I have never understood the acronyms associated with LCD screens. It seemed each time I looked there was a new one. Up until now I just memorized which one was better than another.

I just found these LCD definitions that clean all that up. Under the definition for “Resolution” are a list of the acronyms like UXGA, SXGA, XGA, etc.

Although I was initially happy with this, Dell’s 12.1 inch Inspiron features a WXGA screen and their 17″ Inspiron XPS Gen 2 has a WUXGA and another 17″ with XGA+ (I think used synonomously with WXGA+). Uggh. Well I would guess the “W” is for widescreen, and from looking around way to long on the dell website, I figured out the rest. I then browsed to other sites and found some more. Here is as complete a list I could come up with in 15 minutes time:

WUXGA: A display with 1900 x 1200 pixel resolution. (voodoo and dell)
WSXGA+: A display with 1680 x 1050 pixel resolution (alienware)
UXGA: A display with 1600 x 1200 pixel resolution.
WXGA+: A display with 1400 x 900 pixel resolution. (dell)
SXGA: A display with 1280  x 1024 pixel resolution.
WXGA: A display with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. (dell)
XGA:   A display with 1024 x 768 pixel resolution. 
SVGA: A display with 800 x 600 pixel resolution.
VGA:   A display with 640 x 480 pixel resolution. 

All this time I thought those acronyms meant so much more than just the number of pixels. Feels like a real hacky way to allow a company to make it sound like they have this “Great SXGA Display” when really it is just a 1280 x 1024.