ldpi

ldpi stands for low-density pixels per inch, a screen density category used by Android to classify devices by display density. It corresponds to about 120 dpi, roughly 0.75 times the mdpi baseline of 160 dpi. The density bucket informs how the system scales user interfaces and bitmap resources.

In Android resources, assets can be placed in density-specific directories such as res/drawable-ldpi, res/drawable-mdpi, res/drawable-hdpi, and so on. At runtime the framework selects the closest match for the device’s density. If a resource for the current density is unavailable, the system may scale a nearby version, which can affect sharpness.

UI measurements use density-independent pixels (dp). On ldpi devices, 1 dp equals 0.75 physical pixels. For example, a 48x48 mdpi icon corresponds to 36x36 px on ldpi. Other buckets scale as 1x for mdpi, 1.5x for hdpi, 2x for xhdpi, and so forth.

History and current relevance: ldpi was common on older smartphones, but modern devices more often fall into higher-density categories. Some apps still include ldpi assets for legacy support, though vector drawables and scalable resources reduce the need for separate bitmap sizes across densities.

Best practices generally encourage providing density-specific assets where targeting older devices, while leveraging vector graphics where possible to minimize resource variants and ensure scalable, sharp visuals across densities.