Average Display Resolution and Color Depth
W3Schools is a Website for people with an interest for web technologies. Data collected from W3Schools’ log-files over almost ten years, clearly shows the long and medium-term trends:
Display Resolution
The current trend is that most computers are using a screen size of 1024×768 pixels or more:
| Date | Higher | 1024×768 | 800×600 | 640×480 | Unknown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 2010 | 76% | 20% | 1% | 0% | 3% |
| January 2009 | 57% | 36% | 4% | 0% | 3% |
| January 2008 | 38% | 48% | 8% | 0% | 6% |
| January 2007 | 26% | 54% | 14% | 0% | 6% |
| January 2006 | 17% | 57% | 20% | 0% | 6% |
| January 2005 | 12% | 53% | 30% | 0% | 5% |
| January 2004 | 10% | 47% | 37% | 1% | 5% |
| January 2003 | 6% | 40% | 47% | 2% | 5% |
| January 2002 | 6% | 34% | 52% | 3% | 5% |
| January 2001 | 5% | 29% | 55% | 6% | 5% |
| January 2000 | 4% | 25% | 56% | 11% | 4% |
Color Depth
The current trend is that most computers use 24 or 32 bits hardware to display 16,777,216 different colors.
Older computers and laptops often use 16 bits display hardware. This gives a maximum of 65,536 different colors.
Handheld computers (and very old computers) often use 8 bits color hardware. This gives a maximum of 256 colors.
| Date | 16,777,216 | 65,536 | 256 |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2010 | 97% | 3% | 0% |
| January 2009 | 95% | 4% | 1% |
| January 2008 | 90% | 8% | 2% |
| January 2007 | 86% | 11% | 2% |
| January 2006 | 81% | 16% | 3% |
| January 2005 | 72% | 25% | 3% |
| January 2004 | 65% | 31% | 4% |
| January 2003 | 51% | 44% | 5% |
| January 2002 | 43% | 50% | 7% |
| January 2001 | 37% | 55% | 8% |
| January 2000 | 34% | 54% | 12% |
Read more about the display of colors
