as part of an http get request, this must depend on some sort of client-side code to discover the user’s screen resolution. Probably an ActiveX control. If that’s really how their study works, it would be more accurate to say “Most common screen resolution is 1024×768 for idiots who run MSIE with wide-open security settings and accept unsigned code from internet marketing firms”
No, you don’t need an ActiveX control. There is a Javascript code to find out screen resolution both for Explorer and Mozilla/Netscape and probably for Konqueror too. “MSIE idiots” as you call them represent 95% of the market.
… and viewport size is also available through javascript. It’s just that no stats site will bother registering it.
Here is a good reason for OSNEWS to turn off the font size.
@Richard Steiner
80×33 – pah! I run links in glorious 120×42 widescreen! I agree this site is by and large pretty good in a text browser.
… why it is so popular might be too that most laptops come with 1024×768. like mine too
my ibm work laptop has though 1400×1050 which is nicer but i claim 1024×768 is most common in laptops.
good design is resolution independent. end of story.
“Shouldn’t fonts be re-scalable so that they maintain the same (sane) size?
Personally I would like to have super high resolutions to get text and picturs that look like printed paper, but as it stands the text shrinks to invisible smallness.”
Any decent OS should allow you to set the sizes of the default fonts used in file requesters etc.
Any decent browser has a setup panel in which you can set the fonts and sizes used for various HTML sizes. That way, you can use the higher resolution to get text of the same size (in mm) but higher quality.
By Fed (IP: —.b.003.brs.iprimus.net.au)
Ive been using 1280 x 1024 on my 15″ monitor for years, anything else makes the text look too big, and I havent tried any higher….because the monitor wont support it
***
1280 x 1024 on a 15″ monitor? Have you needed to buy glasses yet? If not, you will.
“Important point! and not everyone maximizes their browser window anyways.”
I regularly look around a university computer lab, where almost everyone is on the web, and see that nobody is using a maximised window. So I agree that what you need statistics on is window size, not screen resolution.
Why did they not report that? They need to get out with their clipboards and visit some libraries (or “learning resource centres”), offices and Internet cafes.
‘Ive been using 1280 x 1024 on my 15″ monitor for years, anything else makes the text look too big, and I havent tried any higher….because the monitor wont support it
‘
Ouch! I wouldn’t set a 17″ monitor’s resolution that high. I’ve always though that 1024×768 is the absolute maximum that’s practical on a 15″ monitor.
I run a 19″ at 1280×960 and a 21″ at 1600×1200, but I don’t think I’ve ever maximised a browser window on either monitor. I run Opera full screen as it’s an MDI app, but I usually have multiple web pages arranged or tiled. That way I can more easily see what pages are open and switch between them more quickly. Most of the time individual pages only have about 800×600 pixels of space, that’s roughly the size of the window I’m typing this into. It gets on my nerves when I have to resize windows because of badly designed sites.
Regardless of screen resolution statistics, web designers should be creating sites for all resolutions. What about PDAs and mobile phones? If they’re ever going to take off as mobile web browsing solutions, the web needs to be designed to be as usable as possible on their tiny screens.
Only poor designers (or good designers working for bozos) produce web sites that are tied to specific screen resolutions. Unless you’re specifically ordered to create such a buggy website, STOP DOING IT!
It forces the user to reconfigure their system to match yours, which is ridiculous. Especially when you consider folks with vision problems or whatever you need to have their systems set up in a specific way. And it ticks off the rest of us who don’t surf with their browser windows maximized.
– chrish
I used to be a religious nut about designing everything for 640×480 resolution – in fact, the effective resolution back when I started web design was 611 pixels for Netscape Navigator.
These days, 800×600 and up is fine.
So long as 640×480 can still view most the content, that’s fine by me.
Ouch! I wouldn’t set a 17″ monitor’s resolution that high. I’ve always though that 1024×768 is the absolute maximum that’s practical on a 15″ monitor.
Why not?
My laptop has 15″ lcd and has 1400×1050.
My workstation has 17″ and has 1600×1200.
When I try to work with my another laptop which has only 1024×768, it feels so… so… small
No space to do *anything* [expect games/coding/dvd’s]
Why so low?
I’m half blind man, Give me a break. I don’t have have to run anything larger than 1024×768 just because everyone else is doing it.
You guys who run at anything higher better be glad you got good eye sight, some of us are not that lucky.
Of course, in Windows XP, anything below 1024×768 just makes everything look cluttered. The bulky default interface is eye candy, and most people like to keep it that way. I’d say about 20-30% of the screen is taken up in 800×600 because of that theme. Same goes for SuSE. Mandrake and Xandros (and a few others) have the right idea of keeping the interface clean and easy.
Why should we care what screen resolution people use is? Why not just specify everything in ratios?
At home I don’t have much of a choice. The native resolution of my 19″ LCD is 1280×1024. I guess that means that it’s a 5:4 display?