What is your main monitor’s resolution? Take our poll inside!Note: Javascript required to view and vote for the poll.
Poll: What is your Monitor’s Resolution?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I voted but don’t see any poll results….
I know, there is a bug with the poll engine that we outsource. I am investigating.
My monitor is capable of 1920×1440, but my video card is usually set to 1400×1050. Should the pole be labeled “What resolution do you use?”
Same here… But I’ll drop my comment anyway.
I prefer to use 1024×768. This has to do with the fact that a) my iBook doesn’t support any higher and b) because my other 2 monitors can’t go much higher either.
I have a 17″ crt on one of my x86’s, but it only does 1280×1024 at 60hz– and 60hz is a one way trip to hell for your eyes. So that monitor stays at 1024×768 at 85hz. My Bebox86 uses my superb almost-flatscreen 15″ crt, also at 1024×768.
Yes, I prefer my 15″ crt over my 17″ crt. That 17″ crt is less flat than a football so it’s a pain to use, really. That’s why that one is on my *nix box while the good monitor is on the Bebox86 and my SPARC machine.
And in the end, I also simply prefer 1024×768. Does the job for me
.
I have lots of monitors here, but I mostly use my Sony 21″, at 1600×1200.
Mostly 1600×1200
My monitor can’t go higher than 1280×1024 at a visible refresh rate. Someday, when I have $200 to blow on a nice new 19″ Viewsonic I’ll be running 1600×1200 or 1900xsomething.
I run 2 19″ Sun tubes at 1280×1024, so that makes 2560×1024, right?
I run 2 19″ Sun tubes at 1280×1024, so that makes 2560×1024, right?
Meh, according to my TI-83 it makes 2560×2048
Because unlike 1600×1200, it doesn’t screw up my radio reception.
At 19″ CRT, you don’t want to go more than 1280×1024 at 85 Hz. Most good 19″ CRTs will do 1600×1200, but at 75 Hz, and your eyes will hurt. If you want 1600×1200 get a good 21″ CRT or a 20″ LCD.
Strange.. 1280×1024 is there, but not 1280×960 which is a correct 4:3 resolution. I know it’s more common, but I have really not understood where 1280×1024 came from.. Anyone here knows?
— Vecchio
Missing option: 832×624 (yes I voted “Other”)
That’s not a missing option. It’s a *very rare* resolution. 512×384 too.
Actually he was right
. 1024 is the height and, even with two monitors, the height is still 1024.
I use dual monitors both at 1280×1024.
My favorite reso 1280×960@19″CRT is missing, on LCD my fav is 1600×1200 (or even 1920×1080 when i can afford maybe soon
waheey we won!!
people, please don’t get on my nerves, each time we have a poll many will start crying “this or that is missing”. No, they are not missing. Only the most popular options will get displayed. The rest, are under the “other” option.
Don’t want to spoil anyone’s party, but what’s the point of this poll? Isn’t it easier to simply take a look at the site’s resolution stats and publish them (along with OS and browser stats). That, IMHO, would be far more relevant and interesting.
I have a very strong aversion to using CRTs. While they still have superior contrast, brightness and a better pixel reaction time than LCDs, I find the idea of staring at a “subtractive flashlight” easier on the eyes than a “phosphoresant cathode ray tube”.
For some reason I find myself going back to 1024 x 768 no matter what my hardware supports. Can any one suggest a scientific reason why my eyes prefer this? It may be because of font and icon size. Smaller than 1024 x 768 Desktop defaults just make everything too small. Rather than increase the text size I just go with my favorite resolution.
The stats of our external statistics site only lists 5-6 common resolutions. I wanted a better breakdown. Besides, polls are fun.
1280 on the main one, 1600 on the second one.
>Can any one suggest a scientific reason why my eyes prefer this?
You are simply accustom to this. You are used to it. If your monitor is a 17″ and it can do 1152×864 on 80 Hz or above, go with it. If you have a 19″, go for 1280×1024. Just make sure that you never go below 80 Hz (on CRTs).
