Which Android app resolutions to support?

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+3 Q:

Which Android app resolutions to support?

I see on the Android SDK pages, it mentions some screen resolutions to expect on Android platforms:

Small screen
QVGA (240x320), 2.6"-3.0" diagonal

Normal screen
WQVGA (240x400), 3.2"-3.5" diagonal FWQVGA (240x432), 3.5"-3.8" diagonal HVGA (320x480), 3.0"-3.5" diagonal WVGA (480x800), 3.3"-4.0" diagonal FWVGA (480x854), 3.5"-4.0" diagonal

Large screen
WVGA (480x800), 4.8"-5.5" diagonal FWVGA (480x854), 5.0"-5.8" diagonal

Obviously, testing an app you want to sell on all these resolutions is going to be a pain. Is there any data on what percent of android phones being used use the above resolutions? My hope is that there's only really 3 or so popular resolutions...

+6 A:

The most common screen sizes are 320x480 (G1, Hero), 480x800 (Nexus One and Desire) and 480x854 (Droid) which is nearly the same. If you're going with a 4th resolution, it'd have to be the 240x320 for things like the Tattoo.

That said, for many applications, different screen resolutions simply don't matter. As long as you code using density independent pixels, layout-weights and the like, normally everything will just resize itself automatically. If you're doing something with graphics, yes, it's more of a pain since you might need to have different size image files. That said, Android will still automatically auto-scale many things. Have you read Supporting Multiple Screens? It's a useful link from the Android Developers' site giving some best practices on how to handle it all.

Steve H 2010-03-29 14:37:35

Thanks. I know about what auto-scaling etc. but this is more of a problem for things like games where you generally cannot use custom widgets and you need to be able to fit everything on the screen in a visually pleasing way that doesn't obstruct gameplay.

wordyword 2010-03-29 20:33:57

I suppose it depends on how complicated your game is. If it's just 2D with a limited number of images used to generate your bitmaps, you can include a different bitmap for each general screen size, e.g. a different image for 'big' screens, 'medium' screens and 'small' screens. You can also get the size of the screen or the size of your custom view in pixels, or more general metrics like screen density, to calculate your own scaling factor. Lastly you can use different layouts for different screen sizes. However, I haven't tried 3D yet, so I couldn't say how difficult that is to manage.

Steve H 2010-03-29 21:29:52

Here is an up-to-date percentage breakdown of screen sizes and densities http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html. It might be useful for you.

kaciula 2010-08-24 07:33:46

ansaurus

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Which Android app resolutions to support?

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