tft display vs ips display free sample

If you want to buy a new monitor, you might wonder what kind of display technologies I should choose. In today’s market, there are two main types of computer monitors: TFT LCD monitors & IPS monitors.

The word TFT means Thin Film Transistor. It is the technology that is used in LCD displays.  We have additional resources if you would like to learn more about what is a TFT Display. This type of LCDs is also categorically referred to as an active-matrix LCD.

These LCDs can hold back some pixels while using other pixels so the LCD screen will be using a very minimum amount of energy to function (to modify the liquid crystal molecules between two electrodes). TFT LCDs have capacitors and transistors. These two elements play a key part in ensuring that the TFT display monitor functions by using a very small amount of energy while still generating vibrant, consistent images.

Industry nomenclature: TFT LCD panels or TFT screens can also be referred to as TN (Twisted Nematic) Type TFT displays or TN panels, or TN screen technology.

IPS (in-plane-switching) technology is like an improvement on the traditional TFT LCD display module in the sense that it has the same basic structure, but has more enhanced features and more widespread usability.

Both TFT display and IPS display are active-matrix displays, neither can’t emit light on their own like OLED displays and have to be used with a back-light of white bright light to generate the picture. Newer panels utilize LED backlight (light-emitting diodes) to generate their light hence utilizing less power and requiring less depth by design. Neither TFT display nor IPS display can produce color, there is a layer of RGB (red, green, blue) color filter in each LCD pixels to produce the color consumers see. If you use a magnifier to inspect your monitor, you will see RGB color in each pixel. With an on/off switch and different level of brightness RGB, we can get many colors.

Winner. IPS TFT screens have around 0.3 milliseconds response time while TN TFT screens responds around 10 milliseconds which makes the latter unsuitable for gaming

Winner. the images that IPS displays create are much more pristine and original than that of the TFT screen. IPS displays do this by making the pixels function in a parallel way. Because of such placing, the pixels can reflect light in a better way, and because of that, you get a better image within the display.

As the display screen made with IPS technology is mostly wide-set, it ensures that the aspect ratio of the screen would be wider. This ensures better visibility and a more realistic viewing experience with a stable effect.

Winner. While the TFT LCD has around 15% more power consumption vs IPS LCD, IPS has a lower transmittance which forces IPS displays to consume more power via backlights. TFT LCD helps battery life.

Normally, high-end products, such as Apple Mac computer monitors and Samsung mobile phones, generally use IPS panels. Some high-end TV and mobile phones even use AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diodes) displays. This cutting edge technology provides even better color reproduction, clear image quality, better color gamut, less power consumption when compared to LCD technology.

This kind of touch technology was first introduced by Steve Jobs in the first-generation iPhone. Of course, a TFT LCD display can always meet the basic needs at the most efficient price. An IPS display can make your monitor standing out.

If you want to buy a new monitor, you might wonder what kind of display technologies I should choose. In today’s market, there are two main types of computer monitors: TFT LCD monitors & IPS monitors.

The word TFT means Thin Film Transistor. It is the technology that is used in LCD displays.  We have additional resources if you would like to learn more about what is a TFT Display. This type of LCDs is also categorically referred to as an active-matrix LCD.

These LCDs can hold back some pixels while using other pixels so the LCD screen will be using a very minimum amount of energy to function (to modify the liquid crystal molecules between two electrodes). TFT LCDs have capacitors and transistors. These two elements play a key part in ensuring that the TFT display monitor functions by using a very small amount of energy while still generating vibrant, consistent images.

Industry nomenclature: TFT LCD panels or TFT screens can also be referred to as TN (Twisted Nematic) Type TFT displays or TN panels, or TN screen technology.

IPS (in-plane-switching) technology is like an improvement on the traditional TFT LCD display module in the sense that it has the same basic structure, but has more enhanced features and more widespread usability.

Both TFT display and IPS display are active-matrix displays, neither can’t emit light on their own like OLED displays and have to be used with a back-light of white bright light to generate the picture. Newer panels utilize LED backlight (light-emitting diodes) to generate their light hence utilizing less power and requiring less depth by design. Neither TFT display nor IPS display can produce color, there is a layer of RGB (red, green, blue) color filter in each LCD pixels to produce the color consumers see. If you use a magnifier to inspect your monitor, you will see RGB color in each pixel. With an on/off switch and different level of brightness RGB, we can get many colors.

Winner. IPS TFT screens have around 0.3 milliseconds response time while TN TFT screens responds around 10 milliseconds which makes the latter unsuitable for gaming

Winner. the images that IPS displays create are much more pristine and original than that of the TFT screen. IPS displays do this by making the pixels function in a parallel way. Because of such placing, the pixels can reflect light in a better way, and because of that, you get a better image within the display.

