DisplayScale
Measure

The method

Four scores. One ranking. Every reason shown.

Every candidate size is scored on fit, viewing angle, ergonomics and sharpness. The weighting depends on what you said you do. The output is a ranked list with its reasons in plain language — never a single “correct” answer.

The four factors

Fit

Does it physically work on your surface? Anything wider than the desk is ruled out with the exact shortfall.

Fit is the width of the body — glass plus bezels — against the width of your desk or wall zone, with the gaps between screens counted in when there is more than one. Roughly half to two thirds of the surface scores best: enough presence to be worth the money, enough desk left for a keyboard and a mug. Anything that needs more room than you have is not scored down, it is ruled out, and the row says by how many centimetres.

Viewing

The angle it subtends, against the range that suits the task.

The horizontal angle the screen fills from where you sit, judged against a band that moves with what you do. Desk work is comfortable in a fairly narrow band; films and gaming want more. Past about 60° you are turning your head rather than your eyes, which is what the "a lot of head turn" verdict is naming.

Ergonomics

Not looking up at it, not sitting too close, room for a keyboard.

Three checks. The top of the panel should not sit above your eye level, because looking up at a screen all day is what necks complain about. The stand should leave desk depth for a keyboard. And the distance should not be so short that the screen is closer than the size warrants. A monitor arm changes two of the three, which is why the switch is in the form.

Sharpness

Pixels per degree, not pixels per inch.

How sharp a screen looks depends on how far away you are as much as on its resolution, so the score is pixels per degree of your field of view rather than pixels per inch. It is why 1440p at 27 inches reads as sharp at desk distance and the same panel stretched to 32 inches does not, and why 4K on a television at 2.5 m buys less than the box suggests.

How the weighting moves

The same screen is not the same answer for a spreadsheet and a racing game. These are the exact weights the ranking uses, read from the same table the calculator reads.

The weight given to each of the four factors, for each kind of use.
Usefitviewingergonomicssharpness
Work30%25%20%25%
Gaming25%40%15%20%
Coding25%20%20%35%
Design25%20%15%40%
Movies25%50%10%15%
Mixed30%30%20%20%

The comfortable viewing band moves with it too: desk work sits well between 42° and 56° across, films between 50° and 66°. A size is not penalised for being at the edge of its band, only for being outside it.

Data & sources

The catalogue holds 15 monitor sizes and 14 television sizes. Each entry is a diagonal, an aspect ratio and a resolution — the three things a screen is actually sold by. Everything else on the page is derived from those three by the geometry in lib/calculations, not looked up: the width and height of the active area come from the diagonal and the ratio, and the body size adds a bezel allowance of 0.8 cm at each side, 0.8 cm at the top and 1.8 cm at the bottom.

Those allowances are bands, not model data. Stand depths, stand heights and foot spans are the same: typical values for a size class, chosen so the drawing is honest about the space a screen of that size takes. They are not a specification for any particular monitor, and a very thin-bezel panel or an unusually deep stand will differ. For a model you are about to buy, check its spec sheet — the number to look for is the body width, not the diagonal.

Nothing on this site is affiliate-ranked, sponsored or paid for. There are no product links, no prices and no retailers, which is why a ranking here can say a 57″ does not fit your desk without anything being at stake in saying so.

Curved panels are handled as a chord rather than an arc: what has to fit on the desk is the straight-line width across the curve, while the pixels are spread over the longer developed width. Both numbers exist in the engine and the one used is the one the question is about.

What the verdicts mean

Best fit
The highest-scoring size for what you told us you do. Usually only a point or two ahead of the next few.
Defensible
It works. Someone could reasonably choose it over the best fit for a reason we cannot see from here.
Compact
It fits comfortably and leaves room, but you are buying less screen than the space allows.
A lot of head turn
Wide enough from where you sit that you turn your head rather than your eyes.
Wider than your desk
It does not fit, and the row says by how many centimetres. It stays in the list rather than disappearing.