The Business Glossary to Monitor Specs: What Terms Like Hz, Refresh Rates, and sRGB Mean
Looking to upgrade your business displays? Not sure what all the terminology means?
If your business needs new monitors, but you’re struggling to make sense of all the different options and choices available, you’re in the perfect place. Below, you’ll find a glossary of all the common terminology around display features and specifications you’ll need to make the right choice when it comes to refreshing your business displays.
If your business needs new monitors, but you’re struggling to make sense of all the different options and choices available, you’re in the perfect place. Below, you’ll find a glossary of all the common terminology around display features and specifications you’ll need to make the right choice when it comes to refreshing your business displays.
The Business Glossary to Monitor Specifications
Aspect Ratio (16:9/16:10)
The aspect ratio given by any monitor is an indication of a display’s width relative to its height. The most common display is 16:9, the widescreen view you’re use to on modern monitors and TVs. You’ll find other ratios such as 16:10, which is slightly higher than 16:9, offering more productivity space (more height means better views of documents and webpages, for example). 16:9 is predominantly used in screen sizes all the way up to 27” and beyond, though once you entert the realm of 29”, 34” and larger, widescreen 21:9 aspect ratios start to become more prevalent.Blue-Light Filter
Displays emit a spectrum of light to display what’s on each pixel of the monitor. The blue light each emits can suppress the production of melatonin (the hormone related to sleep). Filtering it out can help reduce eye-strain and make looking at your display less intrusive.Colour Gamut
When it comes to displays, the colour gamut indicates how many colours and the level of colour detail users can expect from the display. For example, the ASUS ProArt PA248QV offers 100% Rec. 709 colour gamut, a colour gamut ITU recommendation dating back to the 1990’s.Dolby Vision
Dolby Vision is a Dolby-specific HDR technology, that improves visual presentation on displays, offering a better dynamic range of colours, and better contrast.Eye-Care Technology
An ASUS specification, you’ll find ASUS Eye Care monitors feature certified Flicker-free and Low Blue Light technologies to ensure user’s vision remains unstrained and comfortable throughout long periods of display usage.Flicker-free
ASUS’ eye-care monitors offer TÜV Rheinland-certified Flicker-free technology, that reduces screen flicker to help users avoid eye strain and other eye ailments.HDR
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and any display equipped with this technology offers a greater contrast in visuals, equalling better visual range and clarity. There are multiple types of HDR, and you may see a number following the term HDR, equalling the level of gradations offered by the HDR technology included.Hz
Hz, or Hertz, represents how many frames can be displayed per second by the monitor - also know as the refresh rate. For example, a 60Hz monitor can output 60 frames per second. While 60Hz is the industry standard across displays, cameras, videos, streams, displays, and more, higher refresh rates give creators expanded freedom to enjoy smoother interaction, particularly in active software such as games, CAD and other visual-oriented programs.IPS
IPS stands for In-Plane Switching, and is one of the several monitor types available. IPS works via the shifting patterns of the liquid crystals making up the display, with the benefit being excellent colour accuracy and performance and better view angles.Motion Blur
Motion blur is the ‘lag’ of imagery being displayed; an easy example to point to is in cameras taking photos of moving objects. When you press the shutter, the image takes a small space of time to capture the image. During this period, the object continues to move. This is displayed as streaks or moving noise on the image. You’ll find mentions to motion blur in several ASUS products, such as the ASUS MG248QE, that includes ASUS-exclusive Extreme Low Motion Blur, for blur-free visuals.QHD/WQHD
QHD stands for Quad High Definition, while WQHD stands for Wide Quad High Definition. QHD refers to the display resolution of 2560 x 1400 pixels, also known as 2K. WQHD represents a variety of resolutions, that while still measuring 1440 pixels vertically, offer a wider pixel length than 2560 pixels.Nits
Nits are a commonly used unit of measurement when it comes to display brightness. Specifically, the luminescence over a square meter; candelas per m2 (cd/m2) is the formula.OLED
OLED is a unique LED technology, and standard for Organic Light Emitting Diode. Whereas normal LED screens use a backlight to light up the cells in a screen, OLED panels emit their own light when a current is passed through them. The benefit of OLED display technology is in its increased visual quality, offering brighter light tones and darker dark tones due to the fact that because the pixels themselves are producing the light, they can turn off or on as needed, offering a better range of colour clarity.Ray-Tracing
Ray-tracing is a relatively new technology when it comes to PC technologies and their use of it; ray-tracing is a rendering technique that allows systems to output realistic reflections and lighting within games and other visual applications. It’s important to note that any monitor can output ray-tracing visuals; it’s the system hardware that allows users to make use of ray-tracing. However, for businesses using RTX Studio, it’s worth investing in a monitor that offers the level of visual fidelity and responsiveness needed to develop such demanding visual assets.Refresh Rates
A refresh rate refers to how many times a monitor will update per second, and is tied to Hz. A 60Hz panel for example will refresh up to 60 times per second.Resolution
Resolution refers to the pixel count on a display. 1080p displays for example a measured 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high. The higher the pixel count, the denser the pixel density, and the better the visual quality and clarity will be on the display.See our article on display resolutions and why they matter here.
Response Time
Response time refers to how long it takes for a display to shift from one colour to another. This is measured in milliseconds, and the closer to 1ms a display’s response time is, the less delay there is between colours changing. For gaming, response time is extremely important so that player responses and on-screen actions match up as closely as possible. For less intensive on-screen tasks, such as work documents and such that don’t require rapid user input, response times aren’t quite as important.sRGB
sRGB, or standard Red Green Blue) is a colour space created cooperatively by HP and Microsoft over two decades ago, and represents the ‘default’ colour gamut on most displays. You’ll find ASUS monitors such as the ASUS ProArt PA32UC-K offer 100% sRGB, along with 99.5 Adobe RGB (another colour gamut) and other standards.Thunderbolt™ 3
Thunderbolt™ 3 is a connection technology developed by Intel that enables the connection of external peripherals and data transfer speeds of up to 40 Gbps. The ASUS PA27AC comes equipped with two Thunderbolt™ 3 USB-C ports than transfer data at high speeds, while also enabling power delivery up to 45W to external devices and the ability to daisy-chain displays via a single port. Digital signage, bigital billboards and so on are all alsoVariable Refresh Rate (G-Sync™ & FreeSync)
FreeSync and G-Sync are variable refresh rate technologies that help monitors sync with graphics cards and APUs, matching the refresh rate of what’s on-screen to the output of the display. This helps to prevent screen-tears and other visual artifacts, usually in high-speed visual experiences such as video games. G-Sync™ is an NVIDIA®-specific technology.
