If we create an element that is 160 pixels wide it’s length on medium density screen would be 1 inch and on extra high density screen only 0.5 inch even if the screens have the same resolution.

More common approach is to use pixels (abbreviation “px”). Similar situations is with millimeters (abbreviation “mm”) and points (abbreviation “pt”). This would be rather difficult to use as many elements would have to be measured in fractions and still it would be impossible to be very precise. So you could say that specific TextView or Button would be 3 inch long and 1 inch tall. Available units: Forget inches (in), say goodbye to pixels (px), use density-independent pixels (dp or dip)Īndroid allows you to measure layout elements even in inches (abbreviation “in”). You don’t have to create unlimited layouts, but it doesn’t mean that there is nothing to worry about. Fortunately, Android creators tried to do it simpler. It would take very, very long time to create layout for every device separately and you still couldn’t be sure that you included all combinations. And there is also screen orientation (landscape or portrait) to take into account. They have different physical sizes (from small phones to large tablets), different screen sizes (diagonal from 3 inches or less to above 5 inches), different screen resolutions (from 320×480 pixels to Full HD – 1920×1080 – or more) and different screen densities – number of pixels per inch (from 120 dpi to 480 dpi). By Android Teacher on July 6th, 2013 in Appendix tags: android:textSize, dimen, dimens.xml, dip, dp, getConfiguration, getDimension, getDimensionPixelSize, getDisplayMetrics, hdpi, in, layout-sw600dp, layout-sw720dp, ldpi, mdpi, mm, pt, px, setContentView, smallestScreenWidthDp, sp, xhdpi, xxhdpiĭesigning Android app you have to be aware of enormous variety of devices.

Make text smaller android