The difference between the touchscreen and an LCD screen

The difference between the touchscreen and an LCD screen

A touchscreen is an electronic input device that the user can control with single or multi-touch gestures. The touchscreen enables the user to interact directly with what is being displayed, rather than using a mouse, touchpad, or any other intermediate device.

7 Inch PCAP Touch Screen Overlay

Some touchscreens can be controlled by fingers; others may require the use of gloves with a particular type of coating, or the use of a special stylus pen.

The touchscreen prototype was developed in 1977 by Ben Stumpe, a Danish electronics engineer. Multi-touch technology development began in 1982, when the University of Toronto’s Input Research Group introduced the first human-input multi-touch system. It was using a glass panel with a camera placed behind the glass. Later, in 1985, the University of Toronto group including Bill Buxton developed a multi-touch tablet that used capacitance rather than bulky camera-based optical sensing systems.

Nowadays, touchscreen devices have established themselves as an industry standard for most smartphones, tablets and a large fraction of laptops. Most households will have at least one device with a touchscreen, and our customers are no exception.

As a result of the wide popularity, these screens brake on an occasion. What many users fail to take into the consideration, is that the touchscreen and the actual LCD screen are two independent parts.

So:

Touchscreen (AKA digitizer) is the thin transparent layer of plastic, which reads the signal from the touch and transports it to the processing unit. It is the part that you can touch without disassembling the device.

LCD screen is the panel that is inside the device, which displays the image. You can not get to the LCD without taking the device apart first.

When only the touch screen is broken, you should still see what is happening on the screen, and the screen should still function as normal.

When only the LCD is broken, you can still use the touchscreen, but the panel will have dark blobs or spiderweb-looking cracks (or both).

When both LCD and touchscreen are damaged, you may still be able to use portions of the touchscreen, and some parts of the LCD may display the image, but you will incur obvious difficulties in using the device as normal.