You use it daily but you really don't know how a computer monitor works, do you? Do not panic because most of the users don't know and after you will read this article you will be able to share it with the rest of your friends and enlighten them in this wonderful technological field.

It is normal to have so many questions about a device that you use almost daily but we shall start this article with the most common questions that we have seen to be asked on the internet. What is the refresh rate? What does the aspect ratio really mean? And all the other small details that will make your life easier when you would want to purchase a new display.


The display is the most used part of the whole monitor package and it will provide you with instant feedback on the graphics and text that you will desire during your wok or you surf on the internet. The majority of displays use the LCD liquid crystal display or the CRT cathode ray tube technology but most displays that are portable like laptops use the first type of display because of its slimmer size.

The LCD displays are also called flat screens or flat panels because they are the new upgraded version of the CRT and they also have a good advantage, by having a lower consumption of power. The number of the individual dots that you see forming you image on the display is called resolution and it is made out of thousands of pixels.
The number of the resolution will be identified by the vertical axis thus the columns and the horizontal axis thus the rows and the number of the pixels on them. For example a type of resolution you will find is 800 x 600. This may be determined by so many factors like the screen size, this being the most important one. During time, monitor size have grown considerably and so resolutions had to change, many technological manufactures adding also to the 'package' widescreen displays for the use of DVDs.

We will give you a list of resolutions
XGA Extended Graphics Array - 1024 x 768 - 15 and 17 inches CRT monitors and 15 inches LCD monitors
SXGA Super XGA - 1280 x 1024 - 15 inches and 17 inches CRT monitors and 17 inches and 19 inches LCD monitors
UXGA Ultra XGA - 1600 x 1200 - 19, 20, 21 inches CRT monitors 20 inches LCD monitors
WXGA Wide XGA - 1280 x 800 - Wide aspect 15.4 inches laptops LCD display
WVSXGA + Wide XGA - 2048 x 1536 - Wide aspect 20 inches LCD monitors


The resolution and the display standard is also related with something you might of heard named aspect ratio and we shall explain it further along.There are two things that will describe the size of the display that you use and these are the screen size and the aspect ratio. This will make you understand better how the computer monitor works. In the past computer displays had the same aspect ratio as the televisions sets that being 4:3. This means in technological terms that the screen has the ratio of the monitor and the height top 4 to 3.

For the newly wide screen LCD monitors the aspect ration will be 16: 9 or there are some cases when you will find them at 16: 10 or at 15 : 9. If you want to view DVDs the widescreen LCD display should be your option. Also you can play a lot of computer games and you will feel the difference in the graphics or can have multiple windows next to each other and work many tasks at the same time. This kind of display is used for the new HDTV - High definition television that also uses widescreen aspect ratio.


The screen is the projection surface that displays all the type of images and graphics that you will choose on the computer. The measurement of the screen sizes are made in inches, from corner to corner on the diagonal side. This system was created by the technological manufactures that used it on the television sets that wanted to make astonishing screen sizes for their products unleashed on the market. The CRT and the LCD are not measured in the same way, because for the first one the measurement is made also diagonally but from the outside edges of the display casing of the monitor. In normal words, the exterior case is also measured to determine the screens length. In the case of the LCD monitors, the screen size will be measured diagonally from the inside of the edge and will not include the casing. Because of these differences of measurement you can compare a 17 inches LCD display to a 19 inches CRT display.


To get a more accurate picture of the CRTs measurement you will need to find out the viewable size of the screen, this being the display of the CRT measured without the outside casing. The most common screen sizes are 15, 17 and 21 inches. You can find also on the market notebooks that have the screen size from 12 to 17 inches. As technology upgrades day by day you will find in the future screen sizes even larger then the ones that exist now because in many fields they became indispensable like the medical one which uses for many activities LCD monitors of 40 inches or even larger. Because we have talk on how a computer monitors works and the resolution you surely understood that the size of the display will affect its resolution.

The image will be sharper on smaller monitor and while the screen size will get bigger the image from the same resolution used on the smaller display will get fuzzier. For example an image of 800 x 600 resolutions will appear sharper on a 15 inches display monitor then on a 21 inches monitor.

In the end we need the computer for our daily activities on the computer but be aware that the market is full of many devices that will surely satisfy your technological needs. You just have to look for it.