1400×1050 on my Thinkpad – i looks so crisp and clean – “14.1”
1280×1024 on my desktop -18″
the smaller screen has righer resolution is okay
since if u are using a laptop u care usually sit closer to the screen
My resolution is 38×111, and I can’t vote without JavaScript.
Come on. This is osnews.
Workstation at home office: 1280×1024 on a brilliant Philips 17″ TFT.
Laptop: 1024×768 (12″ built-in TFT) and 1024×768 (15″ crappy TFT at my biggest customer).
On my G4 Powerbook.
It seems that 17″ TFTs are catching on (as of now, 1280×1024 is the most popular option). One thing is interesting about how the additional space (compared to 1024×768, which used to be the most popular resolution) is used.
The few people I have watched at their computer with a high res, as well as myself, tend to not fullscreen their apps anymore with 1280×1024, whereas on 1024×768 apps almost always run fullscreen.
Is your webbrowser fullscreen right now?
When I was younger I would have given my right arm for a very high resolution display, but now I just want 1280×1024. Any higher and eventually I get eye strain looking at the undersized components on the desktop; any lower and I find things aesthetically uncomfortable.
>Is your webbrowser fullscreen right now?
No. I always have my two most used apps open at 800×1150 (my monitor uses 1600×1200). On the left, I have my mail client and on the right, Firefox. Most sites are designed for 800×600 so I don’t miss much, and so it’s like having two monitors, on one.
1920×1200 widescreen baby!
-fooks
Indeed, since going to a 22″ head, I’ve rarely used apps fullscreen. The only thing I always do full screen is spreadsheets.
You can never have a big enough monitor for spreadsheets. And Excel needs more rows and columns!!
I would like an LCD monitor that is 17″, but with more pixels than a standard 17″ and then be able to run at the equivalent of 1024×768 and produce nice smooth lines. 1280×1024 on a 17″ is just too high for me. But being that MacOS X is supposed to be pdf oriented then it should be able to make it nice and smooth there without that evil dithering that the emulation of other modes does.
Main rig is a pc with 19″ crt and it is 1280×1024, but I also have
ibook at 1024×768
mac mini on 21″ crt at 1280×1024
dell xps laptop at 1920×1200
I like 1280×1024 on both a 19″ and a 21″ crt.
I’ve got four computers. The one I use the most is a G3 Mac Blue & White tower at work with a resolution of 1152 x 870 (that isn’t a type) on my 19″ monitor.
>Is your webbrowser fullscreen right now?
Yes, 1280×1024 but I always browse fullscreen
I’m using 1360 x 768 on my work’s 42″ NEC.
800*600 @ 75 ish
from the Other category:
Work: 3 displays – all 1024×768 – 2 crt and 1 laptop(using synergy to access)
Main home system: 3 displays, 2 @ 1280×1024 and 1 @ 1800×1440, the 2 are 17″ generic crt and the other is a 21″ Sony Trinitron
I can never have too much desktop space – NEVER!
I also run a x-terminal off the main home system with a 19″ at 1024×768, mainly because I can.
PARSEC, my main workstation has 2 x 19″ LCD’s, each running at 1280×1024, for a combined desktop resolution of 2560×1024. Once you go dual head, you won’t want to go back (unless you can afford the very expensive large widescreen displays).
Happily, the TwinView option for my nVidia card on Linux is very easy to setup and use, it works great.
from 40×24 character mode on a black and white TV to 3200×1600 on 24″ LCDs, and they all suck.
I read somewhere that 1280 x 1024 resolution came about because at that resolution and a certain color depth, it was close to a convenient framebuffer memory size. Like how 1280 * 1024 * 24 = 31,457,280 bits to store for the screen, or about 32 megabytes. It also mentioned that the monitors made for these resolutions weren’t 4:3 aspect ratio, but the correct 5:4.
I forget the exact numbers, though.
I checked 1600×1200, but it’s actually 1200×1600 (portrait mode) – landscape mode is create for movies and games, but I’ll never _work_ in anything other than portrait mode again!
