page_title: 21:9 aspect ratio
section_title: Smartphones
hierarchical_section_title: 21:9 aspect ratio / Consumer devices / Smartphones
caption_attribution_description: English: LG BL40
context_page_description: 21:9 is a consumer electronics marketing term to describe the ultrawide aspect ratio of 64:27, designed to show films recorded in CinemaScope and equivalent modern anamorphic formats. The main benefit of this screen aspect ratio, compared to the more common 16:9, is the absence of the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen when viewing content in this format, and a constant display height when displaying other content with a lesser aspect ratio.
  The 64:27 aspect ratio is an extension of the existing video aspect ratios 4:3 and 16:9, as it is the third power of 4:3, where 16:9 of traditional HDTV is 4:3 squared. This allows electronic scalers and optical anamorphic lenses to use an easily implementable 4:3 scaling factor.
  The term "21:9" was chosen as a marketing term, first used by Philips in January 2009. Due to its common denominator, 21:9 is more relatable to 16:9, the aspect ratio of regular HDTVs, rather than the correct 64:27 or 21:9. If it actually were 21:9, the fraction could also be expressed in the reduced form as 7:3, relating to the 4:3 of standard-definition TVs.
context_section_description: Note: Technically 21:9 smartphones do not exist because smartphone screens are vertical. However, rotating a smartphone 90 degrees to landscape mode results in a horizontal ratio. 21:9 means that for 21 pixels in the horizontal axis, there are 9 in the vertical axis. 9:21, which is the correct term for smartphones, is the opposite (21 vertical, 9 horizontal).
  On February 25, 2019, Sony launched their latest flagship device, the Xperia 1, with the world's first 21:9 ultra-wide 4K HDR-enabled OLED (6.5") display in a smartphone. They have trademarked the name CinemaWide for use in their latest ultra-wide Xperia devices. It is not the first mobile device to use a 21:9 aspect ratio display; that recognition belongs to the LG New Chocolate, released in 2009. It has a 4" TFT display with a resolution of 345×800 pixels. The Samsung Galaxy Fold smartphone/tablet folding hybrid, with its 4.6" Super AMOLED cover display, and the Xperia 10 and 10 Plus are among the first modern devices with ultra-wide displays. Motorola introduced two 21:9 smartphones in 2019, the One Vision in May and the One Action in August, both with a 6.3" FHD+ IPS LCD screen. 
  Note that both Motorola and Sony chose to use a screen resolution of 2520×1080, rather than the CE resolution of 2560×1080, as defined in CTA-861. This leads to the device to have a "true" 21:9 (7:3) Aspect Ratio, rather than the normal CE aspect ratio of 64:27. The Xperia 1 also has an odd aspect ratio of 320:137, and would have been able to meet 64:27 with a more even resolution of 3840×1620. Sony does not adhere to consumer standards, as with their home theater projectors that feature a 4096×2160 4K resolution, rather than the CE resolution of 3840×2160. 4096×2160 is a resolution only relevant in digital cinema (DCI), where movie theater projectors feature this resolution with either letterboxed 4096×1716 or pillarboxed 3996×2160 content for "Scope" (2.39:1) and "Flat" (1.85:1) aspect ratios, respectively. The full panel aspect ratio of 256:135 is unfit for normal consumer content with a 16:9 container aspect ratio.
caption: The LG New Chocolate (BL40) was the first mobile device with a 21:9 aspect ratio, using a 4 inch TFT display.
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