Glossary
Aspect ratio
The ratio of a display's width to its height. 16:9 is the consumer baseline; 21:9 (ultrawide) and 32:9 (super-ultrawide) trade vertical space for horizontal canvas.
Aspect ratio determines how much canvas you get in each dimension at a given diagonal size.
Common ratios
- 16:9 — TV, most monitors, all streaming. Baseline.
- 16:10 — laptops (especially MacBooks, Surface). Modestly more vertical space.
- 3:2 — Surface, some Chromebooks. Document-friendly.
- 21:9 (2560×1080, 3440×1440, 5120×2160) — ultrawide. Cinematic, productivity-friendly.
- 32:9 — two 16:9 panels stitched. Sim-racing and ultra-wide productivity.
Content tradeoff
21:9 movies fill an ultrawide perfectly; 16:9 TV content shows pillarboxing. Most modern games render natively at ultrawide; older games and most console titles do not.
Where this matters
Categories that use aspect ratio
See it compared
Aspect ratio on real comparisons
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