My Inspiron 510m has a SXGA LCD, I run it at 1400×1050 and it is soo clear. Anyone going to buy a laptop with a 15″ should take a look at SXGA, it is really worth the money.
At work I run two Eizo 15″ LCDs, really nice to have more than one program visible at a time
At 1440×900, but all the rest at 1280×1024.
I find it very comforting when people drop by my cube and say “how can you read that thing!” 😉
1152×864 r0x0r
Now, I wonder how these results matchup with the stats generated by javascript.
It also mentioned that the monitors made for these resolutions weren’t 4:3 aspect ratio, but the correct 5:4.
Why is 5:4 aspect ratio correct when compared to 4:3 ?
Most of the common resolutions are 4:3… atleast below 1024×768.
My resolution is 1280×960 @ 60Hz in a 17″ Samsung CRT while in Linux. My eyes don’t go to hell at the 60Hz refresh rate. I need the extra space for all the nice dockapps when I am running on my Windowmaker desktop. Console resolution is much less. It is Debian’s default framebuffer resolution.
Windows default is 1024×768 @ 85Hz but it is usually lower because most games run at 800×600 or 640×480 in my system.
‘ello,
Just thought I’d share this with you; I use 1024×768 as my X windows desktop size, but take advantage of the viewports system to zoom in to 512×348. Why do I waste the accuracy of modern technlogy on this pitiful resolution, I hear you cry! The resaon is that I’m vision impaired and this feature of X allows me to use the computer effectively.
On Windows, I’d have to pay about £400 for a “Screen Magnifier” program. Unfortunately, as well as the cost, they tend to de-stabilise the system a lot, too.
Anyway, I didn’t see 512×384 in the poll so I put 1024×768 :-). Keep up the good work on OSNews, Eugenia!
bye just now,
—
Matthew
…but I didn’t see an option for 3200×1200. Nothing like screen real estate.
I have 6 computers here. One is running headless but would show 80×25 text, one is actually showing 80×25 text, one in 800×600, one in 1024×786, one in 1280×1024 and my main box runs 1600×1200.
I’ll just motivate the choice on my main box: real estate baby!! I’m running Mac OS X and Linux on this. While I tend to use my apps in fullscreen mode, I just love the extra space I get from 1600×1200. When I first got a PC it maxed out at 640x480x16, which was sufficient. However as my screens got bigger and better, I started developing a habit of filling up the screen anyway no matter how big it is. Now that I think of it, I see the same pattern with my disks.. I started out with a 40MB. harddisk and currently have a grand total of almost 2 Terabytes available to me in some form which I also manage to fill with relative ease.
I was very surprised when, at my previous job, my colleagues had 21″ CRT’s which they ran in 1024×768. I always had it up to 1600×1200. To me 1024×768 on a 21″ seems wasteful. I don’t need those huge pixels.
Currently saving up for a 30″ display from Apple.. :-)) The screen is the window into my PC. I always get the best I can possibly afford.
I was suprised not to see 1280×800. that’s what my laptop is running. i was under the impression most 13″ widescreen laptops ran that…
For your convenience:
[.]
You have to look kinda close…
I run my laptop at 1600×1200. It’s a 15″ UXGA screen. I’ll probably be blind in a couple years. I think my Vic20 runs at 130×80 or something.
I didn’t mean that a 5:4 aspect ratio was inherently better than a 4:3 aspect ratio. I meant that the physical object, the chunk of glass in a monitor, is made at a 4:3 aspect ratio, probably. Using a resolution that is not the same ratio as the display device means either black bars or a distorted image. Using a 5:4 monitor with 1280 x 1024 means you can still have circular circles. The distortion isn’t that big, but for some uses it could matter.
I never use fullscreen apps, except for watching movies or playing games. For other applications, full screen is an ugly hack to work around the essential problem, which is bloated UI. IMO, multitasking with GUI only works “right” when windows are actual windows. Windows Explorer for example has a horribly bloated interface, and this is bad for drag-n-drop.
I like the BeOS style of window management, with only a “close” and a “fit” button, the latter will enlarge the window to the size where no scrollbars are needed in the application (You can minize windows by double-clicking their tabs).
