Touch Screen Monitors

What should I look for when choosing a touchscreen monitor?

Touch Technology

• Capacitive - offers truer colours and greater durability and reacts when you touch the screen even lightly. Multi-touch, meaning the monitor can detect and processes multiple touches at once, is becoming more and more common. They cannot be operated with gloves and are difficult to use with wet hands.
• Resistive - can be easily controlled even with gloved or wet hands and compared with capacitive displays, they are usually cheaper. They provide lower-quality colour reproduction, are less durable and do not support multi-touch.

Use and Aspect Ratio

Panel Type

• IPS/S-IPS monitors - excel in natural colours, low power consumption and wide viewing angles. The disadvantage is a higher purchase price.
• TN monitors - often characterised by low response times. Compared with IPS monitors, they are cheaper, offer lower-quality colour reproduction and narrower viewing angles. While cheaper TN monitors are the sufficient for less demanding users, models with 4ms response times are popular with gamers.
• MVA/PVA monitors - in terms of price and picture quality, these are somewhere between IPS/S-IPS and TN monitors. They provide more realistic colour reproduction and wider viewing angles than TN monitors and are cheaper than IPS monitors.

Screen Surface

• Matte - reflects little ambient light; provide less-saturated colour reproduction.
• Glossy - Provide vibrant and realistic colours but reflect much more ambient light so the display can be hard to see in bright sunlight.
• Anti-glare - a compromise between glossy and matte screens; they are easier to view in direct sunlight than glossy screens but offer lower quality colour reproduction.

Connectors

Before buying, make sure the monitor has at the least one compatible port with your computer. If not, you won't be able to connect your new monitor to it.

Useful Functions and Features

• Eyestrain-minimising technology - Flicker-free, Flicker-safe, etc.
• Adjustable height - allows you to adjust the monitor to a comfortable position.
• TV tuner - to watch television broadcasts.
• VESA mount - allows you to mount the monitor on a bracket.
• Web camera - useful if you plan to make calls over the Internet.
• USB Hub - play data from portable drives; connect a keyboard or mouse.
• Pivot - allows the screen to rotate horizontally; suitable for office work