As the display screen made with IPS technology is mostly wide-set, it ensures that the aspect ratio of the screen would be wider. This ensures better visibility and a more realistic viewing experience with a stable effect.

Winner. While the TFT LCD has around 15% more power consumption vs IPS LCD, IPS has a lower transmittance which forces IPS displays to consume more power via backlights. TFT LCD helps battery life.

Normally, high-end products, such as Apple Mac computer monitors and Samsung mobile phones, generally use IPS panels. Some high-end TV and mobile phones even use AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diodes) displays. This cutting edge technology provides even better color reproduction, clear image quality, better color gamut, less power consumption when compared to LCD technology.

This kind of touch technology was first introduced by Steve Jobs in the first-generation iPhone. Of course, a TFT LCD display can always meet the basic needs at the most efficient price. An IPS display can make your monitor standing out.

Let us start with the basics first; refresh the knowledge about TN and LCD displays in general, later we will talk about TFTs (Thin Film Transistors), how they differ from regular monochrome LCD displays. Then we will go on to the ghosting effect, so we will not only discuss the technology behind the construction of the TFT, but also some phenomena, like the ghosting effect, or grayscale inversion, that are important to understand when using an LCD TFT display.

Next, we will look at different technologies of the TFT LCD displays like TN, IPS, VA, and of course about transmissive and transflective LCD displays, because TFT displays also can be transmissive and transflective. In the last part we will talk about backlight.

Let us start with a short review of the most basic liquid crystal cell, which is the TN (twisted nematic) display. On the picture above, we can see that the light can be transmit through the cell or blocked by the liquid crystal cell using voltage. If you want to learn more about monochrome LCD displays and the basics of LCD displays, follow this link.

What is a TFT LCD display and how it is different from a monochrome LCD display? TFT is called an active display. Active, means we have one or more transistors in every cell, in every pixel and in every subpixel. TFT stands for Thin Film Transistor, transistors that are very small and very thin and are built into the pixel, so they are not somewhere outside in a controller, but they are in the pixel itself. For example, in a 55-inch TV set, the TFT display contains millions of transistors in the pixels. We do not see them, because they are very small and hidden, if we zoom in, however, we can see them in every corner of each pixel, like on the picture below.

On the picture above we can see subpixels, that are basic RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colors and a black part, with the transistors and electronic circuits. We just need to know that we have pixels, and subpixels, and each subpixel has transistors. This makes the display active, and thus is called  the TFT display. TFT displays are usually color displays, but there are also monochrome TFT displays, that are active, and have transistors, but have no colors. The colors in the TFT LCD display are typically added by color filters on each subpixel. Usually the filters are RGB, but we also have RGBW (Red, Green, Blue, White) LCD displays with added subpixels without the filter (White) to make the display brighter.

Going a little bit deeper, into the TFT cell, there is a part inside well known to us from the monochrome LCD display Riverdi University lecture. We have a cell, liquid crystal, polarizers, an ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) layer for the electrodes, and additionally an electronic circuit. Usually, the electronic circuit consists of one transistor and some capacitors to sustain the pixel state when we switch the pixel OFF and ON. In a TFT LCD display the pixels are much more complicated because apart from building the liquid crystal part, we also need to build an electronic part.

That is why TFT LCD display technologies are very expensive to manufacture. If you are familiar with electronics, you know that the transistor is a kind of switch, and it allows us to switch the pixel ON and OFF. Because it is built into the pixel itself, it can be done very quickly and be very well controlled. We can control the exact state of every pixel not only the ON and OFF states, but also all the states in between. We can switch the light of the cells ON and OFF in several steps. Usually for TFT LCD displays it will be 8-bit steps per color, so we have 256 steps of brightness for every color, and every subpixel. Because we have three subpixels, we have a 24-bit color range, that means over 16 million combinations, we can, at least theoretically, show on our TFT LCD display over 16 million distinct colors using RGB pixels.

Now that we know how the TFT LCD display works, we can now learn some practical things one of which is LCD TFT ghosting. We know how the image is created, but what happens when we have the image on the screen for a prolonged time, and how to prevent it. In LCD displays we have something called LCD ghosting. We do not see it very often, but in some displays this phenomenon still exists.

If some elements of the picture i.e., your company logo is in the same place of the screen for a long period of time, for couple of weeks, months or a year, the crystals will memorize the state and later, when we change the image, we may see some ghosting of those elements. It really depends on many conditions like temperature and even the screen image that we display on the screen for longer periods of time. When you build your application, you can use some techniques to avoid it, like very rapid contrast change and of course to avoid the positioning the same image in the same position for a longer time.

You may have seen this phenomenon already as it is common in every display technology, and even companies like Apple put information on their websites, that users may encounter this phenomenon and how to fix it. It is called image ghosting or image persistence, and even Retina displays are not free of it.