I would tell my customers to spend the most money on a monitor instead of anything else. It’s the one piece of equipment you have to stare at so make it look good. Too often I’ve ran into people who spend huge piles of cash on the biggest and baddest yet if you go about a 1/3 of the way down the technology curve, the price point is such that your computer will run almost everything out there smoothly, but you will save $500-1500 dollars, which I recommend spending on the monitor instead.
This is a sales secret btw. Highend monitors are not commodity products unlike most common computer hardware. It’s possible to actually make a decent profit of highend monitors. At one point, I was making anywhere from $400-800 dollars a month in monitor sales commissions (this was in a modest store too).
I run dual Sony 24″ trinitrons, both have a input switch so I have 2 boxes hooked up to both monitors. Both are proffesional grade and both absolutely worth it. 2048×1536@85hrz. Each were over $3000 new, but have come down in price. They were worth it. I’ve upgraded my computers a couple of times now but I always have these beautiful monitors to look at.
Remember, spend your money on a kickass monitor and not a bleeding edge processor. The monitor is worth the sacrafice.
320*200 – plenty for most things :o)
Allright, that’s just a joke, but back in the day I really did have a lot of fun with games at that or even lower resolution.
>> Strange.. 1280×1024 is there, but not 1280×96
> That’s not a missing option. It’s a *very rare* resolution.
Huh? 1280×960 is basically the default on 19″ CRT screens. The Non-4:3 resolution of 1280×1024 is only used on TFTs.
Isn’t it possible to have 800X600 withut distortion, in your case? I know that you might find it unhonorable to have such a low resolution, but my vision is pretty bad, so if I found a laptop that can do 800X600 without distortion, I wold be really happy. What laptop is that?
I typically use a laptop at 1024×768, or a desktop with 1600×1200 resolution on a 21″ monitor. One person mentioned that you could never have too much resolution for spreadsheets. The same applies to editing photographs. I scan negatives, and use a six megapixel camera. Nothing beats a big CRT for that kind of stuff.
“The Non-4:3 resolution of 1280×1024 is only used on TFTs.”
I’ve 2 19″ CRT here and they both have that resolution in single and dual head configurations (Matrox Millenium 650 Dual Head)…
832×624 (can’t change to other)
Macintosh 16″ color display (made in 1991-94)
(voted other)
I am running my 19″ Samsung 955DF at 1600×1200 at 60Hz. Best monitor I’ve ever owned. Why does everyone say that 60Hz is bad for the eyes? I have never noticed a difference myself.
How about a 4:3 resolution with 1280px width?
I saw 1280×1024 (5:4, normally for LCDs)… But you don’t have our 1280×960 resolution for CRTs…
Yes, I know many use 1280×1024 as their resolution with a CRT, but that distorts pictures… Draw a circle in paint in 1024×768, and see that circle in 1280×1024… You’ll notice
I’ve 2 19″ CRT here and they both have [1280×1024] in single and dual head configurations (Matrox Millenium 650 Dual Head)…
Yes, and along with everyone else running that resolution on CRT’s, you are squishing everything on your screen vertically. If you draw a circle, it will appear squished. Your fonts will be slightly flattened and appear wider than they should. I realize that many people don’t notice the difference, but it will contribute to eyestrain even for them. Not to mention… why in the world would you do this? If somebody built a monitor that artificially squished everything on the screen, would you buy it? Then why turn your perfectly good monitors into one of those! 1280 x 1024 is just plain incorrect on a 4:3 monitor such as modern CRT’s, and the only reason to run in it is ignorance.
Hey, welcome to the land of coneheads!
🙂
using an LCD at work at the moment, gotta use the native so that’s 1280×1024. on any crt I tend to use the highest res that I can do at 85Hz, so that’s 1024×768 on the 17″ at work (usually) and 1152×864 on my 17″ at home, though sometimes I run that at 1024×768@100Hz if my eyes are sore.
