Eleven years ago, I wrote a post called better resolution with a graphic showing the resolution of the screens of various devices I owned, I thought it would be interesting to refresh it and see where we are now. I added a column with the total number of pixels and made the table sortable, so you can play around with the data.
The first observation, that makes my graphic less pretty, is that the vertical resolution of my phone is now higher than that of my laptop. I added a few random devices, like a smart scale (which broke in the meantime) and my smart band. To be honest there are now many devices in the household that have a screen of some sort, the laundry machine, the dryer, the over, then dishwasher, the cleaning robot. I just have no clear idea of their specification. While we have an 4K Apple TV, we have not yet a 4K TV, so that did not make the cut.
The resolution of my laptop is inching towards the resolution of early laser and inkjet printers (254 DPI vs 300), which is good, as low DPI screen tire me. The most striking thing for me is that the screen of my watch (Mi Band 4) is nearly at the resolution of my first computer (Commodore 64).
| Device | Year | Resolution | Pixels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commodore 64 | 1982 | 320 × 200 | 64000 |
| Mac Classic | 1990 | 512 × 342 | 196608 |
| PowerMac 7100 | 1994 | 1024 × 768 | 786432 |
| PowerMac G4 | 1999 | 1280 × 1024 | 1310720 |
| MacBook Pro | 2006 | 1280 × 800 | 1024000 |
| Sony PS3 | 2006 | 1280 × 800 | 1024000 |
| Sony Ericsson 802SE | 2004 | 176 × 220 | 38720 |
| iPhone 3G | 2008 | 320 × 480 | 153600 |
| iPhone 4 | 2010 | 640 × 960 | 614400 |
| iPhone 5 | 2012 | 640 × 1136 | 727040 |
| iPhone 7+ | 2016 | 1080 × 1920 | 2073600 |
| iPhone Pro 11 | 2020 | 1125 × 2436 | 2740500 |
| Mac Book Pro 13″ Retina | 2012 | 2560 × 1600 | 4096000 |
| Mac Book Pro 14″ M1 | 2022 | 3024 × 1964 | 5939136 |
| Withings Scale | 2009 | 62 × 40 | 2480 |
| Mi Band 4 | 2019 | 126 × 294 | 37044 |