Touchscreens have revolutionized the lives of smart device users by making many tasks easier. However, not all touchscreens are alike in terms of their performance, and not all share the same drawbacks.
One of the first commercially available computers that featured a touchscreen interface was the HP-150, released in 1983. It used infrared light beams to detect the finger interacting with the display. The light beams were emitted from holes around the bezel, which made them prone to getting clogged by dust, hence requiring additional cleaning when in continuous use.
Ad for HP150 touchscreen computer - Image Source: www.vintagecomputing.com
State of touch
Touch screens today have evolved to the point that they can measure finger movements way faster than the screen can update. These high sampling rates quickly became very appealing to final users (especially to the mobile gamers communities). For example, the ROG Phone 6 from Asus features a 720Hz touch sampling rate and a screen refresh rate of 165Hz.
Modern-day touch screens have become so fast that the sensing itself is no longer the slowest part from the user experience point of view. Device performance started playing a more significant role, considering that the user interacts with an app on the phone, not just its touchscreen display.
Smartphone response time measurements for consistent user experience
One powerful technique for discovering potential performance issues is repeating the same test several times or for an extended period. For example, gaming benchmarks take record of the system’s performance metrics such as minimum, average, and maximum FPS achieved during a test run. Comparing multiple measu