Monitors are an essential electronic device for every computer user, and they have come in more and more styles. Among specifications, the first thing consumers will pay attention to is the resolution. The most common ones on the market now are 1080P, 1440P and 4K. They each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Before deciding which resolution monitor is suitable for you, the first thing to consider is how you use it. This time, let’s take a look at the differences between 1080P, 1440P and 4K monitors, and what you should know about them.
What is the difference between 1080P, 1440P and 4K monitors?
1080P monitors: cheap, fast and efficient
The resolution of a 1080P monitor is 1080 vertical pixels x 1920 horizontal pixels. This is the lowest entry-level monitor type with true HD resolution, and it is also the standard resolution used by most low-budget consumer monitors.
advantage
Because the hardware requirements are relatively less demanding and the production process is more relaxed, 1080P monitors are cheaper than 1440P and 4K monitors. If your budget is limited, 1080P is the ideal choice. The fewer pixels the monitor has to process, the easier it is to update visual data, and 1080P can achieve high update rates due to its relatively low resolution. Nowadays, you can relatively easily find 1080P monitors with refresh rates of 240Hz or higher, and Alienware is even starting to produce 1080P monitors with refresh rates of 500Hz. Considering that 1080P monitors get the job done easily and they don’t require as powerful a graphics card when you play games on your PC, your existing graphics card should be able to keep up with a 1080P monitor even at the most intense levels of gaming.
shortcoming
The biggest disadvantage of using a 1080P monitor is the inability to display higher resolution visuals with complete accuracy. For example, if you try to watch a 4K video on a 1080P monitor, you’ll only see the 1080P format. A 1080P monitor does not have enough pixels to accurately display 4K multimedia. 4K multimedia is mainly displayed on a screen with 2160 vertical pixels x 3840 horizontal pixels (or other visual output devices such as 4K projectors). If you are using a 1080P monitor, even with the best Blu-ray player you will not be able to enjoy the best original resolution. Yes, that’s right, “4K” refers to the number of horizontal pixels (rounded), as opposed to 1080P and 1440P monitors, which are marketed based on the number of vertical pixels, as we’ll get to later in this article. You can still watch movies (or any type of media) in such a way that the screen displays full frames, but you’ll lose about half the visual quality.
1440P monitors: the middle ground
The resolution of a 1440P monitor is 1440 vertical pixels x 2560 horizontal pixels. Sometimes referred to as 2K monitors because they have more than 2,000 horizontal pixels, these monitors have become more common in recent years, especially among gamers. These monitors have more than 1.5 times more pixels than 1080P screens.
advantage
Higher pixel density results in better visual effects because the screen has more pixels to display visual material, so 4K content will look better on a 1440P monitor than 1080P. The extra screen real estate is also helpful, especially if you work on a computer and need to view content in multiple windows at the same time, such as comparing reference images while designing or reviewing multiple documents while writing. Like 1080P monitors, 1440P monitors can achieve quite high refresh rates. Although we haven’t seen a 1440P monitor with 500Hz yet, Asus recently launched a 1440P monitor with 360Hz.
shortcoming
Unfortunately, multimedia content at 1080P and lower resolutions will look a bit blurry on a 1440P monitor because your monitor will fill in the gaps. When you try to play 1080P or lower resolution media on a 1440P monitor, your monitor doesn’t have data for a large number of pixels, so when it expands the picture to fill the frame, it uses data from surrounding pixels to fill in those extra pixels. This can be avoided by setting your 1440P monitor to 1080P (if you have that option) or turning on scanning (which most modern monitors should have).
Additionally, 1440P monitors are still unable to display 4K media at full quality and suffer from the same problem as 1080P monitors when trying to display 4K visuals: there are not enough pixels to accurately depict the material in a 4K video file. This puts 1440P monitors in an awkward middle zone, but nonetheless, 4K media still looks better on 1440P monitors than on 1080P monitors. Speaking of gaming, your PC will need a better graphics card than a 1080P monitor to support a 1440P monitor. The difference isn’t huge, but the extra work required can still lead to frame drops and similar performance-related issues.
4K monitors: Look great, but they need to be set up right
A 4K monitor has a resolution of 2160 vertical pixels x 3840 horizontal pixels. Here we would like to remind everyone again that 4K refers to the number of horizontal pixels on the screen rather than the vertical pixels. This is easily misled by marketing rhetoric. However, a 4K monitor has 4 times the number of pixels as a 1080P monitor due to doubling of vertical and horizontal pixels. 1080 x 1920 equals 2,073,600 pixels, while 2160 x 3840 equals 8,294,400 pixels.
advantage
As you probably already know, 4K monitors can display 4K multimedia with complete accuracy and you’ll see every pixel you expect to see, making watching movies and TV shows a truly enjoyable experience. Best of all, you can fit a lot of content on a 4K monitor while you work, thanks to the large screen real estate.
shortcoming
One of the disadvantages of high resolution is that low resolution media looks really bad. 1080P footage stretches so much when displayed on a 4K monitor that you won’t even be tempted to try playing original N64 games (made in 480P) on a 4K monitor. To clarify, by “stretching” we mean that media produced at 1080P (or lower) resolution simply does not have enough visual information to fill every pixel of a 4K resolution display. This causes the media to look more mosaic, and when upgrading to 4K resolution, the lack of pixel information in lower resolution media becomes even more apparent, like when playing Minecraft.
4K monitors are more expensive than 1080p and 1440p monitors, and there are certainly great deals on 4K monitors, but they’re still more expensive than most lower-resolution monitors. Due to the sheer number of pixels, 4K monitors can’t really achieve the same impressive refresh rates as higher-end 1080P and 1440P monitors. You can buy gaming-focused monitors that can refresh up to 240Hz, but that’s a far cry from something like a 1080p Alienware monitor with a 500Hz refresh rate. In addition, due to the high pixel density, if you plan to use a 4K monitor for gaming you will need a very powerful graphics card, otherwise, your computer will start to experience performance issues such as frame drops, lag, screen stuttering, etc.
How to choose the right monitor resolution
You should decide which type of monitor to buy based on your needs. What you get out of a monitor largely depends on whether you’ll use it for work, entertainment, a combination of both, or neither. Let’s put together some tips on how to determine which resolution is best for you.
1080P monitorBest suited for those on a lower budget who primarily use it for gaming, even a low-end PC can use a high refresh rate 1080P monitor to gain a competitive advantage in fast-paced multiplayer games.
1440P monitorBest for those on a budget who want to use the monitor for both gaming and work. Being able to achieve high refresh rates without the most powerful graphics card is a boon for gamers, but make sure your computer can handle it. Additionally, the added screen real estate is helpful for people who work on computers and need to display more content on the screen at once.
4K monitorBest for people who plan to use it to watch movies and TV shows, or if you just prefer a high-resolution desktop monitor to watch everything. While gaming on a 4K monitor does look great, it only works if you have a powerful graphics card and a PC or play through a console. A lot of screen real estate might be nice when working on a computer (such as when doing image editing), but unless you’re doing something like recreating the Sistine Chapel ceiling, it’s a bit much.
Source: KOCPC Chinese