15.6 Inch Laptop Screen Dimensions

How big is a 15.6 inch laptop screen?

Here it is drawn to scale against the largest size in our chart, the 18 inch. The screen covers 104 sq in671 sq cm, 1% less than a 15.3 inch laptop.

Diagonal

15.6 in (39.6 cm)

Width

13.6 in34.5 cm · 34.5 cm13.6 in

Height

7.6 in19.4 cm · 19.4 cm7.6 in

Screen area

104 sq in671 sq cm

Aspect ratio

16:9

Perimeter

42.5 in107.9 cm

Who is a 15.6 inch laptop for?

For over a decade, 15.6 inches was the standard size for budget and mainstream laptops. Most use the wide 16:9 shape, and many fit a number pad beside the keyboard. It suits a laptop that mostly stays on a desk at home or in an office.

Which popular laptops have a 15.6 inch screen?

Laptops with the same screen size can differ by an inch or more in width and depth. Check the maker's spec sheet before you buy a sleeve. Here are the exact screens of popular 15.6 inch laptops.

Models sold as 15.6 inch can measure a little more or less. The width and height come from each model's own resolution.

Our list has eight 15.6 inch models, from Acer, Dell and ASUS. One of them is a Chromebook. All eight use 1920 × 1080.

At a typical 18 in46 cm, you could make out single pixels on every one of them with 20/20 vision.

How far should you sit from a 15.6 inch laptop?

A laptop usually sits 14 to 24 in (36 to 61 cm) from your eyes. The table shows how much of your view a 15.6 inch screen fills at each distance. It feels very wide at 14 in36 cm, wide at 16 to 18 in41 to 46 cm and ideal at 20 to 24 in51 to 61 cm.

Which resolution suits a 15.6 inch laptop?

Higher resolution looks sharper but makes text smaller, so you need display scaling. At 15.6 inches, 1366 × 768 gives 100 PPI and 3840 × 2160 gives 282 PPI. The table shows the Windows scaling each needs.

Sit farther away than the last column and you will not see single pixels. See every resolution in the chart.

At this size, 3840 × 2160 hides single pixels at every laptop distance. 2560 × 1440 hides them from about 18 in46 cm. 1366 × 768 and 1920 × 1080 show them even at 24 in61 cm.

At 300% scaling, 3840 × 2160 draws everything three times as big, so its extra pixels go to sharpness, not space. Only 1366 × 768 runs at 100%, which fits the most on screen with small text.

How does a 15.6 inch laptop compare with other sizes?

The next size up, the 16 inch laptop, has 11% more screen area. The next size down, the 15.3 inch laptop, has 1% more screen area. Area grows with the square of the diagonal, so a few inches feel bigger than they sound.

It comes sixth of the nine laptop sizes in our chart, counting up from the smallest. The 15.3 inch laptop, the next size down, uses the 16:10 shape instead of 16:9. It is about half an inch narrower but about half an inch taller, with about the same screen area.

The 16 inch laptop, the next size up, uses the 16:10 shape instead of 16:9. It is about a tenth of an inch narrower but nearly an inch taller, with about a tenth more screen area.