There are
many different types of Smartphone displays and touchscreens available across
the range of smart phones and it is important that we should know about them
before buying one. In this post I tried to explain different types of Smartphone
displays, touchscreens and their pros and cons.
TOUCH SCREENS:-
1. RESISTIVE
Touch screen LCD
2. CAPACITIVE
Touch screen LCD
3. HAPTIC/
TACTILE Touch screen
DISPLAYS:-
1.
TFT LCD
2. IPS-LCD
3. OLED
4. AMOLED
5. SUPER
AMOLED
6. RETINA
DISPLAY
7. GORILLA
GLASS PROTECTION
Ok, Now lets get some more details on them..
Touchscreen
LCD displays are of two types –
1. Resistive
2. Capacitive.
Resistive touchscreens contain two layer of conductive material with a very small gap between them which acts as a resistance. When the resistive touchscreen is touched with finger (or stylus) the two layers meet at the point of touch thus making a circuit at the point of touch. This information is recognized by the mobile’s processor / chip and passed on to the mobile’s OS there by triggering and event / action at the point of touch.
CONS
1. not as responsive as capacitive
touchscreens
2. often require a stylus to identify
point of touch accurately.
3. These are used only in lower end
smartphones and feature touch phones.
Capacitive Touchsceen LCD
Capacitive touchscreen technology consists of a layer of
glass coated with a transparent conductor (like indium tin oxide). When a
capacitive touchscreen is touched by human body (finger), an interruption is
created in the screens electrostatic field (which is measurable as a change in
capacitance) which is detected by phone’s processor or chip and which in turn
instructs phone’s operating system to trigger and event or action accordingly.
Capacitive
touchsceens are much better and responsive to human touch when compared to
resistive touchsceens and hence the user experience
for touch is much better with capacitive touchscreens.
Capacitive
Touchsceens are used in most of the higher end smart phones.
Haptic / Tactile touchscreen
Haptic
technology has been used by Blackberry and Nokia for their touchscreen
smartphones targeted towards enterprise market. This technology provides a
tactile feedback on a touch action on the screen thus providing an immediate
and unmistakable confirmation to the user. Haptic technology has been found to
significantly improve user
performance, accuracy and satisfaction while typing on a touchscreen.
TFT LCD
TFT stands
for Thin Film Transistor technology. LCD
stands for Liquid Crystal Display. TFT LCDs are the most common type of display
units used across mobile phones. TFT LCD
PROS
1. better image quality
2. higher resolutions compared to
earlier generation LCD displays but their
3. cheaper to manufacture these are
found on budget phones, feature phones and lower end smart phones.
CONS
1. narrow viewing angles
2. poor visibility in direct light or
sunlight.
3. Large TFT displays consume more
power and hence are not battery friendly
.
IPS-LCD
IPS stands
for In-Place Switching. IPS LCDs are
superior to normal TFT LCD displays with
1. wider viewing angles
2. Lower power consumption which leads
to a much improved battery life.
3. IPS-LCDs are costlier than normal
TFT LCD and hence are found only on higher end smart phones.
4. A higher resolution (640 x 960
pixels) version of IPS LCD is used in Apple iPhone 4 and is called Retina
Display because of its brilliant picture quality.
OLED
OLED
stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode and
is a newer technology for type of displays of mobiles and monitors. In OLED
technology a layer of organic material (carbon based) is sandwiched between two
conducting sheets (an anode and a cathode), which in turn are sandwiched
between a glass top plate (seal) and a glass bottom plate (substrate). When
electric pulse is applied the two conducting sheets, electro-luminescent light
is produced directly from the organic material sandwiched between. Brightness and
color can vary depending on the Electric pulse
OLEDs are
much better compared to LCDs because of their
1. exceptional color reproduction
2. blazing fast response times
3. wider viewing angles
4. higher brightness and extremely
light weight designs.
AMOLED
AMOLED
stands for Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting
Diode. AMOLED displays are a type of OLED displays for mobiles and are
rapidly gaining popularity in top end smartphone segment. AMOLED screens have
all the attributes of an OLED display like brilliant color reproduction, light
weight, better battery life, higher brightness and sharpness and light weight
designs.
AMOLED
displays are now getting into main stream and most of the latest higher end
smartphones like Nokia N8 are now coming with AMOLED displays. If you can shell
out a little extra, our suggestion is to go with AMOLEDs over TFT LCDs.
Super AMOLED
Super
AMOLED displays are an even advanced version of AMOLED displays developed by
Samsung. Super AMOLED display is built with touch sensors on the display
itself, as opposed to creating a separate touch sensitive layer (as in
capacitive touchscreen). This makes it the thinnest display technology on the
market.
Super
AMOLED displays are also much
more responsive than other AMOLED displays. Samsung’s recent top of the
line smartphone Samsung Galaxy S I9000 comes with Super AMOLED.
Retina Display
Retina
Display is a term used by Apple for its high resolution (640 x 960 pixels) IPS
LCD (with backlit LED) used by them in iPhone4. They call it the Retina display
because its pixels cannot be individually identified by the human eye, thus
making the display super sharp
and brilliant.
Gorilla Glass
Gorilla
Glass is a special alkali-aluminosilicate glass shield with exceptional damage
resistance that helps protect mobile displays from scratches, drops, and bumps
of everyday use. Many companies like Motorola, Samsung and Nokia are now using
Gorilla Glass to make their mobile displays more durable and reliable. It is
always better to go for a smartphone with Gorilla Glass for that added
protection and peace of mind.
I hope
this post helped you all to know about the Smartphone display and touch
screens. Make sure to check the specs of your phone before you buy
