In This Article
What is Full HD (FHD) Display?
Full HD display refers to a display resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, which is also known as 1080p. This type of display offers a high level of detail and clarity, with sharp and vibrant images, making it ideal for tasks such as gaming, video streaming, and graphic design.
Full HD displays are commonly found on computer monitors, televisions, and mobile devices, and provide a viewing experience that is much more immersive than lower-resolution displays.
The term “full HD” is often used interchangeably with “1080p” to refer to displays that have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The Full HD displays use an advanced digital image processing technology to create images that look more realistic and sharper though the quality of image will depend on the signal strength.
- These displays use a 6-segemet color wheel for brighter colors, sophisticated gray-scale accuracy for better contrast and automatic brightness adjustment features for displaying high quality images.
- The Full HD displays come with eye protection features to make the images softer to your eyes.
- Old videos and movies will not look exceptional on the FHD displays.
Understanding Full HD (FHD) Display
Technically, full HD display or 1080p is now a very common resolution that almost every device that has a screen comes with.
Ideally, higher the number of pixels in the width x height format, better will be the images with sharper features and a more realistic look.
Today, most of the monitors come with this resolution and even desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones also come with a full HD display.
However, in the gaming world, as well as in modern computing, full HD display is still not considered to be the ultimate in resolution and user experience.
In fact, it is considered to be the lowest resolution! It is 4K or 1440p that is more acceptable as it provides a better viewing and more realistic experience.
Whether it is full HD display or 4K, both will need a significantly powerful graphics card and a strong and stable video signal so that the users and mainstream gamers are provided with real ‘high definition’ images.
Therefore, it can be concluded that a full HD screen will display images that are much better and sharper than:
- 1280 x 720 pixels of standard HD display or
- 1366 x 768 pixels of most of the computers, and, certainly
- 640 x 480 pixels of the old-fashioned SD or Standard Definition displays.
However, the images of a full HD display will not be as good as 4K or 1440p, which has become the standard of today and is becoming increasingly popular with each passing day.
Now, there is one thing that you should keep in mind at this point. If you really want full HD viewing pleasure and a theater-like experience, you must have a bigger screen. This is because the pixel density typically depends on the overall size of the screen.
If you want to buy a smartphone with full HD display, make sure that the size of the screen is at least 6 inches: larger, the better.
If the screen size is small, you will hardly notice a difference in the quality of the images while watching movies, playing games or simply reading an e-book on your smartphone.
The Technical Perspective
Based on the specifications of the resolution, the image will be displayed by:
- 1,920 pixels horizontally across the screen and
- 1,080 pixels vertically down the screen.
Do not get confused with the letter ‘p’ in the nomenclature.
The letter ‘p’ in 1080p, in no way, stands for ‘pixels.’ Instead it denotes ‘progressive scan.’ This means that it is non-interlaced.
According to the technical jargon, resolution terminologies may be different and have different meanings. For example:
- 1080p means that the picture will have 1080 rows of pixels and will be created by progressive scanning
- 720i means the image will have 720 rows made by interlacing them
- 720p means 720 rows in the image made by progressive scanning and
- 480i means an image with 480 rows and made by interlacing, as in Standard Definition or SDTVs.
Also, when you are told that a display is of 1080p standard, you can assume that the images will have a widescreen aspect ratio measuring 16:9.
This resolution ratio implies 2.1 megapixels. That is why, these full HD display screens are often referred to and marketed by the manufacturers as 2K.
Ideally, a full HD display will provide a much better viewing pleasure as compared to normal HD display that has a resolution of 1080 x 720 pixels or 720p.
1080p resolutions support the ASTC standards and send video signals that are used especially in television broadcasts.
However, these screens are now also available for the common people to use in their homes.
This will provide a better user experience and viewing, and you can connect several devices for that matter such as:
- A Blu-ray disc
- Internet to view Netflix movies and TV shows and YouTube videos
- Consumer-grade projectors and TVs
- Video game consoles
- Computer and even
There are also a few digital cameras and camcorders that can shoot videos or capture still images in 1080p resolution.
Therefore, Full HD display is just the next step of display definition and specifics, being improved from the standard HD 1280 x 720 pixels to 1920 x 1080 pixels, or, in short, 1080p resolution.
Working Process of Full HD Display
Normally, all monitor screens and other displays, such as your laptop, will create and show the images in the same way. This means that, every display will create a single large image by using three components such as:
- Millions of dots
- Lots of rectangles and
- Equally large numbers of squares.
All these taken together are called pixels.
The only difference in the working process of a full HD display and that of a high definition or a standard definition display will be in the number of these pixels.
A full HD display uses the latest and most sophisticated digital image processing technology for creating an image more realistically with sharper features. The entire working process involves:
- Color
It uses a high-class six-segment color wheel as well as a more dynamic lamp control to produce more vivid and clearer colors.
Few specific models may also use other useful and advanced technologies, such as a View Match color model, to optimize the colors of the images automatically.
