View Sonic XG3220

Big panel, puny pixels.

- Jeremy laird

Puny Pixels are an increasingly big deal. The smaller the pixels, the sharper, crisper, and more detailed the display. For devices like smartphones and tablets, pixel density is all the rage. The pixel counts offered by such devices are on the up, while the size of individual pixels shrinks ever smaller.

For the PC, and particularly desktop rigs with large displays, however, it’s more complicated. For starters, achieving so-called “retina”-style pixel density on a monitor measuring, say, 30 inches or more would a require a monumental pixel count, measuring in the high tens of millions. The kind of pixel grid, in other words, that existing display interfaces can’t cope with.