Touching TFT Screens: Good or Bad?

You might have noticed that TFT monitors produces wavy patterns and colors, if you move your fingers around it. Some people are really amused by this effect and enjoy doing it repeatedly.

Good or Bad?

A TFT (Thin-Film-Transistor) display contains a transistor per sub-pixel. Frequent contact with the screen might cause these transistors to short or remain open, which leads to dead pixels. Sometimes, the pixel might light permanently white or any other solid color (Blue, Green or Red), such cases are called Hot Pixels and Stuck Pixels.

How to check for Dead Pixels?

Inorder to determine dead pixel, there is a free application called Dead Pixel Buddy which helps you locate dead pixels by glowing your screen in Black, White or RGB Colors. Please wipe your screen before testing for dead pixels, sometimes you could wrongly interpret a dust particle as dead pixel and go nuts! (This happened to me while writing this post)

Verdict: Frequent contact with TFT Screen is sure to get dead pixels on your screen. So be wise, don’t keep playing with it.

This post was published by on March 11, 2007

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://andrewkuo.net Andrew Kuo

    Interesting tool to check for dead pixels. You think it’ll work for iPods as well? I’ve got an iPod that has one dead pixel (I think).

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Andrew: I’m not sure, if there is a dead pixel checker for iPod. Even if you iPod has few dead pixels, nothing can be done about it. Check Apple’s Dead Pixel Policies.

  • http://www.freakitude.com Lovedeep Wadhwa

    Ya, nice find.

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Lovedeep: Thanks, I would call it better research. Actually, I had this question in mind for a long time. I finally did some research over it

  • http://anirudhsanjeev.org Anirudh

    I’d written two comments in the morning. whatever happened to those.

    anyways, dead pixels can be fixed in some cases.

    Something’s really wrong with your comment system.

  • http://www.tech-live.info Phalgun

    It means touching TFT monitor’s screen can be dangerous, so everybody, keep your hands on your pocket before playing with a TFT monitor. And many cyber cafe’s have the TFT monitor, so it is sure that their TFT monitors have dead pixels because all come and touch the screen of the monitor.

  • http://www.techzonline.net TechZ

    I’ve seen that software around before, not to mention a good ‘stuck pixel’ fixer, that uses rapid videos/clips to unstick a pixel on PSP/iPods.

    I hate when people touch monitors! The fingerprints :O

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Anirudh: Sorry to hear that. This morning, I was testing some spam tackling techniques… Perhaps, your comment was lost in the process.

    But, I really wonder why I didn’t get the comment notification for those. Anyway, sorry again.

    If something like this happends again, please let me know.

    TechZ: Oh.. boy! I’m glad to see you again. I share the same feeling with those who love to touch TFTs. This morning, my mom did it with my notebook’s screen. Luckily, HP gave me a screen wiping utility (as a compliment)

  • http://www.esplanade.sg/ lyndonmaxewell

    Well, I do see people are fond of doing this for display sets in shops. If only they understand…

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Lyndonmaxewell: Yeah, they do. Maybe, they are putting those poor little TFTs into stress test before buying them :P

  • http://www.saylike.blogspot.com/ Mohd. Hashim Khan

    I also don’t like when people touch my computer screen coz i always keep it clean and touching it causes stubborn fingerprints in my antiglare coated monitor.

  • http://www.techzonline.net TechZ

    Hey Thilak, HP utility, I didnt get that :P

    I’m going to invest in some good screen wipes.

  • http://justmesim.blogspot.com simmi

    well , something more , one question , will cleaning , i mean usually wiping it clean , we do that many times , i think over the time they will get damaged eventually because we do touch them while cleaning ?
    that would be something serious because cant do away with cleaning or cleaning without touching ?

  • http://tech-buzz.net Thilak

    Simmi: Yeah, That’s true. So the manufacturer always suggests you to use their branded cleaning kits :D

  • Dee

    You can rub a dead pixel with your finger for 30 seconds to revive it.