Another issue present in TFT displays, especially TN LCD displays, is grayscale inversion. This is a phenomenon that changes the colors of the screen according to the viewing angle, and it is only one-sided. When buying a TFT LCD display, first we need to check what kind of technology it is. If it is an IPS display, like the Riverdi IPS display line, then we do not need to worry about the grayscale inversion because all the viewing angles will be the same and all of them will be very high, like 80, 85, or 89 degrees. But if you buy a more common or older display technology type, like the TN (twisted nematic) display, you need to think where it will be used, because one viewing angle will be out. It may be sometimes confusing, and you need to be careful as most factories define viewing direction of the screen and mistake this with the greyscale inversion side.

IPS (In-Plane Switching) lcd is still a type of TFT LCD, IPS TFT is also called SFT LCD (supper fine tft ),different to regular tft in TN (Twisted Nematic) mode, theIPS LCD liquid crystal elements inside the tft lcd cell, they are arrayed in plane inside the lcd cell when power off, so the light can not transmit it via theIPS lcdwhen power off, When power on, the liquid crystal elements inside the IPS tft would switch in a small angle, then the light would go through the IPS lcd display, then the display on since light go through the IPS display, the switching angle is related to the input power, the switch angle is related to the input power value of IPS LCD, the more switch angle, the more light would transmit the IPS LCD, we call it negative display mode.

The regular tft lcd, it is a-si TN (Twisted Nematic) tft lcd, its liquid crystal elements are arrayed in vertical type, the light could transmit the regularTFT LCDwhen power off. When power on, the liquid crystal twist in some angle, then it block the light transmit the tft lcd, then make the display elements display on by this way, the liquid crystal twist angle is also related to the input power, the more twist angle, the more light would be blocked by the tft lcd, it is tft lcd working mode.

A TFT lcd display is vivid and colorful than a common monochrome lcd display. TFT refreshes more quickly response than a monochrome LCD display and shows motion more smoothly. TFT displays use more electricity in driving than monochrome LCD screens, so they not only cost more in the first place, but they are also more expensive to drive tft lcd screen.The two most common types of TFT LCDs are IPS and TN displays.

Let us start with the basics first; refresh the knowledge about TN and LCD displays in general, later we will talk about TFTs (Thin Film Transistors), how they differ from regular monochrome LCD displays. Then we will go on to the ghosting effect, so we will not only discuss the technology behind the construction of the TFT, but also some phenomena, like the ghosting effect, or grayscale inversion, that are important to understand when using an LCD TFT display.

Next, we will look at different technologies of the TFT LCD displays like TN, IPS, VA, and of course about transmissive and transflective LCD displays, because TFT displays also can be transmissive and transflective. In the last part we will talk about backlight.

Let us start with a short review of the most basic liquid crystal cell, which is the TN (twisted nematic) display. On the picture above, we can see that the light can be transmit through the cell or blocked by the liquid crystal cell using voltage. If you want to learn more about monochrome LCD displays and the basics of LCD displays, follow this link.

What is a TFT LCD display and how it is different from a monochrome LCD display? TFT is called an active display. Active, means we have one or more transistors in every cell, in every pixel and in every subpixel. TFT stands for Thin Film Transistor, transistors that are very small and very thin and are built into the pixel, so they are not somewhere outside in a controller, but they are in the pixel itself. For example, in a 55-inch TV set, the TFT display contains millions of transistors in the pixels. We do not see them, because they are very small and hidden, if we zoom in, however, we can see them in every corner of each pixel, like on the picture below.

On the picture above we can see subpixels, that are basic RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colors and a black part, with the transistors and electronic circuits. We just need to know that we have pixels, and subpixels, and each subpixel has transistors. This makes the display active, and thus is called  the TFT display. TFT displays are usually color displays, but there are also monochrome TFT displays, that are active, and have transistors, but have no colors. The colors in the TFT LCD display are typically added by color filters on each subpixel. Usually the filters are RGB, but we also have RGBW (Red, Green, Blue, White) LCD displays with added subpixels without the filter (White) to make the display brighter.

Going a little bit deeper, into the TFT cell, there is a part inside well known to us from the monochrome LCD display Riverdi University lecture. We have a cell, liquid crystal, polarizers, an ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) layer for the electrodes, and additionally an electronic circuit. Usually, the electronic circuit consists of one transistor and some capacitors to sustain the pixel state when we switch the pixel OFF and ON. In a TFT LCD display the pixels are much more complicated because apart from building the liquid crystal part, we also need to build an electronic part.

