Difference between TFT Display and Touchscreen Display
It’s a great time to be a video or computer buff nowadays, what with the advent ofTFT displays and touchscreen displays making it a lot more pleasurable to sit in front of a screen. Both technologies are actually quite different, and those differences are covered in this article.
Definition
A TFT, or thin film transistor display, is a type of liquid crystal display (LCD) that utilizes thin-film transistor technology in order to provide improved image quality. In fact, all LCD-screens utilize TFT active matrix addressing.
Touchscreen displays are visual electronic displays that are designed to detect touch pressure and location within the display area. Although the term is often used in reference to touching the display with the fingers, many touchscreen displays can also detect styluses.
Purpose/Usage
TFT displays are commonly seen in television sets, computer monitors, mobile phones, portable video game devices, PDAs, GPS systems, projectors and other devices equipped with components that are able to provide voltage to one segment of the screen without affecting other segments.
Touchscreen displays have two primary requirements. They must first allow the user to interact directly with the on-screen elements, instead of indirectly with a mouse or touchpad, and they would need to enable this function without the necessity of an intermediate handheld device.
Products/Types
The most common and least expensive type of TFT display is the twisted nematic display, which is often used in consumer electronic devices. While early production models were prone to shadow-trails and ghosting artifacts, newer models were designed with faster pixel response times that were sufficient to avoid theses issues. That being said, although fast response time is often claimed in advertising materials for TFT displays, most figures do not necessarily reflect the performance of the display across the entire range of color transitions possible.
Most of the patents for touchscreen display technologies are actually expired, having been filed in the 1970s and 1980s. What its means is that there are no longer any legal restrictions to the manufacture and production of touchscreen displays. This has resulted in the widespread availability of several different types of touchscreen displays on the market. And with the advent of multipoint touchscreen displays that allow tracking of more than one finger, even more devices have become available. Touchscreen displays are now commonly seen in gaming consoles, appliances, handheld display devices, and even airplanes, automobiles, and machine control systems. With the development of new graphics tablet/screen hybrids, it is now possible to point to and control elements on the screen with a greater degree of accuracy.
Similarities and Differences
TFT display
- A type of liquid crystal display (LCD) that utilizes thin-film transistor technology
- TFT active matrix addressing is used in all LCD-screens
- Commonly seen in television sets, computer monitors, and mobile phones
Touchscreen display
- Visual electronic displays designed to detect touch pressure and location within the display area
- Many touchscreen displays can also detect styluses
