All of those XGA labels?
QMy old Samsung display is going on the blink, so I’m looking to buy a new monitor. I find myself confounded by all the jargon. In particular, I don’t understand the difference between screens described as QWXGA, QUXGA and so on. My demands aren’t high, because my old display is just 15in with a 1024x768 resolution, and it’s served me with honour. However, since I need to buy a new one anyway, I wouldn’t mind something at least little better. Can you explain to me what all these XGA terms mean. Peter Rice
AIf you want to keep it simple then just ignore these alphabet-soup designations and focus on the resolution and aspectratio (screen-shape) numbers (see screenshot). Why? Because that’s all these XGA labels are intended to convey, albeit in increasingly convoluted fashion.
To understand why, it’s necessary to travel back in time to the mid-1980s. This is when IBM introduced a piece of video hardware called the Video Graphics Array, or VGA. The resolution of this was 640x480 pixels with a 4:3 (squarish) aspect ratio, and it became a Pc-industry standard. Even today, graphics cards are sometimes referred to as ‘VGA cards’, and the original 15-pin VGA connector is still in use.
A bit later came the Wide Video Graphics Array (WVGA), with a resolution of 768x480 and wider 3:2 aspect ratio; and a bit later still, the Super Video Graphics Array, at 800x600 (4:3 ratio). Then, in 1990, came the Extended Graphics Array (XGA). At 1024x768, XGA is what your current monitor displays, at a 4:3 ratio.
Fast forward to today and there are now numerous other descriptions adding to the abbreviation muddle, such as ‘quad’ (Q), ‘ultra’ (‘U’) and even ‘hyper’ (‘H’). For example, a QXGA display is four times (‘quad’) the resolution of an XGA display, at 2048x1536; but a lower-resolution 2048x1152 display would be labelled as QWXGA, to indicate its wider 16:9 aspect ratio.
So, returning to where we came in: ignore these bonkers abbreviations and focus on the resolution numbers, as they tell you in absolute terms what you actually need to know.