When you would want to see how a 14 inch 640 x 480 monitor would look like just imagine that you are lying on the beach with you nose pressed deep almost to the sand making you field of vision very slim and all that you would see would be some grains of sand and a shell or two. By standing up you will improve your field of vision by seeing all the beach.

Well, this would be a 15 inch 800 x 640 monitor. All monitors are measured in inches, from side to side at the diagonal line but there is a big difference between the actual viewable area and the measurements thus a 14 inches monitor will have only 13.2 inches of viewable area, a 15 inches monitor will have 13,8 inches and finally a 20 inches will offer you 18,8 inches of full screen. When you ask yourself what is a computer monitor resolution you must keep in mind that you have hear or not of what a pixel is.



The computer resolution, image, is made out of pixels that are picture elements being measured also in pixels width by height. A 640 x 480 resolution would mean that the screen will be 640 pixels wide and 490 tall having an aspect ratio of 4:3. Excepting just one resolution and that being 1280 x 1024 which has a ratio of 5:3, all the other ratios of the resolutions are the same.



There are many books on the internet or in stores that will teach you what a computer monitor resolution is if you want to learn more and here are some pointers of how you should adjust your resolution. You would want to double click the Display Icon in the Control Panel by clicking: Start -> Settings -> Control Panel and them you would select the 'Settings' tab in the Display Properties Dialog Box. You would adjust the slider to 800 x 600 and then click Test Button to see if you like it this way. For 5 seconds a test bitmap will appear that will ask you if you are ok with you choice, and if you are click Yes to confirm and here you go, a new resolution.