Types of Touchscreens: Resistive And Capacitive

At the moment, you will not be surprised by the touch screen, the so-called touchscreen. It is worth looking at what the market offers - among devices equipped with such a screen we will see phones and smartphones, tablet laptops and players, cameras and video cameras.

At the same time, many do not even know about all the features of different types of touch screens, inherent disadvantages and advantages. Let's try to understand these issues, but first we need a little historical digression.

Two or three years ago they had resistive screens, and the technology of their production was well worked out, which made it possible to make the touch panels themselves relatively cheap, but the diagonal of the screen itself was small, in comparison with modern ones.

Let's note - there was no choice as such and the consumer had to be satisfied with what producers offered. The radical changes occurred at the time when the market first appeared Apple iPhone, as well as some other devices with a capacitive touchscreen. It was then that the need for a full understanding of the difference between the two types of touch screens became topical, and with the cheaper technologies of production of the latter and their distribution, this issue was far from idle.

So, let's try to figure out in order - what are the main differences between these two technologies and what are their main advantages and disadvantages.

The first technology is resistive touch screens . The principle of their work, in the most general form, can be described as follows: Flexible membrane, which is directly imposed on the surface of the display. Yes the display surface is located system of electrodes. When you touch the surface of the screen, the membrane located above the membrane closes the electrode placed under it, and a special electronic device, by the numbers of the closed electrodes, determines the coordinates of the area of the screen where the button itself was pressed.

As you can see, the principle of operation of the resistive screen is simple and predetermines the main advantages of this technology itself: it is possible to work with a device having a resistive touchscreen with just a finger or with any suitable object-pencil, pen, stylus, the touch panels themselves can operate over a wide range of temperatures , And also simplicity and as consequence - a small price.

At the same time, it is the technology of work that predetermines the main drawbacks of such screens: lack of multitouch support and a small time resource of resistive touchscreens, i.e. - they wear out quickly. The short service life is explained by the fact that the operation of resistive screens is based on mechanical contact. In addition, the screen surface is not glass, but a special polymer film that is scratched, loses its transparency, which requires the use of special protective films that reduce the brightness of the screen and the accuracy of the sensors.

The second technology used to create touch panels is capacitive screens . Panels of this type are a glass screen with a transparent conductive layer applied on the surface. At the corners of the screen itself there are electrodes that apply voltage to the conductive layer and when a finger touches a certain area of the screen there is a leakage of electric charge due to the fact that the human body has its own electrical capacity. A special electronic device reads the coordinates of that area of the screen where at a particular moment there is a leakage of electric charge and consequently - the coordinates of the area where the finger touched.

Thus, touch panels created with the use of capacitive technology have higher reliability and can support multi-touch technology, and - do not require direct tapping of the screen - sufficient light touch, which increases the convenience of working with them and their durability. But for capacitive screens, a number of disadvantages are technologically predetermined - at a negative temperature the accuracy drops or the screen ceases to react at all to the user's action.

So, above, we considered both technologies used to create modern touch screens. So what to choose a user - a device with a resistive or capacitive touch screen? Let's try to understand this question.

Today, among experts, the opinion is widespread that the future is still behind capacitive-type screens. In addition, the technology itself develops and, accordingly, the shortcomings will either be minimized or eliminated altogether. When choosing a device, you need to consider the screen size - when working with a tablet, smartphone or other device with a touch screen, to work without using the stylus is more comfortable.

In case you want to ensure the accuracy of the input, and also you need to create graphics, drawings, schemes, using the touch panel, you need to use capacitive touch panels that are specialized for this type of work. For resistive panels, which are still widely represented in the modern market, cheap budget devices remain the lot , and their low price is probably the only advantage today.