This helps in producing more clarity and a greater detail in the images created.
- Contrast
An image with a poor contrasting feature will never look realistic, and therefore, a full HD display uses highly advanced gray-scale accuracy.
This enables the screen to display properly and extremely discerned shades of black.
This adds a better texture and more intricate details not only in the dark images but also while showing a colorful scenery.
- Brightness
All images need light to be viewed but a greater amount of light will blur the ends and reduce the quality of it.
Therefore, a full HD display also uses an automatic brightness adjustment feature to ensure that the image quality is not deteriorated due to overexposure when projected on the screen.
The fluctuations in brightness will be minimalized this way, which will, in turn, ensure that the image has rich details, no washouts, and a better viewing comfort with the right amount of brightness in it.
All the images are scanned in a different way in a full HD display as compared to any HD or SD display and the large number of pixels are painted properly on the screen.
This fills every corner of it, irrespective of the size of the screen.
The mechanism paints the odd-numbered rows first and then the even-numbered rows in between.
This is done before the next picture or frame is painted. Everything happens in a proper sequence and the process is called interlacing.
The image processing mechanism also follows progressive scanning methods as opposed to the standard scanning methods which were followed by the Cathode Ray or the cruder LCD televisions of the olden times.
With better LCD technologies available today, progressive scanning helps the screens to paint and show a picture more quickly, and of course, with more details and sharpness.
This is because all the lines in the rows are scanned in a specific order starting from the top to the bottom.
The Pros
1. Immersive viewing
A full HD monitor will take your viewing experience to the next higher level with more immersive viewing when you watch movies, videos or play games.
The images will have stunning graphics and highly improved cinematics.
2. Play high-end games
You can play or watch high-end games that have intense graphics, such as a baseball game, on a full HD display much more easily and effectively.
Therefore, if you are a Game of Thrones, PUBG or Star Wars fan, this is the resolution you should look for, even in your smartphone.
The display will be packed with unique features such as realistic characters and lighting effects, customization, detailed settings and background, better console movements, and animation for the ultimate viewing pleasure and best gaming involvement.
3. Accessibility
If you perform any online task, a smartphone with higher resolution of 1080p will enable you to access the internet more easily.
With progressive scanning features, the load time of the pages will be much less with no buffering, which is most annoying, whether you want to research a certain topic or shop online.
With better display, you can view text, enter personal data and payment details, view different items in different categories to make your choice and sift through tens and hundreds of images and pages in quick time.
4. Eye protection
One of the most significant benefits of using a full HD display is that it will be softer to your eyes.
This means that, even if you play games on your smartphone, smart TV or laptop computer for long hours, it will not strain your eyes.
The images and texts will be big, clear, and crisp and you can read text messages or status of your social media feeds, e-books or email messages, articles or product details without causing any harm to your eyes.
The Cons
5. Signal strength
The quality of images on a full HD screen depends entirely on the strength of the video signals sent to the set.
It may be low because of poor signals of your cable or any other transmitter equipment.
Therefore, you may have a full HD display with a resolution of 1080p and an aspect ratio of 16:9, but if the signal received by it is in the form of 1080i, the image will not be as clear as it should be.
If the set cannot convert the signal correctly, the image quality may be degraded.
6. Viewing old material
If you like watching old movies and videos that were shot with not-so-advanced equipment and technology, you should not expect anything magical or terrific on your new full HD display.
Questions & Answers:
What does full HD display mean?
Full HD stands for Full High Definition and indicates the resolution of a screen. This is typically 1920 x 1080 pixels, in the image width and height form.
This is the most common form in most of the 32-inch TVs and computer screens.
This resolution is also referred to as 1080p, where ‘p’ stands for ‘progressive scan’ and not pixels. More advanced full HD displays like the FHD+ will have a resolution of 2220 x 1080 pixels. It simply means a better viewing pleasure.
Is FHD better than HD?
Yes, of course. It is all due to the resolution. A full HD screen displays images of 1920 x 1080 pixels but the HD screen will have a resolution of 1080 x 720 pixels.
This means that a full HD display is 34% better. However, to find out the difference in image quality of a full HD display and an HD, you will need a bigger screen.
Is Full HD 4k?
At consumer level, the answer is usually, no. Though the two terms are used virtually interchangeably, it is hard for a full HD display to match 4K resolution, which is also termed as 4K2K.
Technically, 4K involves 4096 x 2160-pixel resolution and an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. With fewer pixels, even a UHD or Ultra-high Definition display cannot match with 4K, leave alone a full HD display.
Conclusion
Full HD display, also known as 1080p, has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and is commonly found on computer monitors, televisions, and mobile devices.
This display provides a high level of detail and clarity, making it ideal for gaming, video streaming, and graphic design.
However, 4K or 1440p is now considered to be the ultimate in resolution and user experience.
To enjoy full HD viewing pleasure and a theater-like experience, a larger screen is recommended.