Looking to purchase a new television? Prepare yourself for technology information overload!

Anyone shopping for a new television can quickly become overwhelmed with a barrage of things to consider.

One of the most common things you'll come across, and consequently one of questions we get asked most often about is… what does 1080p (or 4k, or 8k) actually mean/ refer to?

This isn't a surprising question since after screen size, it is probably the most commonly marketed feature on a television.

What 1080p, 4K and 8K all refer to is the screen resolution of your television (or the television you're considering buying).

A television's resolution is made up of the number of pixels on your screen, both horizontally as well as vertically.

Once people understand this, they seem to now assume that 4k has double the number of pixels of 1080p and 8k has double the number of pixels of a 4k television.

This is not the case though.

To correctly calculate the number of pixels (if you really want to know this) here is the breakdown.

  • 1080p is actually 1,920 x 1,080 or 2,073,600 pixels in total.
  • 4K is 3,840 x 2,160 or 8,294,400 pixels in total.
  • 8k is 7,680 x 4,320 or a whopping 33,177,600 pixels!

While it is a bit of a generalization, as a rule the more pixels/ higher resolution a television has the better the image will be.

Why would you want better resolution/ more pixels?

The more pixels there are, the better smaller objects on the screen can be represented. This allows for much finer details and just overall better images.

But since technology never stops, and that phrase definitely applies to televisions, you can now buy TV’s that offer even higher levels of resolution which are referred to as "Ultra HD Resolution TV Screens". These are quoted as 4k and 8k.

Having said all of the above, it's getting harder and harder to actually find 1080p televisions since that technology is getting pretty "long in the tooth".

Today pretty much all televisions are 4k, or you can even step up a level and purchase 8K (so you can be future ready). 8K televisions have the best picture you can buy because of their superior video scaling and pixel depth. When watching a 8K television its almost like watching a 3D picture.