If you want to buy a television, a computer monitor, or a TV, the size will be given in inches. But why is that?
This is what it’s about: If you are considering buying a new monitor, you will sooner or later stumble upon the unit of measure inches. A unit of measurement that we actually encounter very rarely in everyday life. For instance, we at MeinMMO asked you how big your current TV is and wanted to know the size in inches.
MeinMMO explains what this designation means and why many devices are still referred to this way today.
Countries like the USA use a different unit of measurement than Germany
In Germany and almost all other European countries, we uniformly use centimeters and meters. This is also called the “metric system.” It hasn’t been like this for long, as until the 19th century, many European countries still used inches as a unit of measure.
How much is an inch and where does it come from? The inch is several centuries old and first appears in an English legal text from the early 7th century. An inch referred to three barley grains laid end to end. In the German-speaking area, the “thumb” was also frequently used as a unit of measure.
When we talk about “inches” today, we mean the “international inch” which is 2.54 centimeters long.
What does that have to do with the TV? The USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom still use inches as a unit of measure (in English “Inch”). Since many manufacturers have their main sales market or headquarters in the USA, many goods are specified in inches. This also applies to many devices that we can buy here in Germany.
In Germany, some devices now also show the unit of measure in centimeters behind the inch specification. This is the case on Amazon, for example. But even in German, we almost always discuss screen sizes in inches as a unit of measure.
Monitors and TVs are not the only devices that are measured in inches. There are also several others where inches are used as a unit of measure. Most devices have probably crossed your path in everyday life as well. Although presumably, none of you will buy a TV with a size of 325 inches that LG announced a few weeks ago.
Many devices are specified in inches today
What is measured in inches? Not only monitors and TVs are measured in inches. Other items include
- 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
… measured in inches. And that’s by no means the complete list. In Germany, alongside inches, there is often also a specification in centimeters. In electronic devices, inch specifications are still most commonly encountered in everyday life.
What do you think about this? Do you care whether you have to buy your monitor or your hard drive with inch or centimeter indication, or have you long wondered what these specifications mean? Tell us in the comments.
Gaming monitors to get the best out of PS5 and Xbox Series X
