Screen Resolution Checker

If you have just asked what is my screen resolution, the checker above already has your answer: it reads your display’s figures straight from your browser and shows them in plain English, with the size name — HD, Full HD, QHD or 4K — spelled out next to the numbers. No settings menus to dig through, no app to install, and nothing is recorded. It is one of the free checks on Speed Test UK, where you can test everything from your broadband speed to your monitor’s refresh rate in one place.

People look up their screen resolution for surprisingly practical reasons. A game asks which resolution to run at. A new monitor needs checking against what the box promised. A video call looks soft and you want to know whether the screen or the connection is to blame. Or a website simply looks too big or too small and you suspect a scaling setting. Whatever brought you here, the numbers above are only half the story — what they mean, and what to do when they look wrong, is covered below.

How to Use This Screen Resolution Checker

There is almost nothing to do, which is rather the point:

• Step 1: Look at the large figure at the top of the checker. That is your screen resolution in pixels — width first, then height.
• Step 2: Read the label underneath it. This tells you the common name for your resolution, such as Full HD (1080p) or QHD (1440p), so you can compare it with shop listings and game settings.
• Step 3: Scan the smaller panels for the supporting figures: available screen area, browser window size, viewport, device pixel ratio, colour depth and orientation. Each one is explained in the next section.
• Step 4: Find your row in the comparison table. Your screen’s row is highlighted automatically, so you can see where it sits against other common sizes.
• Step 5: If you need the figures for a support chat, a forum post or a developer, press “Copy my screen details” and paste them wherever they are needed.
• Step 6: Try resizing this window or rotating your phone. Every figure updates live, which is a quick way to see how window size and viewport differ.

One tip before you compare results: run the checker on the actual screen you are asking about. On a laptop with a second monitor attached, the figures describe the display this browser window is sitting on, so drag the window to the other screen and the readings will follow.

What Your Screen Resolution Result Actually Means

Resolution is simply a count of pixels — the tiny dots of light that make up the picture. A result of 1920 × 1080 means 1,920 pixels across and 1,080 down: just over two million pixels in total. More pixels packed into the same screen size means finer detail, sharper text and more room for windows side by side. Fewer pixels on a large screen means everything looks bigger but softer.

The marketing names follow a loose pattern based mostly on the height figure. 720 lines is HD, 1080 is Full HD, 1440 is QHD (four times the pixels of 720p, hence “Quad”), and 2160 is 4K UHD (four times Full HD). Televisions, monitors and phones all use the same names, which is why your 4K television and a 4K monitor share the same 3840 × 2160 pixel count despite being wildly different sizes.

Resolution is not the whole story of sharpness, though. A 1080p phone screen looks razor sharp because those pixels are squeezed into six inches; a 1080p 27-inch monitor looks noticeably grainier because the same pixels are spread far thinner. That relationship — pixels per inch — is why our mouse DPI calculator page and this one get used together by gamers setting up a new desk: screen size, resolution and viewing distance all pull on each other.

Available area, window size and viewport — why there are three different “sizes”

New visitors are often puzzled that the checker shows several different measurements. They are all correct; they just measure different things. Screen resolution is the whole display. Available area is what remains after the Windows taskbar or Mac dock takes its strip. Browser window is the full window including tabs and the address bar, and the viewport is the part of the page websites can actually draw on. If a site looks cramped, the viewport figure — not your resolution — is usually the one that matters.

Device pixel ratio and the scaling trap

The device pixel ratio (DPR) catches more people out than everything else combined. Modern laptops and phones deliberately render the desktop at a comfortable size and then scale it up, so a screen with 3840 × 2160 physical pixels might report 1920 × 1080 to websites, with a DPR of 2. Windows does the same thing when display scaling is set to 125% or 150%, which is the default on many laptops: a 1920 × 1080 panel then reports 1536 × 864.

Nothing is broken when this happens — your screen has not lost pixels. The checker notes the physical figure underneath the main result whenever scaling is active, worked out by multiplying by the ratio. If you need the unscaled number for a game or a design tool, set scaling to 100% temporarily in your display settings, or simply do that multiplication yourself. Developers meet these same figures through the browser’s Screen interface, which is documented in detail at MDN Web Docs.

Colour depth and orientation

Colour depth is how many bits each pixel uses to describe its colour. Almost every modern display reports 24-bit colour (about 16.7 million shades), and some HDR-capable screens report 30-bit. If yours shows something lower, like 16-bit, a driver or compatibility setting is worth investigating. Orientation simply confirms whether the screen is landscape or portrait — handy when a phone or a rotated monitor is behaving oddly, and it updates the moment you turn the device.

Common Screen Resolutions Compared

The table in the checker covers the sizes you will meet most often, but a few patterns are worth spelling out. Full HD (1920 × 1080) remains the most common laptop and monitor resolution by a wide margin, which is why so much software and so many games treat it as the default. QHD (2560 × 1440) has become the sensible upgrade for desk monitors in the 27-inch class: noticeably sharper than 1080p without demanding the graphics power that 4K does. Ultrawide screens stretch the width instead — 3440 × 1440 gives you roughly two smaller windows side by side with no bezel in the middle.

On phones the numbers run the other way up (taller than wide) and the names get vaguer — “Full HD+” usually means something around 1080 × 2400. Tablets and premium laptops often use 4:3 or 16:10 ratios, which is why a MacBook or an iPad shows a resolution that does not appear in television marketing at all. None of these are better or worse in isolation; what matters is whether the resolution suits the physical size of the screen and the work you do on it.

