Resistive vs Capacitive touchscreens

We all know that there are two types of touchscreens in mobile phones but we dont know what actually they are and what are the difference between them.Many of us encountered the difference while using mobile phones such as some touchscreen response is faster and its easy to touch while in some response is little longer and have to apply more pressure.The two types of touchscreen are resistive and capacitive. Which one is better then the other.Well today we will see what are the difference between them.

Resistive : This is the most common touchscreen type in mobile phones except some smartphones and tablets. Talking about resistive touch,from the name we can get that this touchscreen depends on resistance.The resisitive touchscreen consist of several layers stacked upon each other.But there are two important transparent thin layer seperated by thin gap.The screen we touch has a coating on its other side and beneath it there is other layer also have coating on it one side.Both the sides with coating faces each other.When we touch the screen with finger or stylus both layer comes in contact due to the pressure we applied and then a voltage flows between them.The change in the volatge determines the exact location of touch by calculating coordinates of touch.Once the coordinates are known they are converted to something which operating system understand and process it for certain actions.For this reason the resistive touchscreens responds even when we are wearing gloves or using finger nail because it detect pressure.

Pros : It is cheaper and can be used with any pointing devices such as stylus,pen and nail.It is easy to use and more accurate and can be used at different temperature level.

Cons : It does not have multi-touch gesture like we cannot zoom with two fingers.Second thing is the multiple layers in resisitve touch makes the display less contrast and sharp.And third is poor visibility in sunlight.

Capacitive : Capacitive touchscreen on the other hand are more responsive to the slightest touch by finger.It consists of insulator such as glass coated with transparent conducting material like indium tin oxide.Unlike resistive touch capacitive does not depend on the pressure made by finger or stylus but it depends on the electrical properties of the body.As human body is also a conductor touching the surface of the screen results in distortion of electric field which results in change in capacitance.This change is registered using different technologies and location of touch is determined.That is the reason we cannot touch the screen while wearing gloves because it is not conducting and on touching the screen with it does not results in change in electric field and capacitance so no location of touch to process.This is the reason that it is not very useful in cold whether.To overcome this we can use special capacitive stylus or special conducting gloves in which there is a special conductive thread attached to the glove and to the finger.

Pros : As it is consist of one thin layer,capacitive touch phones are much thinner and lighter.This screens are not only more sensitive and accurate but there is more contrast on the screen as compared to resistive touch.Also we have multi-touch option in capacitive screens.It has good visibility in sunlight.

Cons : It is relatively costlier then resistive screen.Need to have atleat 5-10 % of humidity to achieve capacitive effect.It doesn't work with gloves or fingernails.