Typical computer screen resolution ?

[bobtem]

I have just a generic question about screen aspect ratio... don't know where else to post a general quesiton, so I'm trying the photohop forum.

When I look up screen stats, the most common laptop screen resolution is 1920x1080?

 I'm confused. My Macbook Air 15" is  2880 × 1864, and I thought most laptops were way beyond 1920x1080, in this age of retina screens.

Please, the one paragraph, stupid simple explanation would be appreciated.

[Conrad_C]

1920 × 1080 is still popular because it’s a great balance between cheap and capable. It has enough pixels for a decent-sized work area, so displays with those pixel dimensions are common in low-budget Windows computers that you might find all over some businesses and schools. Retina (Mac) and HiDPI (same idea on PCs) are more common in higher-end laptops used by people who want to see more detail, like designers.

I know you said “one paragraph” but to understand the difference, one more thing must be pointed out: Pixel density. Your MacBook Air has a display with panel hardware pixel dimensions of 2880 × 1864, but the default “UI resolution” is probably “1440 × 932 (Retina)”. That means, as a 2x Retina display, it uses the extra pixels to display the same size content at 2x the linear resolution of a non-Retina display (higher pixel density, instead of using the extra pixels to provide more work area). So on a Retina/HiDPI display, type and vector graphics should look the same size, but twice as detailed, as on a non-Retina/HiDPI display.

This also tells you what 4K is all about on PCs. 4K is 3840 × 2160, which is exactly 2x the pixel width and height of a 1920 × 1080 display. A PC with a 4K display defaults to HiDPI, so it actually displays the same amount of content as 1920 × 1080, but twice as detailed. So in this way, a 4K HiDPI display works the same way as a Mac Retina display: It uses the additional pixels to show more detail, not enlarge the work area.

Now that we’ve establihsed that many of today’s Mac and PC displays are often not really “bigger” but just more detailed, let’s compare your MacBook Air to a cheap 1920 × 1080 PC laptop.

15" MacBook Air: 2880 × 1864 hardware pixels displaying (by default) 1440 × 932 pixels of content (displayed at 2x pixel density).

Cheap 1920 × 1080 PC laptop: 1920 × 1080 hardware pixels displaying 1920 × 1080 pixels of content (displayed at 1x pixel density).

What do we find there? The 15" MacBook Air has more pixels for sharper graphics, but the work area is actually smaller (only 1440 × 932 instead of 1920 × 1080). For this reason, I like to go into macOS System Settings, Displays and set my Mac laptop display to a higher UI resolution, so it has more room to fit more Photoshop panels on the screen.

[bobtem]

Ok, I guess my question is really about aspect ratio. 1920 by 1080 equates to 16:9, I believe. Well that is wider than most laptop screens I see out in the wild. Again, my Macbook Air 15" seems cloer to a 4:3 aspect ratio - that is not so wide compared to it's height. 

I'm designing a web page layout, and at 16:9, it seems real limited on top-to-bottom real esate.

[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

Mac laptops tend to be around 16:10 aspect ratio, so yes, they are (depending on how you look at it) less wide or more tall.

I'm designing a web page layout, and at 16:9, it seems real limited on top-to-bottom real esate.

By @bobtem

Again, that depends on how you want to look at it. For example, on desktop screens, Apple prefers 5K 16:10 instead of 4K 16:9, and an advantage of that for video editors is that you can fit a whole 4K video on the screen at actual size and you have extra room at the bottom for video editing controls.

On a 16:10 display, you can design an entire 16:9 web page with a little extra room at the top or bottom for editing controls.

In reality, for web design, the actual aspect ratio of any screen depends on what’s left over after displaying the default toolbars, sidebars, bottom bars etc. in the major web browsers, and usually, that leftover space is not 16:9. And it’s even less likely to be 16:9 if the user has resized the web browser window to also see other things on the screen. So there are a lot of reasons to question whether 16:9 is even that important of a target.

Also, if we account for the fact that mobile is now the most common form of web browsing, people are often likely to experience a web page within a display aspect ratio closer to 9:16 (a phone held vertically). So web page design today is more about designing not for one aspect ratio, but to be adaptable across the typical range of aspect ratios including a desktop browser window (maximized and not) and mobile devices (probably vertical, with a low UI resolution, and less room for content). Seen this way, the fact that a Mac laptop display is 16:10 should not be a big deal.

[bobtem]

I think that makes it clear. 16:9 is really the browser window area, after you account for the whole header bar with URL window, tabs and such.

Thanks. much.

[D Fosse]

On a laptop screen, which is really small at typically 15 inch, retina/4K resolution actually doesn't make much sense.  1920 x 1080 is about the limit of what 20/20 eyesight can resolve at a normal viewing distance.

Move to bigger desktop screens, however, 24 to 27 inch, and retina/4K is starting to be much more realistic. A 27 inch screen at 3840 x 2160 is about the same optical resolution as a 15 inch screen at 1920 x 1080.

Even so, high resolution screens are mostly an advantage for text and vector content, with applications like InDesign and Illustrator. Vector data will always be rendered to full screen resolution. For photography, you really need to get a visual feel for the pixel structure at 100%, in order to properly judge sharpness and noise. You don't get that with 4K. Most photographers will agree that 27 inch at 2560 x 1440 is pretty much optimal, and these displays are still very much in demand.

For video I imagine it could be useful to see 4K content at native resolution (although I'm not sure it makes much difference).

In short, this is mostly about marketing and little about reality.

[Peru Bob]

The higher the resolution, the smaller the items on the screen become, so some laptop users, especially ones with small physical screens, have trouble reading text and icons.

[Conrad_C]

That is true only when both displays are set to the same pixel density. That’s why I went to the trouble of explaining Retina above, because if that isn’t accounted for, then what you wrote doesn’t hold up: As I showed, the items on the screen of a MacBook Air at 2880 × 1864 actually look larger than on many 1920 × 1080 displays, because the Mac defaults to 2x pixel density (Retina) and 1920 × 1080 displays default to 1x. 

[Peru Bob]

@Conrad_C 

I started my reply before yours was showing, otherwise I would not have posted.

I'm only Windows, not Mac, so thanks for the lesson. 

[Conrad_C]

@Conrad_C 

I'm only Windows, not Mac, so thanks for the lesson. 

By @Peru Bob

It works exactly the same way in Windows and Android. The only difference is that instead of Retina, the pixel density scaling factor is called HiDPI.