That is why TFT LCD display technologies are very expensive to manufacture. If you are familiar with electronics, you know that the transistor is a kind of switch, and it allows us to switch the pixel ON and OFF. Because it is built into the pixel itself, it can be done very quickly and be very well controlled. We can control the exact state of every pixel not only the ON and OFF states, but also all the states in between. We can switch the light of the cells ON and OFF in several steps. Usually for TFT LCD displays it will be 8-bit steps per color, so we have 256 steps of brightness for every color, and every subpixel. Because we have three subpixels, we have a 24-bit color range, that means over 16 million combinations, we can, at least theoretically, show on our TFT LCD display over 16 million distinct colors using RGB pixels.

Now that we know how the TFT LCD display works, we can now learn some practical things one of which is LCD TFT ghosting. We know how the image is created, but what happens when we have the image on the screen for a prolonged time, and how to prevent it. In LCD displays we have something called LCD ghosting. We do not see it very often, but in some displays this phenomenon still exists.

If some elements of the picture i.e., your company logo is in the same place of the screen for a long period of time, for couple of weeks, months or a year, the crystals will memorize the state and later, when we change the image, we may see some ghosting of those elements. It really depends on many conditions like temperature and even the screen image that we display on the screen for longer periods of time. When you build your application, you can use some techniques to avoid it, like very rapid contrast change and of course to avoid the positioning the same image in the same position for a longer time.

You may have seen this phenomenon already as it is common in every display technology, and even companies like Apple put information on their websites, that users may encounter this phenomenon and how to fix it. It is called image ghosting or image persistence, and even Retina displays are not free of it.

Another issue present in TFT displays, especially TN LCD displays, is grayscale inversion. This is a phenomenon that changes the colors of the screen according to the viewing angle, and it is only one-sided. When buying a TFT LCD display, first we need to check what kind of technology it is. If it is an IPS display, like the Riverdi IPS display line, then we do not need to worry about the grayscale inversion because all the viewing angles will be the same and all of them will be very high, like 80, 85, or 89 degrees. But if you buy a more common or older display technology type, like the TN (twisted nematic) display, you need to think where it will be used, because one viewing angle will be out. It may be sometimes confusing, and you need to be careful as most factories define viewing direction of the screen and mistake this with the greyscale inversion side.

On the picture above, you can see further explanation of the grayscale inversion from Wikipedia. It says that some early panels and also nowadays TN displays, have grayscale inversion not necessary up-down, but it can be any angle, you need to check in the datasheet. The reason technologies like IPS (In-Plane Switching), used in the latest Riverdi displays, or VA, were developed, was to avoid this phenomenon. Also, we do not want to brag, but the Wikipedia definition references our website.

We know already that TN (twisted nematic) displays, suffer from grayscale inversion, which means the display has one viewing side, where the image color suddenly changes. It is tricky, and you need to be careful. On the picture above there is a part of the LCD TFT specification of a TN (twisted nematic) display, that has grayscale inversion, and if we go to this table, we can see the viewing angles. They are defined at 70, 70, 60 and 70 degrees, that is the maximum viewing angle, at which the user can see the image. Normally we may think that 70 degrees is better, so we will choose left and right side to be 70 degrees, and then up and down, and if we do not know the grayscale inversion phenomena, we may put our user on the bottom side which is also 70 degrees. The viewing direction will be then like a 6 o’clock direction, so we call it a 6 o’clock display. But you need to be careful! Looking at the specification, we can see that this display was defined as a 12 o’clock display, so it is best for it to be seen from a 12 o’clock direction. But we can find that the 12 o’clock has a lower viewing angle – 60 degrees. What does it mean? It means that on this side there will be no grayscale inversion. If we go to 40, 50, 60 degrees and even a little bit more, probably we will still see the image properly. Maybe with lower contrast, but the colors will not change. If we go from the bottom, from a 6 o’clock direction where we have the grayscale inversion, after 70 degrees or lower we will see a sudden color change, and of course this is something we want to avoid.

To summarize, when you buy older technology like TN and displays, which are still very popular, and Riverdi is selling them as well, you need to be careful where you put your display. If it is a handheld device, you will see the display from the bottom, but if you put it on a wall, you will see the display from the top, so you need to define it during the design phase, because later it is usually impossible or expensive to change the direction.

We will talk now about the other TFT technologies, that allow us to have wider viewing angles and more vivid colors. The most basic technology for monochrome and TFT LCD displays is twisted nematic (TN). As we already know, this kind of displays have a problem with grayscale inversion. On one side we have a higher retardation and will not get a clear image. That is why we have other technologies like VA (Vertical Alignment), where the liquid crystal is differently organized, and another variation of the TFT technology – IPS which is In-Plane Switching. The VA and IPS LCD displays do not have a problem with the viewing angles, you can see a clear image from all sides.

Nowadays all TV sets, tablets and of course mobile phones are IPS or VA. You can turn them around and see the image clear from all sides. But, for monitor applications the TN technology is still widely used, because the monitor usually is in front of you and most of the time you look directly at it, from top, left or right side, but very rarely from the bottom, so the grayscale inversion viewing angle can be placed there. This technology still is very practical because it is affordable and has some advantages for gamers because it is very fast.