Screen Resolution on UK Screens: Laptops, TVs and Phones

A typical UK home now juggles half a dozen resolutions without thinking about it. The living-room television is very likely 4K, because 3840 × 2160 has been the standard panel in UK shops for several years — yet much of what it shows, from Freeview broadcasts to everyday streaming, still arrives at 1080p or lower and is upscaled. The work laptop is probably 1920 × 1080 or, on slimmer premium models, a 16:10 variant like 1920 × 1200. The phone in your pocket quietly out-resolves both on paper, but squeezed into a small panel where the extra pixels mostly buy smoothness rather than visible detail.

This matters when things look wrong. If a film looks soft on your 4K television, the screen is rarely the limiting factor — the stream or the connection usually is, which is why it is worth running a broadband speed test before blaming the panel. Conversely, if text on a new monitor looks fuzzy at arm’s length, check the checker above: Windows occasionally defaults to a lower resolution than the panel supports after a driver update, and the fix takes ten seconds once you know the number you should be seeing.

Resolution and Refresh Rate: The Two Numbers That Describe a Screen

Resolution says how many pixels a screen has; refresh rate says how many times per second it redraws them. They are independent — a 1080p screen can refresh at 60 Hz or 240 Hz, and a 4K screen can be a calm 60 Hz television panel or a fast gaming display. If you are setting up for gaming, checking both gives you the full picture: resolution for sharpness, refresh rate for smoothness. Our refresh rate test measures the second figure in your browser in exactly the same no-install way as this page, and the two results together tell you whether your settings match what your monitor advertises — a mismatch usually means a cable (older HDMI leads can cap refresh rates) or a setting that needs changing.

If Your Resolution Looks Wrong: A Quick Troubleshooting Pass

Start by comparing the figure above with the resolution your screen was sold as. If they match once scaling is accounted for, everything is healthy. If the raw number is lower and the DPR is 1, work through these checks in order:

• Windows: right-click the desktop, choose Display settings, and set “Display resolution” to the value marked (Recommended). That recommended value is your panel’s native resolution. Microsoft’s support pages walk through the same screens if you get stuck.
• Mac: open System Settings, then Displays, and choose “Default” or the highest sensible scaled option; hold Option while clicking “Scaled” if you need the full list. Apple’s support site covers the equivalent steps for older macOS versions.
• Cables and docks: cheap or ageing HDMI cables and USB docks can cap the resolution a monitor will accept. Try a direct connection with a known-good cable before suspecting the screen.
• Drivers: after a graphics driver update, Windows sometimes falls back to a safe low resolution. Reinstalling or rolling back the driver from the manufacturer’s site usually restores the full list.
• Phones and tablets: some Android phones ship with the display set below its maximum to save battery — look for a “Screen resolution” option in Display settings and switch it up, accepting the small battery trade-off.

Still stuck below the figure on the box? Test the screen on another device if you can. A monitor that shows its full resolution from a different laptop has a settings or driver problem at home; one that will not reach it from anything, on a good cable, may genuinely be faulty — and the copied details from this page make a tidy evidence note for a returns conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is my screen resolution right now?

It is the large figure at the top of the checker on this page, read directly from your device — for example 1920 × 1080, which is Full HD. The first number is the width in pixels and the second is the height. The label underneath gives you the common name, so you do not need to memorise the numbers when a game or a shop listing asks.

Why does the checker show a different resolution from my monitor’s specification?

Almost always because of display scaling. If Windows scaling is at 150% or your phone uses a high pixel ratio, the browser reports the scaled size rather than the physical panel size. Check the device pixel ratio panel: multiply the reported figures by that ratio to get your panel’s true resolution. It is a feature, not a fault — it keeps text readable on very sharp screens.

Is 1920 × 1080 good enough, or do I need 4K?

For most laptops and monitors up to about 24 inches, 1920 × 1080 is perfectly comfortable for work, browsing and video. 4K earns its keep on larger screens, on televisions viewed up close, and for photo or video editing where you inspect detail. Remember that a higher resolution also asks more of your graphics hardware in games, so sharper is not automatically better for every setup.

What resolution should I choose in a game’s settings?

Start with your screen’s native resolution — the figure this checker reports, or the physical figure if scaling is active. Games look sharpest when the game resolution matches the panel exactly. If the frame rate struggles, lower the in-game resolution one step or use the game’s resolution-scale setting rather than changing your desktop resolution.

Does a higher resolution use more data or battery?

On a phone or tablet, a higher panel resolution can use slightly more battery because the graphics chip pushes more pixels, which is why some phones let you lower it. For streaming, the resolution of the video you watch matters far more than your screen: a 4K stream uses several times the data of an HD one, whatever screen it plays on. Your screen itself does not change how much data an app downloads.

Can this checker see all my monitors at once?

It reports the display this browser window is on. With two or more screens, drag the browser window onto the other monitor and the figures update to describe that screen instead — a quick way to confirm each display is running at its proper resolution. Your computer’s display settings remain the place to arrange how the screens sit next to each other.

Check Your Screen, Then Check the Rest of Your Setup

Now you know your resolution, its proper name, and how it compares — a small piece of knowledge that makes monitor shopping, game settings and support calls considerably easier. While you are here, it is worth confirming the rest of the picture: run the refresh rate test to see how smoothly your screen redraws, or head back to Speed Test UK and check the connection feeding it. A sharp screen deserves a connection that can keep up with it.