I have to agree with some of the comments that a few of the resolutions in the poll are… odd.
is 1280×854 a widescreen res? I’ve never seen it on any system I’ve encountered
Mine is 1024×768, on a flat screen linux box.
1024×768 on a nice LG T710BH flatscreen 17″ CRT.
And curse OS designers for the odd belief exhibited by many here that resolution equals real estate. Not on a properly configured system, it doesn’t. HDTVs have eight or more times the resolution of standard TVs. Does that mean you get a much bigger picture but everything in it is tiny? Er, no. It means you see more detail. That’s what computer displays are _supposed_ to be like. Contrary to popular belief, there _is_ a single canonical phsyical size that, say, a 12 point letter ‘a’ ought to be. Its size is not _supposed_ to vary when you change the resolution of your monitor. When you raise the resolution, the operating system ought to properly adjust its rendering so that everything is the same size but rendered in more detail. Thus the only thing that determines ‘real estate’ ought to be the physical size of the monitor.
You can do this today on Windows XP and modern Linux distros, and I expect on OS X as well. Measure your monitor, divide the size into the resolution you use, and figure out the correct DPI value for your monitor and resolution combination. Now put that DPI value into the operating system, and everything (or _most_ things, unfortunately no-one adjusts everything yet, new rendering technologies ought to fix this) will be the size it’s really really supposed to be. Change your resolution, change your DPI. On a 15″ monitor properly configured you should see exactly as much of a web page at 1024×768 as you do at 640×480, it’ll just look a heck of a lot nicer.
(end of rant)
I use 1280×960 because it meet the 4:3 VGA standard.
I just tried it at 800×600. I’m not sure what you mean by distortion. The fonts were huge and looked kindof funky because of the anti-aliasing, but I guess you could adjust it. Of course you could run at 1280×1024 or something and just make the fonts bigger. That might look better.
I got my laptop at http://www.pctorque.com. They sell desktop replacements (Sager is the OEM).
If you take your kcalc and check the ratio you will notice that 640*480,800*600,1024*768 (ratio is 1,3.) is not followed by 1280*1024 (r=1,25) but 1280*960(r=1,3), since this is the resoltion that has no distortion, that’s why I am curious why this mode is not an option in the vote.
1280×960
dont see it in my display properties on windows xp. it goes
1024×768
1152×864
1280×768
1280×1024
1152×864
I already replied to this, don’t make mod down your comment. The resolution you mention is the correct 4:3 res, but very-very fre people use it. Only popular res make it to the poll.
I’m using true 4:3 as in 1200×900, it’s just the perfect resolution for me. Being limited to the given answers shows the misconception of CRTs and what they are capable of…
1600×1200
It seems to be related to the dpi of the displayed image in my case. I usually run 1024×768 on 17″ displays, but I have a 19″ I set to 1152×864. If I did any higher resolution, I would enable large icons and crank up the font siez. My eyesight is poor, so that’s the reason for that. In fact if you held very still I wouldn’t see you at all. That’s due more to my psychology as my eyesite
I just temporarily maxed out my SONY 21″ E540 monitor (my husband’s birthday present two years ago
to 2048×1536 (65 Hz) with a well-standing Matrox G400-MAX 32 MB AGP on my dual Celeron 2×533 Mhz. Wow, cool! Everything is so small and trembling of course, but it’s cool. 
My Mac at work has two LCDs: Apple 20″ at 1680×1050, and a Dell 19″ at 1280×1024. I use the Apple monito for most stuff, with my iChat windows, Safari’s downloads list, and occasionally some other stuff on the Dell.
I’m running two 21″ crt’s each running at 1600×1200. Both of them have two inputs that are switchable on the front-side, so I actually have 3 computers hooked up to them: a Sun Ultra-1, a small pc acting as a server, and my regular workstation pc in dual-screen mode. It took some wiring to get the mice and keyboards connected properly but it works well. Whatever resolution or monitor size you run, dual-screen is really something worth looking at!
My monitor’s resolution is about 85 ppi.