Apart from the different organization of the liquid crystals, we also organize subpixels a little bit differently in a VA and IPS LCD displays. When we look closer at the TN display, we will just see the subpixels with color filters. If we look at the VA or IPS display they will have subpixels of subpixels. The subpixels are divided into smaller parts. In this way we can achieve even wider viewing angles and better colors for the user, but of course, it is more complicated and more expensive to do.

The picture above presents the TN display and grayscale inversion. For IPS or VA technology there is no such effect. The picture will be the same from all the sides we look so these technologies are popular where we need wide viewing angles, and TN is popular where we don’t need that, like in monitors. Other advantages of IPS LCD displays are they give accurate colors, and wide viewing angles. What is also important in practice, in our projects, is that the IPS LCD displays are less susceptible to mechanical force. When we apply mechanical force to the screen, and have an optically bonded touch screen, we push the display as well as squeeze the cells. When we have a TN display, every push on the cell changes the image suddenly, with the IPS LCD displays with in-plane switching, different liquid crystals organization, this effect is lesser. It is not completely removed but it is much less distinct. That is another reason IPS displays are very popular for smartphones, tablets, when we have the touchscreens usually optically bonded.

If we wanted to talk about disadvantages, there is a question mark over it, as some of them may be true, some of them do not rely on real cases, what kind of display, what kind of technology is it. Sometimes the IPS displays can have higher power consumption than others, in many cases however, not. They can be more expensive, but not necessarily. The new IPS panels can cost like TN panels, but IPS panels definitely have a longer response time. Again, it is not a rule, you can make IPS panels that are very fast, faster than TN panels, but if you want the fastest possible display, probably the TN panel will be the fastest. That is why the TN technology is still popular on the gaming market. Of course, you can find a lot of discussions on the internet, which technology is better, but it really depends on what you want to achieve.

Now, let us look at the backlight types. As we see here, on the picture above, we have four distinct types of backlight possible. The most common, 95 or 99 per cent of the TFT LCD displays on the market are the transmissive LCD display type, where we need the backlight from the back. If you remember from our Monochrome LCD Displays lecture, for transmissive LCD displays you need the backlight to be always on. If you switch the backlight off, you will not see anything. The same as for monochrome LCD displays, but less popular for TFT displays, we have the transflective LCD display type. They are not popular because usually for transflective TFT displays, the colors lack in brightness, and the displays are not very practical to use. You can see the screen, but the application is limited. Some transflective LCD displays are used by military, in applications where power consumption is paramount; where you can switch the backlight off and you agree to have lower image quality but still see the image. Power consumption and saving energy is most important in some kind of applications and you can use transflective LCD displays there. The reflective type of LCD displays are almost never used in TFT. There is one technology called Low Power Reflective Displays (LPRD) that is used in TFT but it is not popular. Lastly, we have a variation of reflective displays with frontlight, where we add frontlight to the reflective display and have the image even without external light.

Just a few words about Low Power Reflective Displays (LPRD). This kind of display uses environmental light, ambient light to reflect, and produce some colors. The colors are not perfect, not perfectly clear, but this technology is becoming increasingly popular because it allows to have color displays in battery powered applications. For example, a smartwatch would be a case for that technology, or an electrical bike or scooter, where we can not only have a standard monochrome LCD display but also a TFT LCD color display without the backlight; we can see the image even in

strong sunlight and not need backlight at all. So, this kind of TFL LCD display technology is getting more and more popular when we have outdoor LCD displays and need a low power consumption.

On the picture above, we have some examples of how transmissive and reflective LCD displays work in the sunlight. If we have a simple image, like a black and white pattern, then on a transmissive LCD display, even with 1000 candela brightness, the image probably will be lower quality than for a reflective LCD display; if we have sunlight, we have very strong light reflections on the surface of the screen. We have talked about contrast in more detail in the lecture Sunlight Readable Displays. So, reflective LCD displays are a better solution for outdoor applications than transmissive LCD displays, where you need a really strong backlight, 1000 candela or more, to be really seen outdoors.

To show you how the backlight of LCD displays is built, we took the picture above. You can see the edge backlight there, where we have LEDs here on the small PCB on the edge, and we have a diffuser that distributes the light to the whole surface of LCD screen.

In addition to the backlight, we have something that is called a frontlight. It is similar to backlight, it also uses the LEDs to put the light into it, but the frontlight needs to be transparent as we have the display behind. On the example on the picture above we can see an e-paper display. The e-paper display is also a TFT display variation, but it is not LCD (liquid crystal), it is a different technology, but the back of the display is the same and it is reflective. The example you see is the Kindle 4 eBook reader. It uses an e-paper display and a frontlight as well, so you can read eBooks even during the night.

