Aspect Ratio Question

[Gary McCombie 1]

Apologies if this is a daft question, I'm looking to upgrade my monitors to 27" and realised that my current 22" monitors are 16:10 aspect ratio. If I want full HD quality, do I need to go with 16:9 aspect ratio?

 

The 16:9 obviously loses a bit of vertical height but if its the way to get the best quality picture, then I'd be happy to go that route. I plan to go with 1920 x 1080 as I've read if I increase the resolution I will suffer lower frame rates.

 

Thanks!

[MarkDH 234]

Apologies if this is a daft question, I'm looking to upgrade my monitors to 27" and realised that my current 22" monitors are 16:10 aspect ratio. If I want full HD quality, do I need to go with 16:9 aspect ratio?

 

You are thinking too much, or I have not understood your question. If you are moving from a 22" monitor to a 27" one it will be bigger - significantly wider and significantly taller. If it's a 1080p monitor it will have a 16:9 aspect ratio, which means it will have a slightly different shape to a 16:10 monitor. I doubt you could tell at a glance whether it was 16:9 or 16:10, so forget about it.

[Gary McCombie 1]

Firstly thanks for the answer and apologies, don't think I made the question very clear. So, just as you said, for the HD 1080p the monitor will be a 16:9 aspect ratio. The question I was trying to ask was just that, if I want full HD quality, does the monitor need to be 16:9? From what I can see on the internet, I can easily buy a 16:10 monitor but they do not seem to be HD. Clearly the HD monitor will be the best solution so if that means 16:9 then no problem at all.

[gboz 157]

I can easily buy a 16:10 monitor but they do not seem to be HD. Clearly the HD monitor will be the best solution so if that means 16:9 then no problem at all.

 

 

HD is really just "marketing talk" for a particular aspect ratio and pixel count,

that is 1920 pixels x 1080p pixels, 16:9 ratio.

In itself it has nothing to do with picture quality.

 

Look at the pixel pitch of any monitor you are considering.

I mean the number of pixels per inch (PPI) or per centimeter it has.

The higher this is the better the screen should look all other things being equal.

 

Typically screens with the same diagonal size and the same number of horizontal pixels

will have close to the same pixel density whether it is 16:9 or 16:10.

For example the Dell 24" U2412M 16:10 1920x1200 has a PPI of about 95

whereas the Dell 24" U2414H 16:9 1920x1080 has a PPI of about 93.

So the 16:10 is actually a bit higher here.

 

gb.

[MarkDH 234]

if I want full HD quality, does the monitor need to be 16:9?

 

I still can't understand this question. I suspect you are investing 'HD' with some mysterious quality, when all it means is it can display a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels (or 1280 x 720 pixels). So a monitor that displays one of these resolutions will, by definition, have a 16:9 aspect ratio.

 

I don't know which 16:10 monitors you are looking at but taking as an example the common resolution 1920 x 1200, this is a better monitor for Windows and especially for FSX because of the extra vertical resolution. The only justification I can see for buying a 'proper' HD (i.e. 1080p) monitor in preference is if you're going to watch pre-rendered content such as HD movies, since it's possible (depending on how you display them) that they will be scaled up instead of playing at native resolution.

[Gary McCombie 1]

Many thanks guys, its pretty clear from the answers that it was a daft question in that 16:9 is not a "magic" HD aspect ratio compared with 16:10, just a sales pitch given to 16:9 aspect ratio. I actually prefer the 16:10 ratio I have on the 22" and if the picture quality is basically the same between 1920 x 1080 and 1920 x 1200, then I might just stick with 16:10.

 

I was fooled by the badging of the 16:9 monitors as Full Hd thinking these were of superior picture quality.

 

Thanks again!