FHD Vs HD – Find the Difference?

Digital displays are very tricky to understand, especially when it comes to the overall quality and value of the device at a specific price range. Apart from the physical size of the display, you also need to carefully check the digital quality of the display which can be acknowledged by checking the resolution and pixel density. Right now, there are hundreds of options available in the market for TVs, monitors, smartphones, and many other devices which consist of a digital display.

While you are browsing through these devices, you will come across a lot of terms like FHD, HD, HD Ready, UHD, etc. If this is your first time getting a display, then you are probably unfamiliar with these terms. However, you must not ignore them as they are an important part of the overall specifications of any digital multimedia device. Today, we are going to get detailed information about FHD and HD resolution and discuss what they are and why you should consider them carefully.

Before we discuss the major differences between FHD and HD displays, let us try to understand what this represents in a display and why it is important regarding the overall quality of the display.

FHD (Full High Definition) Display

FHD is probably the most common term you will come across while browsing standard TVs and monitors. In fact, FHD displays have been the industry standard for smartphones, monitors, TVs, and even laptops for more than a decade now. The term FHD stands for Full high Definition and represents 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. In this representation, 1920 is the width of the panel whereas 1080 is going to be the height of the digital panel. The total number of pixels available on an FHD display in a single frame is, as you can expect, 1920 times 1080 which is about 2073600 pixels.

However, the height and width of the display presented in the FHD nomenclature do not mean the physical size of the display. You will find the FHD resolution supported display panels even with smartphones that fit right in your pocket. It is basically the quality of the panel powering the display. The FHD quality represents how many pixels you will be able to see on the panel irrespective of its physical size. The FHD resolution offers images in a 16:9 aspect ratio similar to most standard display panels in the market.

HD (High Definition) Display

HD stands for High Definition and it is often confused with an FHD. As HD used to be the common standard for digital panels back in the day, a lot of users still prefer getting an HD display for their TVs or monitors. And as FHD displays are quite popular now, you can easily find an HD display within a highly affordable price range which should be the right choice for applications like surveillance monitors, secondary monitors, or a compact personal TV.

The HD nomenclature denotes 1280 x 720 pixels panel resolution and consists of 921600 pixels in total. As you can observe, HD displays offer 2.25 times lesser pixel density compared to standard 1080p panels. Therefore, the image quality on an HD display will be significantly lower for the identical size than that of a 1080p display panel. However, HD panels are still useful as they offer faster image output which is a necessity in most cases. On top of that, HD display panels are best suited for compact and portable laptops. These laptops are designed for productivity-focused tasks for which HD displays offer a reasonable quality.

Difference Between Full HD and HD Display

By now, you must have understood the major differences between HD and FHD displays. And right now, you are probably going to choose a display between FHD and HD resolution as these are the most popular options on the market right now. By checking out our take on HD and FHD display panels, you can easily understand the differences between these options and what you can expect from your purchase. If you are still unsure, here’s a quick recap of the major differences between HD and FHD displays.

Difference Between Full HD and HD Ready Display

There is yet another standard for digital displays called “HD Ready”. You will often find a series of mid-range smart TVs with this nomenclature that is suitable for the majority of casual users. The term HD Ready represents the resolution 1366 x 768 pixels which result in a total pixel capacity of 1049088. As you might have guessed, HD Ready display panels are slightly better than HD panels that offer a pixel capacity of 921600.

The increased pixel capacity certainly offers better image sharpness and clarity for the same physical size of the display. Compared to FHD displays, the HD Ready displays still fall behind in terms of overall quality. However, it is a perfect middle ground between HD and FHD display panels. If you wish to know more about HD Ready display and how it competes with FHD, take a look at the quick comparison provided below.

What is Display Resolution?

So far, we have discussed various types of display panels such as HD, HD Ready, and Full HD and how it differs in terms of quality. The basic difference in these display panels is the digital resolution available at the display. But, if you are not sure what display resolution is, you should stick around and find its importance.

Quite literally every single digital display you will find on an electronic device has a particular resolution capacity. This is also called “image resolution” for some devices. Any digital image you see on your TV, smartphone, laptop, or computer is created by millions of small dots called pixels. The pixel density varies along with the resolution capacity of the display. For example, a 480p display can offer up to 409920 pixels whereas a 4K display offers 8294400 pixels. Due to the difference in the number of pixels available per unit size of the display, the overall quality and color accuracy of the digital image changes based on its resolution.

Therefore, you can understand why the resolution is a major specification of a digital display and why you should always consider it before you buy a new TV or monitor. The resolution should also be checked for compact devices like laptops and even smartphones as it is a permanent specification of the system and cannot be upgraded later on.

Importance of Display Resolution

If you have understood what display resolution is, you can imagine why it is so important to acknowledge before you make a purchase. As we mentioned earlier, you will not be able to change the resolution of the display you are getting unless you replace the whole thing altogether. If you wish to get better image quality, image sharpness, and color accuracy, you should always prefer the best resolution display available under your budget. However, the requirements regarding the display resolution might change based on the product you are buying.

If you are buying a new generation smart TV, you will come across hundreds of options with the size varying from 32 inches all the way up to 85 inches. As the physical display size increases, the necessity for higher resolution also increases. If your display has more space, it should also offer a similarly higher pixel count to compensate for the size. If you end up with a large screen with a comparatively smaller resolution, you will find the image quality blurry and stretched out which is very unpleasant.

Another important factor is the content that you are going to render on your display. If you are buying a monitor for gaming, then you have to make sure that it supports the same resolution output as your graphics card. If you are going to play games at 720p or 768p resolution, then it would not be a good idea to buy a 1080p or 1440p monitor. If you play lower resolution content on a higher resolution display, it would result in blurry image quality. Thus, the content you are playing on the display must match with the display resolution.

Conclusion:

We hope that after going through our guide, you now fully understand HD as well as FHD display and their importance. We have also offered major differences between display types like HD, FHD, and HD Ready so that you can carefully choose the one which is best suited for your application. If you are not sure about how the display resolution affects the performance and image quality, you can find that information on our guide as well. If you have any more queries, feel free to reach us via the comment section given here.