The IPS transmissive type color active matrix TFT liquid crystal display. In-Plane Switching (IPS) was one of the first refinements to produce significant gains in the light-transmissive characteristics of TFT panels. It is a technology that addresses the two main issues of a standard twisted nematic (TN) TFT display: colour and viewing angle. If you would like to learn more IPS TFT LCD display, IPS touchscreen display products details, please browse the following categories and feel free to inquire.

The ST7789 TFT module contains a display controller with the same name: ST7789. It’s a color display that uses SPI interface protocol and requires 3, 4 or 5 control pins, it’s low cost and easy to use. This display is an IPS display, it comes in different sizes (1.3″, 1.54″ …) but all of them should have the same resolution of 240×240 pixel, this means it has 57600 pixels. This module works with 3.3V only and it doesn’t support 5V (not 5V tolerant).

The ST7789 display module shown in project circuit diagram has 7 pins: (from right to left): GND (ground), VCC, SCL (serial clock), SDA (serial data), RES (reset), DC (or D/C: data/command) and BLK (back light).

As mentioned above, the ST7789 TFT display controller works with 3.3V only (power supply and control lines). The display module is supplied with 3.3V (between VCC and GND) which comes from the Arduino board.

To connect the Arduino to the display module, I used voltage divider for each line which means there are 4 voltage dividers. Each voltage divider consists of 2.2k and 3.3k resistors, this drops the 5V into 3V which is sufficient.

The first library is a driver for the ST7789 TFT display which can be installed from Arduino IDE library manager (Sketch —> Include Library —> Manage Libraries …, in the search box write “st7789” and install the one from Adafruit).

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IPS displays are highly popular for their eye-catching color and wide viewing angles. In fact, Lenovo now offers more laptops, tablets and monitors based on In Plane Switching or IPS display technology than with the earlier TN (Twisted Nematic) construction – although TN models are still prized by some users, such as hyper-competitive PC gamers.

So, what does an IPS display really deliver? Which laptop and monitor buyers are most likely to benefit from IPS technology? And why do some users still prefer older-style TN displays? Read on for answers to these and other questions.

IPS and TN are different kinds of TFT LCDs (Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Displays). At the simplest level, LCDs rely on the light modulating properties of energized liquid crystals – along with coordinated light filtering polarizers (both behind and in front of the crystals) -- to control what appears on the screen. By applying voltage to each crystal (or not), light is made to pass through the polarizers (or not). When these changes are managed at microsecond intervals, you get smooth moving images.

TN and IPS displays differ in how their light-influencing polarizer layers are aligned. If this sounds too technical, just know that when polarizers are aligned similarly, light can pass through, but when they’re put in different orientations, light is blocked. And when you place liquid crystal molecules between the polarizer layers and apply voltage, interesting things happen:

IPS polarizers are aligned in parallel, which would normally allow all light to pass through. But again, the resting liquid crystal molecules twist the light to disrupt the normal flow. So IPS displays work in an opposite manner from TN ones. Rather than the application of voltage blocking light, the voltage lets light get through. It prevents the liquid crystals from twisting the light so it can pass through the parallel polarizers as usual.

There’s a lot more to it, of course. But this gives you the general idea of how TN and IPS displays differ. And it’s these differences that give each type of display distinct advantages for specific customers. For example, the parallel polarizer alignment on IPS displays is one reason they can be viewed from extreme angles compared to their TN counterparts. Meanwhile, the way TN displays let light through by default (without applying voltage to disrupt the flow) is one reason TN displays have faster response times and refresh rates than similar IPS models.

Your need for IPS technology depends on how you will use your laptop display or standalone monitor. Here’s a quick run-down of the relative advantages of IPS and TN displays. How does each type match your requirements?

Wider viewing angles: The parallel orientation of an IPS display’s crystals and polarizers make them far easier to see from extreme angles, such as for viewing by large groups. Only those farthest to the side of the display will see any big diminishment in color and contrast.

Greater variety of colors: Most IPS displays feature 8-bit panels (8 bits red, 8 bits green, 8 bits blue), so they can better reproduce the full 24-bit color palette of a typical graphics processor (8 x 3 = 24). Many TN displays have 6-bit panels (6 x 3 = 18) and use extra steps to emulate the full color range.

Improved color accuracy: IPS displays are generally built to meet a higher price point than TN ones and use better backlights capable of generating far wider color gamuts (for example, Adobe RGB versus the older sRGB). The additional hues and shades allow more realistic, true-to-life colors.

One perceived disadvantage of IPS monitors compared to TN ones is their relatively slower refresh rates (the time needed to reconfigure each on-screen image) and response times (the delay when a pixel changes from an active to inactive state). But these delays are measured in milliseconds, so the vast majority of users – say, everyone but advanced PC game players -- will not be impacted. IPS is plenty fast enough for streaming movies, making video calls, and so on.

