Monitor Touchscreen Aspect Ratio Explained

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Christian McFarquhar

In simple terms the Aspect Ratio of a screen, whether it is a Television, Monitor or Touchscreen or Kiosk Screen is how the width of the screen compares to the height of the screen.

Screens can be square or can be rectangular in shape.

Aspect Ratios are given in the format of two numbers with a colon between them. Example 16:9

In this example for every 16 across (the width) the screen will be 9 top to bottom (the height). It is not a measurement of distance. It is a ratio measurement. A 16:9 screen can be massive or can be tiny.

16:9 will then give you a rectangular shape.

1:1 will be a square.

In reality few screens are truly square and they tend to be close to being square so 6:5 etc.

We hire many touchscreens to companies that are testing software for development. The software may be written abroad and the company are sent a copy of it to test. They then call us to provide a touchscreen for testing. Often the company that approaches us asks for a screen exactly the same as the company that are writing the software is using. So we may be asked to provide a screen of a specific size – say 55″ made by Sony and this model or that. However. this is not necessary.

The key thing is that the Aspect Ratio is matched. Of course you get a sense of how the software and the images within it will look if you have the same size screen – but this is not key. It would be a little odd to test some software on a laptop that will eventually be shown on a 65″ screen – but if the Aspect Ratios of the screens are the same, I would say that if you could only match one thing between the screens, this is the most important thing – not the size and certainly not the model etc.

All manner of Aspect ratios exist and all have different uses. There was a time when monitors were veering towards being square and this was expected to become the standard – but in fact, as we have gotten used to having bigger screens, and phones that can be rotated onto their side so the image rotates, we have drifted towards 16:9 and this is the most popular screen Aspect Ratio.