What Is a Good LCD Monitor Resolution?

Resolution is the amount of detail a screen is able to display. A "good" resolution depends on what you want to do; a particular resolution might work for general Internet browsing, but be bad for playing PC games.

Internet Browsing

For standard Internet browsing, including reading forums, checking e-mail and even watching videos a 1024 x 768 resolution is sufficient. Many web pages are optimized for this particular setting, and most LCD monitors can handle this setting.

Videos and Gaming

Although you can get away with playing video games and watching movies at a 1024 x 768 resolution, image quality won't be all that it can be; 1280 x 1024 is better suited for higher detail applications and it will also allow you to fit more than one window on the screen at once when you're just browsing.

Photo Editing

The only applications that require the highest screen resolutions are photo editing software and CAD programs. Every small detail in this situation matters, so resolutions as high as 1920 x 1200 are best for this type of work. This type of resolution would make general Internet browsing difficult, as text and icons would be much smaller, so bigger isn't always better.

References

• Techlore: What Resolution is Good for a LCD Monitor
• Digital Trends: LCD Resolutions: When bigger is actually smaller