Is inches the global standard for measuring Screens?

[AFKHero]

Hi everyone,

 

I had this question during the video on the Chinese only Huawei TV.  I noticed on the box it has 55" written on the box which I found odd since the product isn't intended for sale anywhere outside China.  I always assumed screens in other countries of the world would be advertised and measured in cm as anyone outside the USA always says imperial measurements are stupid.  Just wondering if inches is the standard measurement for monitor/television screens across globe or if this was an odd occurrence.

 

Thanks for the input!

[Yeroh]

As far as I can tell, it is. It's used in Germany too, though you will often find sellers specify the size in centimeters as well.

[minibois]

I'm from a metric standard country and we measure screens (TV, monitors, phones, etc.) in inches. With TV's though, they often do have the CM equivalent in smaller numbers.

From what I assume, this is just because it has become the standard at this point. Even though, in CM the size would be large (1 inch being 2,54CM I mean). 

 

Just thinking about this, having Inches being the standard for TV's and monitors, it does make it easier to look at the product name (e.g. Samsung UE55NU7090) and immediately seeing it's a 55" unit.

 

For the record though, I do think the imperial standard for sizes is.. Less than optimal. That is why usually monitor/TV manufacturers and also sellers do list the width and height specs in CM, rather than inches. The width*height is of course something you will use when measuring if your TV/monitor fits where-ever you need it to be.

 

EDIT:

some snippits from Dutch websites and how they advertise TV's (and their size):

 

Example 1:

 

Example 2:

[DrMacintosh]

Pretty much. Most tech companies are US based so the customary imperial measurements of the US became the standard internationally. Though most of the time you’ll see a conversion into cm. 

[SupaKomputa]

Inches is globally recognized as diagonal screen size, using cm would be missleading.

[AFKHero]

17 minutes ago, minibois said:

I'm from a metric standard country and we measure screens (TV, monitors, phones, etc.) in inches. With TV's though, they often do have the CM equivalent in smaller numbers.

From what I assume, this is just because it has become the standard at this point. Even though, in CM the size would be large (1 inch being 2,54CM I mean). 

 

Just thinking about this, having Inches being the standard for TV's and monitors, it does make it easier to look at the product name (e.g. Samsung UE55NU7090) and immediately seeing it's a 55" unit.

 

For the record though, I do think the imperial standard for sizes is.. Less than optimal. That is why usually monitor/TV manufacturers and also sellers do list the width and height specs in CM, rather than inches. The width*height is of course something you will use when measuring if your TV/monitor fits where-ever you need it to be.

 

EDIT:

some snippits from Dutch websites and how they advertise TV's (and their size):

 

Example 1:

 

Example 2:

That is cool.  Thanks for the info.  I was just thinking it might have become the standard in the early days of television manufacturing back in the 1940s and 1950s and just happened to stick and here we are about 75 years later and the world is still measuring TVs in inches.  

[Bacon soup]

In Australia everything is measured with beer

[PopsicleHustler]

I'd say most of EU and Easter countries (Russia, Belarus, Ukrain etc) use inches as standard for screen size measurement. Although retailers still put ( X cm) next to inchest for clarity.

[AFKHero]

1 minute ago, Bacon soup said:

In Australia everything is measured with beer

This is a form of measurement I could get behind.

[Firewrath9]

26 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Pretty much. Most tech companies are US based so the customary imperial measurements of the US became the standard internationally. Though most of the time you’ll see a conversion into cm. 

eh, samsung, LG are korean, Panasonic, Sony are japanese, acer is taiwanese, sharp is taiwanese and japanese, are the main OEMs for monitors.

ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, MSI, Acer, AOC are all taiwanese

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, Firewrath9 said:

eh, samsung, LG are korean, Panasonic, Sony are japanese, acer is taiwanese, sharp is taiwanese and japanese, are the main OEMs for monitors.

ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, MSI, Acer, AOC are all taiwanese

But the markets that these companies sell too is predominantly the US. Even if I'm just talking out of my a*s and I'm wrong about the market numbers, I don't know any other reason why these companies would use Imperial units when every other country is so in love with metric

[jones177]

19 hours ago, Bacon soup said:

In Australia everything is measured with beer

In the US everything is measured by football fields. 

[Anomnomnomaly]

The TV was invented in the UK and so screens were measured in imperial as that's what the standard was back then... the rest of the world simply adopted it as a standard... and even though the UK has moved to metric back in the 70's (some of us grew up using both so are bi measuring capable) some parts of the world are still stuck in the dark ages using it and that makes people think they invented stuff.