Faster response times and refresh rates: As stated above, the nature of a TN display makes it faster at refreshing the on-screen imagery and activating/deactivating each pixel. And while the difference is only a few milliseconds (the best TN panels boast response times as fast as 1 ms -- 2-3 ms faster than top-end IPS models), competitive PC gamers typically want the fastest refresh rates and response times.

Lower prices (generally): It’s broadly accepted that a TN display will cost less than an IPS one with equivalent resolution, features, and so on. However, the price difference has narrowed over time, with some IPS monitors now available for $200 USD or less. Still, be wary of IPS displays that seem too inexpensive. Some users complain about so-called “IPS glow” on low-end IPS displays, with the backlight appearing brighter in some parts of the screen than others.

Ready to shop? Lenovo offers a full line of laptops, tablets, standalone monitors, and all-in-ones with different display technologies. Now that you know how IPS and TN displays differ, you’re ready to make your choice.

TL;DR Display is one of the better ones with some of the best viewing angles for the size and price. Nice picture. Touch screen function works and is fairly average. Great for Raspberry Pi projects that demand a screen that can be viewed from any angle.

I bought this for a music player project I am working on using the raspberry pi 4. I purchased this one after researching for a 7in display that has good viewing angles. I had gotten the official raspberry pi 7 in display originally and decided to shelf it after the horrible vertical viewing angles. With the raspberry pi 4, I did have to modify the config.txt file to make the display show up correctly.

Viewing: This is where is really shines over the official 7" display. I had the official display on a higher shelf that was at an angle. With the official one, the picture became nearly unviewable unless i look at it straight on. However, the Longruner display doesn"t suffer from this issue. I can view it from any angle and see the picture and text clearly. The picture quality is sharp and clear, the colors rich and warm. This is great as I use the display for showing album art and listing the title, artist, and album when I am playing music and when I am not playing music, I have it set to switch to a time mode to act as a clock. I can see both modes clearly from any angle and any distance in this room.

This 10.1 inch TFT LCD display has a 1024x600 resolution screen with IPS technology, which delivers sunlight readable brightness, better color reproduction, better image consistency, and better optical characteristics at any angle. For extra protection, this 24-bit true color TFT also includes an EMI filter on the input power supply line. This 10.1" display is RoHS compliant with RGB interface, and does not include a touchscreen. This 10.1" IPS display has been designed with the same mechanical footprint and pinout and includes the same HX8282 driver IC as the TN display, making this a compatible replacement option for the TN models.

Choose from a wide selection of interface options or talk to our experts to select the best one for your project. We can incorporate HDMI, USB, SPI, VGA and more into your display to achieve your design goals.

Equip your display with a custom cut cover glass to improve durability. Choose from a variety of cover glass thicknesses and get optical bonding to protect against moisture and debris.

With the integration of Bridgetek’s next generation EVE3 BT815/BT816 Embedded Video Engine IC, Matrix Orbital EVE3 SPI TFT"s deliver clean, crisp, full color TFT screens for interactive menus, graphing, graphics and even video.

Point of Sales Machines, Multi-function Printers, Instrumentation, Home Security Systems, Graphic touch pad – remote, dial pad, Tele/Video Conference Systems, Phones and Switchboards, Medical Appliances, Breathalyzers, Gas chromatographs, Power meter, Home appliance devices, Set-top box, Thermostats, Sprinkler system displays, GPS / Satnav, Vending Machine Control Panels, Elevator Controls, and many more....

Established in 2010, Topfoison has devoted itself to the manufacturing and development of high-quality products for the Wearable device, Smart Watch, VR, Medical device, Industrial LCD display including Color LCD modules/OLED/LCD display/Round lcd screen/Round AMOLED/ Square transflective lcd screen/ IPS full wide display/ 1080p fhd AMOLED and 2K 1440p lcd. Topfoison focus on1.22-7.0 inch small size displays, all the products produced in our company enjoys the most advanced production craft and technology as well as the strictly ISO quality management system.

Panox Display provides free connectors for clients who purchase more than five products from us. Our product range includes connectors from Molex, Kyocera, AXE, AXG, JAE, Hiros, and more.

Panox Display provides a customized cover glass/touch panel service. We supply cover glass from Gorilla, AGC, and Panda, which all have excellent optical performance. We also supply driver ICs from Goodix and Focaltech.

If your applications are directly connected to a PC, a cellphone, or Raspberry Pi, and you have enough space to insert a board to input video, Panox Display can provide customized Controller/Driver boards with input connections for VGA, HDMI, DVI, DP, Type-C video input, MIPI, RGB, LVDS, and eDP.

