Joshua's Monitor Comparison Tool

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Screen Area (in²) →

Glossary

Diagonal Size
The screen size measured corner to corner in inches. Note that diagonal size alone doesn't determine how big a monitor looks — a 49" ultrawide (32:9) has less total screen area than a 42" standard (16:9) display because the ultra-wide shape is much narrower vertically.
Screen Area
The actual viewable surface area in square inches, calculated from the physical width and height. This is a better indicator of overall screen "bigness" than diagonal size, especially when comparing monitors with different aspect ratios.
Resolution
The number of horizontal and vertical pixels a display can show, e.g. 3840 x 2160. Higher resolution means more detail and screen real estate.
Megapixels (MP)
Total number of pixels on the display (width x height), expressed in millions. A 4K display (3840 x 2160) has about 8.3 megapixels. Monitors with the same megapixel count sit on the same hyperbola curve in the chart.
PPI (Pixels Per Inch)
A measure of pixel density — how tightly packed the pixels are on the screen. Higher PPI means sharper text and images. A 27" 4K display has ~163 PPI, while a 27" 5K display has ~218 PPI. At typical desk distance, around 110–140 PPI looks good at native scaling, while 200+ PPI enables crisp HiDPI/Retina rendering at 2x.
Aspect Ratio
The proportional relationship between width and height. Standard widescreen is 16:9 (1.78), ultrawide is 21:9 (~2.33), and super ultrawide is 32:9 (~3.56). Wider ratios give more horizontal workspace but less vertical space for a given diagonal size.
Refresh Rate (Hz)
How many times per second the display updates the image. 60 Hz is standard for office work, 120–144 Hz gives noticeably smoother motion for scrolling and video, and 240 Hz is aimed at competitive gaming. Higher refresh rates require more GPU bandwidth.
Panel Type
The underlying display technology:
  • IPS (In-Plane Switching) — Wide viewing angles and accurate color. Variants include Nano IPS (wider color gamut), IPS Black (2x better contrast than standard IPS), and PLS (Plane-to-Line Switching), Samsung's IPS equivalent.
  • VA (Vertical Alignment) — Higher contrast ratios than IPS (typically 3000:1 vs 1000:1) but narrower viewing angles. Common in curved monitors.
  • OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) — Self-emissive pixels with perfect blacks and infinite contrast. QD-OLED (Quantum Dot OLED) uses quantum dots over blue OLED for vibrant color. W-OLED (White OLED) uses white OLED subpixels with color filters.
  • Mini-LED (Miniature Light-Emitting Diode) — A backlighting technology (not a panel type itself) that uses thousands of tiny LEDs for precise local dimming. Paired with IPS or VA panels, labeled as Mini-LED IPS or Mini-LED VA.