Sunday, February 17, 2008

Pixels per inch calculation

Many people have complained that text on new LCD panels are too small. Here is a chart that shows the ppi numbers of common screen sizes. A number between 105-110 seems to be the sweet spot.

Screen Name Screen Width Height Diagonal PPI
15.4" WUXGA+ (1920x1200) 15.4 1920 1200 2264 147
15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) 15.4 1680 1050 1981 129
14.1" SXGA+ (1400X1050) 14.1 1400 1050 1750 124
14.1" WXGA+ (1440x900) 14.1 1440 900 1698 120
14.1" WXGA (1280x800) 14.1 1280 800 1509 107
14.1" XGA (1024x768) 14.1 1024 768 1280 91
13.3” WXGA+ (1440x900) 13.3 1440 900 1698 128
Macbook Air 13.3 1280 800 1509 113
12.1" XGA (1024x768) 12.1 1024 768 1280 106
Dell 19” LCD (1280x1024) 19 1280 1024 1639 86
Samsung 22” Wide 22 1680 1050 1981 90
Samsung 24” Wide 24 1920 1080 2203 92


The downside of adjusting font sizes is that some application's GUI will look weird with large fonts. Well, then design better GUIs to accommodate both small and large fonts. Personally, I don't mind adjusting font sizes on screen with higher resolutions. Ctrl-plus and Ctrl-minus are easy enough for me in Firefox.

As the LCD and LED panel technology advances, the ppi number will just keep going higher and higher. I know IBM has already developed panels with 200 ppi for medical use, which cost $10000 each. I look forward to having one of those panels on my laptop one day. The screen will be so sharp that it should look like ink on paper.