Quad high-definition monitors, which are frequently referred to as QHD monitors, are monitors with a high screen resolution of 2560×1440 pixels. QHD only refers to the resolution on a monitor screen, while a monitor that runs this resolution seamlessly is a QHD monitor.
The world is fast gravitating toward the widespread usage of QHD-supported screens for laptops, desktops, tablets, and even smartphones. High-resolution screens will soon become the order of the day because of the quality of screen display they offer.
QHD is a high resolution, higher than the standard 1280×720 pixels that most conventional laptops can run. If you hope to enjoy a sharp screen display with quad-HD while operating your laptop but are unsure if your laptop will permit it, you are reading the right article in your quest for answers.
Will My Laptop Support A QHD Monitor?
The answer depends on the specifications of the laptop. These specifications include:
- The display or graphics card
- Frames per second (fps)
- The type of port your laptop has
You can seamlessly run a quad high-resolution monitor with a DVI (Digital Visual Interface), especially the dual-link DVI, because dual-link DVIs have a higher bitrate of 7.92 (the highest being 9.9) Gbit/s. A dual-link DVI can support a screen resolution of 2560×1600 at frames per second of 60Hz.
However, if your laptop computer does not have a DVI, some HDMI ports can allow your laptop to run QHD monitors with ease, but this depends on some of the specifications mentioned above and possibly more.
If you intend to use an HDMI port to run a 2560×1440 pixels screen, the HDMI 1.4 is best suited for the job as, like a dual-link DVI, it also supports a screen resolution of 2560×1600 at frames per second of 60Hz.
Nevertheless, your laptop can fail to run a QHD monitor even with HDMI 1.4 if the Intel HD graphics does not support a QHD or if the Intel HD graphics restricts screen display to a particular resolution at certain frames per second.
For example, integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 and 4000 have been shown to restrict screen resolution to 1920×1200 at 60 Hz fps; AMD and NVIDIA are popular graphics cards that support running high-resolution monitors.
Choosing The Right Screen Resolution For My Laptop
The following are pointers for you to know whether your laptop will be compatible with a QHD monitor.
Video cards
Determining your laptop’s video card specifications is a significant step in knowing the kind of resolution your laptop will run seamlessly. A resolution as high as Quad-HD is already twice as much as full HD (1920×1080 pixels) and hence would need better video cards.
Video cards such as AMD Radeon GPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPU, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU will allow for the smooth running of a 2560×1440 pixels screen with at least 60 fps.
Frames per second (FPS)
Also known as the frame rate is a measure of display performance that determines the rate at which images are displayed on the screen. Most conventional laptops, even affordable gaming laptops, are fitted with a frame rate of 60Hz. So an fps of 60 should, with the appropriate co-specs, run a high-resolution monitor smoothly. There is no denying, however, that higher is better in any case.
Type of port
Ports such as Video Graphics Array (VGA), DVI (Digital Visual Interface), and HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) are furnished with the ability to facilitate connecting a laptop to a monitor with all kinds of resolutions. However, they do this better and more easily than one another.
DVIs and VGAs will more readily allow a laptop with good graphics to run a quad-HD monitor than an HDMI would. Hence, determining the kind of ports available on a laptop will help determine the type of resolution it will run smoothly.
Screen size
The size of the monitor screen is equally important in determining the resolution that the laptop will run smoothly. A small pixel resolution will be sharper on a small monitor but will come off as fuzzy on a large monitor because the pixels are spread out over a larger number of inches.
So a large resolution pixel will come off as sharper and of better quality on a large monitor screen. Ultraportable laptops with a screen size of 13 inches and below are unlikely to support very high screen resolutions such as 4k (3840 x 2160 pixels) and 8k (7680×4320 pixels). High resolutions work best with large screens of sizes 17-inch, 20-inch, and above.
Graphics type
Without a good graphics card, a laptop will most likely support low screen resolutions, at best, a Full HD (1920×1080 pixels). For example, a laptop of the 840m generation category will likely be fitted with an Intel HD 3000 or 4000 graphics, and these graphics cards, even with the HDMI 1.4 spec, which typically supports 2560×1600 at a frame rate of 60Hz, are only able to support up to 1920×1080 at a frame rate of 60 Hz. Hence, running a high-resolution screen with a laptop with low graphics will be next to impossible, except with a few tweaks.
Refresh rate
A laptop’s display refresh rate is the number of times the display can bring up a whole new image in one second. Most conventional laptops have a refresh rate of 60 Hz (refresh rate is measured in Hz like the fps).
But to operate a high-resolution screen with your laptop, the higher the refresh rate, the better because this would allow for the laptop to run smoothly at high resolutions at low frames per second. Hence, the higher the refresh rate, the higher the resolution a laptop can support.
Can I Make My Laptop Work With My Desired Resolution?
There is no doubt you can if you have the technical know-how to the specifications to support your desired resolution at the frame rate, which is the number of images the screen displays per second simultaneously.
And as already mentioned above, with a few adjustments in specification adjustment and/or upgrade, you could make the port fitted to your laptop (be it HDMI, DVI, or VGA) work for you to run your a quad-HD with your laptop.
For laptops built to work perfectly with a large resolution, going to the settings on the laptop will allow the owner to use his laptop with a lower screen resolution with hiccups.
Final Thoughts
Not all laptops support a resolution as high as quad high definition, and for such QHD-incompatible laptops, an attempt to run QHD with the laptops will fail in that a rescaled/resized version of your images will pop up on the screen.
So to know if your laptop will run a Quad-HD monitor, go ahead and check the laptop’s specifications first to see if it will support the desired resolution.