Using 1024×768 on 100Hz, although CRT also supports higher resolutions on 85Hz, I’m able to see the difference, don’t know why, perhaps it’s the food
1280×960
12345×7890
Using an old 15″ Sampo CRT with an 8MB SiS card on my FC3 box.
1024×768@85Hz looks pretty good on the 17″ Samsung SyncMaster on the Windows XP machine, but I’m not the primary user.
Workspaces One through Four I have running at 1024 by 768, and each with its own background image, icon label background colour etc. Workspace Five I keep at 800 by 600, simply because I have a couple of favourite games which need to be “bigger”.
What? Can’t you guys do that?
Well, BeOS may be a backwater, but it’s little details like this which make it such a pleasant backwater 🙂
1440×900 on my iMac G5 – oh yea!
1792×1344
2048×768, soon to be 2560×1024, I hope. At home it’s just one monitor, 1152×864.
My apps are rarely maximized, except for with one website that is too large.
My CTX 19″ is capable of 1600×1200 at 75 Hz, but is more comfortable to use at 1280×1024 at 85 Hz.
I just had to voice my opinion about 1280×960 not being on the list. That list is very long, it isn’t like it was kept brief to 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, and 1600×1200. There are 15 options (sans Other). The highest rez 3 and 640×480 haven’t even gotten 1% of the votes. I run 1280×960 (perfect circles, not ovals), and just had to bark.
Dual monitor goodness, at ungodly resolutions, on a dual G5! You can’t argue with that! 8)=
Seriously, I’ve always felt that I wanted the higherst resolution I possibly can get… 99% of the time I’m in 2-D, so speed/resolution issues aren’t a concern, as they are when running 3-D apps in higher resolutions.
And though I increase my font sizes quite a bit, I still get more screen real estate, plus curved edges, and anti aliasing looks SO much smoother on higher resolution displays.
Interestingly enough, I’m running an ATI 9600 in my Mac, and in the PC that sits on the other side of my desk. Both handle this resolution equally well under Windows, and the Mac. Linux is another story though….
On my older, and currently unused PC, I was able to run two monitors, using the xinerama extension, and two different video cards. The only distro that’s managed to run KDE w/the xinerama extension on my current PC (again, with a 9600) is Yoper, and that was after a lotta tweaking. All other distro’s could only handle both monitors w/out xinerama.
Needless to say, Yoper takes backseat to XP on my PC for this reason, while the PC overall takes a backseat to my Mac.
If you have large monitors (I’m running two Nokia 21″ 445XPro’s, which have a .22 dpi, which results in incredible crispness and clarity at said resolutions), and a capable video card, try boosting your resolution and font sizes a bit. You won’t regret it!
And if you’re running multiple boxes like I am, another benefit is that you can control one box from the other using either VNC, or Remote Desktop (Windows only). Imagine how productive you can be on a dual monitor Mac, while running a remote Windows session at 1600×1200 in a window! Neat stuff!!
blame ATI. nvidia could handle that easily.
I’m at work now, so it’s 1024×768@85Hz on a 17″ CRT, running on WinXP Pro. At home, it’s 1152×864@85Hz on a 17″ flat-CRT in Linux, and 1024×768@85Hz in BeOS 5.0.3 Pro on the same monitor (because of the small fonts). When I’m away from home and work, it’s 480×320 on my Clie PDA, or sometimes even 101×80 on my cellphone.
I’m running a 17″ LCD at 1280×1024. This gives me a sqrt(1280^2 + 1024^2) / 17 = 96 DPI. The timings are 108.00 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066. It has a brightness of 250 cd/m2 and contrast ratio of 300:1. The response time is 50ms and viewing angles 120° horizontal and 100° vertical. The settings are as follows:
Contrast = 35
Brightness = 45
Focus = 39
Clock = 30
H. Position = 49
V. Position = 47
Red adjustment = 24
Green adjustment = 53
Blue adjustment = 30
I also have a 30″ TV running at 720×480@60Hz. This gives me a resolution of sqrt(720^2 + 480^2) / 30 = 28 DPI. The tint is set to 30%, brightness 50%, and color to 40%. The volume is set to 30%.