A graphic which shows the resolution of QVGA compared to VGA. Click for actual size.

QVGA (4:3) compared with the other display standards.

The Quarter Video Graphics Array (also known as Quarter VGA, QVGA, or qVGA) is a popular term for a computer display with 320 × 240 resolution. QVGA displays are most often used in mobile phones, PDAs and some handheld game consoles. Often the displays are in a “portrait” orientation (i.e., taller than they are wide, as opposed to “landscape”) and are referred to as 240 × 320.

The name comes from having a quarter of the 640 × 480 maximum resolution of the original IBM VGA display technology, which became a de facto industry standard in the late 1980s. QVGA is not a standard mode offered by the VGA BIOS, even though VGA and compatible chipsets support a QVGA-sized Mode X. The term refers only to the display's resolution and thus the abbreviated term QVGA or Quarter VGA is more appropriate to use.

QVGA resolution is also used in digital video recording equipment as a low-resolution mode requiring less data storage capacity than higher resolutions, typically in still digital cameras with video recording capability, and some mobile phones. Each frame is an image of 320 × 240 pixels. QVGA video is typically recorded at 15 or 30 frames per second. QVGA mode describes the size of an image in pixels, commonly called the resolution; numerous video file formats support this resolution.

Prior to Version 7 iTunes distributed television programs in QVGA resolution for watching on a PC or syncing to a fifth-generation iPod, which is capable of playing QVGA-resolution videos at 30 frames per second. iTunes now distributes television programs and movies in VGA resolution.

While QVGA is a lower resolution than VGA, at higher resolutions the "Q" prefix commonly means quad(ruple) or four times higher display resolution (e.g., QXGA is 4 times higher resolution than XGA). To distinguish quarter from quad, lowercase "q" is sometimes used for "quarter" and uppercase "Q" for "quad", but this is not a consistent usage.^[1]

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• QQVGA - Quarter-QVGA denotes a resolution of 160 x 120, as used on the 4th-generation (greyscale) iPod, or 120 x 160 pixels.
• HQVGA - Half-QVGA denotes a resolution of 240 x 160 or 160 x 240 pixels, as seen on Game Boy Advance.
• 320x240 (festival) - a festival involving movies made in the resolution.
• Mode 13h and Mode X - video modes in VGA (including VGA-compatible and successors to VGA, such as VESA) hardware with a resolution profile similar to QVGA
• Wide VGA - 480 pixels high, but 800, 848, or 854 pixels wide. Often used on handheld devices.

v • d • e Computer display standards Video hardware MDA · HGC · CGA · PGC · EGA · VGA · MCGA · 8514 · XGA Size comparison Display resolutions QQVGA · HQVGA · QVGA · HVGA · VGA · SVGA · XGA · XGA+ · SXGA · SXGA+ · UXGA · QXGA · QSXGA · QUXGA · HXGA · HSXGA · HUXGA Widescreen variants WQVGA · WVGA/FWVGA · WSVGA · WXGA · WSXGA/WXGA+ · WSXGA+ · WUXGA · WQXGA · WQSXGA · WQUXGA · WHXGA · WHSXGA · WHUXGA

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