Why are screens actually measured in inches?

That’s what it’s about: If you are considering buying a new monitor, sooner or later you will stumble across the inch unit of measurement. A unit of measurement that we rarely encounter in everyday life. For example, we at MeinMMO asked you how big your current television is and wanted to know the size in inches from you.

MeinMMO explains to you what is behind this information and why many devices are still referred to with it today.

Countries like the USA use a different unit than Germany

In Germany and almost all other European countries, we consistently use centimeters and meters. This is also known as the “metric system of units”. This has not been the case for long, because up until the 19th century, many European countries still used the inch as a unit of measurement.

What does that have to do with the TV? The USA, Canada and the United Kingdom still use the inch as a unit of measurement. Since many manufacturers have their main sales market or their company headquarters in the USA, many goods are listed here with customs duties. This also applies to many devices that we can buy from us in Germany.

In Germany, the unit of measurement in centimeters is now also given after the inch specification on some devices. This is the case on Amazon, for example. But even in German, we almost always discuss screen sizes in inches as a unit of measurement.

Monitors and televisions are not the only devices that are measured in inches. Because there are also a few more where inches are used as a unit of measurement. Most of the devices are likely to have crossed your path in everyday life. Although probably none of you will buy a 325-inch TV that LG announced a few weeks ago.

Today, many devices are specified in inches

What is calculated in inches? Not only monitors and televisions are calculated in inches. In addition, about

• Hard drives, floppy disks and cassettes
• Smartphones, navigation devices, e-book readers and tablets
• weapons
• optical devices such as lenses on cameras
• sports equipment
• musical instruments
• or rims of tires on cars and bicycles

… calculated with customs. And that’s far from the complete list. In Germany, in addition to inches, there is often a specification in centimeters. In the case of electronic devices, customs information is still the most common in everyday life.

What do you think? Don’t you care if you have to buy your monitor or hard drive in inches or centimeters, or have you always wondered what these numbers mean? Tell us in the comments.

Gaming monitors to get the most out of PS5 and Xbox Series X