What are the standard sizes for desktop wallpaper?

[bill]

My company wanted to make some promotional desktop wallpaper designs for download. These would be for PC/Mac desktop screens, as well as laptops. It would be nice to have mobile versions as well.

What are the standard screen resolutions we would have to design for to cover the most common screen sizes and aspect ratios these days? Can we just make a giant image in the correct ratio and let the users' device resize it down, or do we need to make a number of different variants of the image for each size?

[keyplyr]

To keep it simple and not bother with numerous legacy or the in-between sizes, I would go with:

1600x1024 (older)
1920x1080 (most common)
2560x1600 (largest)
* Desktop screen settings can do the stretch-to-fit if needed.

As far as Mobile, wouldn't your mobile-detect script just size the images accordingly & likewise on the device?

[not2easy]

Don't forget the 5K display, mine is 5120x2880 at default. :)

[bill]

In terms of aspect ratio would I be OK just considering 16:9 and 4:3?

> 5K
Egads.
Could I just make one massive 5120×2880 image for 16:9 and 5120×3840 for 4:3, and let all the other desktops downsize it, or are multiple versions within an aspect ratio a better idea?

[not2easy]

I don't think it would need to be a full 5120x2880 because the pixels are smaller than on a typical Windows display. They are the same 326 pixels per inch as on the iPhone 4. Fonts and images are incredibly clear and crisp but it is not a literal translation because of pixel size (like device pixel ratios). I commonly view digital photos that are 3696x2448 and they are too big to view at full size on the 5K screen. At full size, those images have scrollbars.
Sticking to a 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratio would be your best bet imo.

[bill]

This is a complicated area. I thought it was going to be simpler than this.

StatCounter had some decent stats on screen resolutions [gs.statcounter.com...] So now I'm looking at a breakdown of the most popular resolutions roughly like this:

[16:9]
1366 x 768*
1920 x 1080
1024 x 768
1600 x 900

[16:10]
1280 x 800
1440 x 900

[4:3]
1024 x 768

[5:4]
1280 x 1024

I don't think I'll bother with 5:4 resolution. I'll probably just make large images in each of these ratios:
[4:3] 2048 x 1536
[16:10] 2560 x 1600
[16:9] 3840 x 2160