A widescreen resolution is now the most popular, for the first time

Apr 13, 2012 13:44 GMT  ·  By

Most tech-inclined people, sporting 22-inch or bigger monitors with 1920x1080 resolutions, won't believe it, but for a long time 1024x768 was the most popular screen resolution on the web.

In fact, according to StatCounter, the resolution has only now been overtaken by 1366x768 as the most popular resolution on desktops.

Granted, the landscape is a lot more varied now and different resolutions are used by more people.

"Since StatCounter began its tracking of screen resolution in March 2009, as a free service to developers and other users, 1024x768 has been the dominant screen size globally on the web (excluding mobile)," StatCounter explained.

"1024x768 has fallen from 41.8% in March 2009 to 18.6% in March 2012. Over the same period 1366x768 has grown from 0.68% to 19.28%.The third most popular size is 1280x800 at 13%," it added.

It's important to note that StatCounter counts desktops, laptops but also tablets for the stats. Back in 2009, the tablet market was virtually inexistent, but the iPad and iPad 2 have sold in the tens of millions. Both devices sport a 1024x768 screen resolution.

Even so, it seems that the iPad does not have a big impact on the stats, if anything it slowed down the demise of the resolution. It's about time too, 1024x768 may have been the standard resolution 10 years ago, but it's hardly appropriate now.

It's also important to note that, for the first time, a widescreen resolution has become the most popular. This should be particularly important for web designers which typically create sites that work on the smallest standard resolution and aspect ratio.

This is painfully clear with Google+'s new design which doesn't work that well with large monitors and resolutions, but it's hardly the only offender.