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iPhone Still has the Best Touchscreen
Techtree News Staff, Jan 11, 2010 1633 hrs ISTCompetes with Nexus One and Droid
In a recent "touchscreen performance test", Apple's iPhone has trumped the likes of the Nexus One, the Motorola Droid, and the HTC Verizon Droid Eris to boast of the "best touchscreen" of all.
The test was conducted by the Moto Development Group (this company has nothing to do with Motorola) on the eve of the recently concluded CES 2010. Note that in this case, we're not talking about the looks and resolution of the screen. This is more about how the screen is calibrated and how well it responds to the users requests.
Folks at Moto Development Group created a technique so that anyone can evaluate the resolution and accuracy of touchscreen devices before they buy it. To conduct the test, consumers open a basic drawing program and draw a few diagonal lines across the screen.
According to the testers, on a quality touchscreen, people can draw clean straight lines, even while going very slowly. The image that appears on screen accurately represents the slowly drawn lines. However, on inferior touchscreens, it's basically impossible to draw straight lines. Instead, the lines look jagged, stair-stepped or zig-zag, no matter how slowly you go. The inferior image results from the sensor size being too big, the touch-sampling rate too low, and/or the algorithms that convert gestures into images too non-linear to faithfully represent user inputs.
A good touchscreen device will produce linear output regardless of whether you're using the full pad of your finger, or just the edge. If you want to test the most extreme performance, draw very lightly with the edge of your finger. The artifacts will increase significantly, showing which device is really the best with a weak signal. A good touchscreen device will produce linear output regardless of whether you're using the full pad of your finger, or just the dry corner of your cuticle. When comparing devices, make sure to use even pressure.
Why the iPhone Won:
The tests revealed that the Phone's touch sensor showed the most linear tracking with the least amount of stair-stepping. The Droid Eris and Nexus One shared the second place while the Motorola Droid came in last. One more reason for iPhone users to re-affirm their "my phone's the best" claim!
The test was conducted by the Moto Development Group (this company has nothing to do with Motorola) on the eve of the recently concluded CES 2010. Note that in this case, we're not talking about the looks and resolution of the screen. This is more about how the screen is calibrated and how well it responds to the users requests.
Folks at Moto Development Group created a technique so that anyone can evaluate the resolution and accuracy of touchscreen devices before they buy it. To conduct the test, consumers open a basic drawing program and draw a few diagonal lines across the screen.
According to the testers, on a quality touchscreen, people can draw clean straight lines, even while going very slowly. The image that appears on screen accurately represents the slowly drawn lines. However, on inferior touchscreens, it's basically impossible to draw straight lines. Instead, the lines look jagged, stair-stepped or zig-zag, no matter how slowly you go. The inferior image results from the sensor size being too big, the touch-sampling rate too low, and/or the algorithms that convert gestures into images too non-linear to faithfully represent user inputs.
A good touchscreen device will produce linear output regardless of whether you're using the full pad of your finger, or just the edge. If you want to test the most extreme performance, draw very lightly with the edge of your finger. The artifacts will increase significantly, showing which device is really the best with a weak signal. A good touchscreen device will produce linear output regardless of whether you're using the full pad of your finger, or just the dry corner of your cuticle. When comparing devices, make sure to use even pressure.
Why the iPhone Won:
The tests revealed that the Phone's touch sensor showed the most linear tracking with the least amount of stair-stepping. The Droid Eris and Nexus One shared the second place while the Motorola Droid came in last. One more reason for iPhone users to re-affirm their "my phone's the best" claim!
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(3) Comments
parthasarathy.
,namakkal, on Jan 12, 2010 03:27 PM
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Dan
,St. Louis, on Jan 11, 2010 10:10 PM
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