Dot Pitch or Resolution?

IMHO both are important.

In General the smaller the dot pitch the finer the image can be. The most common measure of dot pitch is the diagonal dot pitch. This is the “center to center distance between adjacent same color phosphor dot as measured in millimeters.” The diagonal measure factors both the horizontal and vertical distance between the dots and thus is an excellent measure.

While the diagonal dot pitch has historically been the measurement standard, it doesn’t work for aperture grill monitors. Aperture grille is constructed using a series of “stripes” instead of dots. Thus, there is no diagonal measure and aperture grille manufacturers quote the “stripe pitch” also known as the horizontal dot pitch. Obviously this is a shorter measure and shadow mask manufacturers responded by publishing their horizontal dot pitch to allow consumers to accurately compare between the two technologies. The horizontal measurement is an apples to apples comparison.

Most monitors today have similar dot pitches. Some ultra low cost monitors may cut corners by using CRT’s with a looser dot pitch. It is important to ask about what type of dot pitch is being used and how it is measured. When in doubt the horizontal dot pitch is the most universal measure that will allow you to compare all monitors. In addition to dot pitch, when evaluating a monitor’s sharpness consider the convergence specification.

In my opinion convergence is the most important specification in determining the sharpness of a monitor. Unfortunately I only know of three monitor companies that publish convergence specifications, HP, ViewSonic and Cornerstone. Like dot pitch smaller numbers are better.


Resolution is simple, the higher the resolution the more information you can get on the screen, the more productive you will be.

Jim Witkowski
Chief Hardware Engineer
Cornerstone / MonitorsDirect.com


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