If you’ve ever begun searching for a new computer screen, chances are you’ve probably come across the term IPS. It’s at this point that you may be asking yourself, what is an IPS monitor? And how do I know if an IPS monitor is right for me?

Choosing which type of monitor panel type to buy will depend largely on your intended usage and personal preference. After all, gamers, graphic designers, and office workers all have different requirements. Specific types of displays are best suited for different usage scenarios.

Below we’ll take a look at how IPS, TN, and VA monitors affect screen performance and do some handy summaries of strengths, weaknesses, and best-case uses for each type of panel technology.

IPS monitors or “In-Plane Switching” monitors, leverage liquid crystals aligned in parallel to produce rich colors. IPS panels are defined by the shifting patterns of their liquid crystals. These monitors were designed to overcome the limitations of TN panels. The liquid crystal’s ability to shift horizontally creates better viewing angles.

IPS monitors continue to be the display technology of choice for users that want color accuracy and consistency. IPS monitors are really great when it comes to color performance and super-wide viewing angles. The expansive viewing angles provided by IPS monitors help to deliver outstanding color when being viewed from different angles. One major differentiator between IPS monitors and TN monitors is that colors on an IPS monitor won’t shift when being viewed at an angle as drastically as they do on a TN monitor.

IPS monitor variations include S-IPS, H-IPS, e-IPS and P-IPS, and PLS (Plane-to-Line Switching), the latter being the latest iteration. Since these variations are all quite similar, they are all collectively referred to as “IPS-type” panels. They all claim to deliver the major benefits associated with IPS monitors – great color and ultra-wide viewing angles.

When it comes to color accuracy, IPS monitors surpass the performance of TN and VA monitors with ease. While latest-gen VA technologies offer comparative performance specs, pro users still claim that IPS monitors reign supreme in this regard.

Another important characteristic of IPS monitors is that they are able to support professional color space technologies, such as Adobe RGB. This is due to the fact that IPS monitors are able to offer more displayable colors, which help improve color accuracy.

In the past, response time and contrast were the initial weakness of IPS technology. Nowadays, however, IPS monitor response times have advanced to the point where they are even capable of satisfying gamers, thus resulting in a rising popularity in IPS monitors for gaming.

With regard to gaming, some criticisms IPS monitors include more visible motion blur coming as a result of slower response times, however the impact of motion blur will vary from user to user. In fact, mixed opinions about the “drawbacks” of IPS monitor for gaming can be found all across the web. Take this excerpt from one gaming technology writer for example: “As for pixel response, opinions vary. I personally think IPS panels are quick enough for almost all gaming. If your gaming life is absolutely and exclusively about hair-trigger shooters, OK, you’ll want the fastest response, lowest latency LCD monitor. And that means TN. For the rest of us, and certainly for those who place even a modicum of importance on the visual spectacle of games, I reckon IPS is clearly the best panel technology.” Read the full article here.

IPS monitors deliver ultra-wide 178-degree vertical and horizontal viewing angles. Graphic designers, CAD engineers, pro photographers, and video editors will benefit from using an IPS monitor. Many value the color benefits of IPS monitors and tech advances have improved IPS panel speed, contrast, and resolution. IPS monitors are more attractive than ever for general desktop work as well as many types of gaming. They’re even versatile enough to be used in different monitor styles, so if you’ve ever compared an ultrawide vs. dual monitor setup or considered the benefits of curved vs. flat monitors, chances are you’ve already come into contact with an IPS panel.

TN monitors, or “Twisted Nematic” monitors, are the oldest LCD panel types around. TN panels cost less than their IPS and VA counterparts and are a popular mainstream display technology for desktop and laptop displays.

Despite their lower perceived value, TN-based displays are the panel type preferred by competitive gamers. The reason for this is because TN panels can achieve a rapid response time and the fastest refresh rates on the market (like this 240Hz eSports monitor). To this effect, TN monitors are able to reduce blurring and screen tearing in fast-paced games when compared to an IPS or VA panel.

For general-purpose use, these shifts in color and contrast are often irrelevant and fade from conscious perception. However, this color variability makes TN monitors a poor choice for color-critical work like graphic design and photo editing. Graphic designers and other color-conscious users should also avoid TN displays due to their more limited range of color display compared to the other technologies.

TN monitors are the least expensive panel technology, making them ideal for cost-conscious businesses and consumers. In addition, TN monitors enjoy unmatched popularity with competitive gamers and other users who seek rapid graphics display.

These high-end VA-type monitors rival IPS monitors as the best panel technology for professional-level color-critical applications. One of the standout features of VA technology is that it is particularly good at blocking light from the backlight when it’s not needed. This enables VA panels to display deeper blacks and static contrast ratios of up to several times higher than the other LCD technologies. The benefit of this is that VA monitors with high contrast ratios can deliver intense blacks and richer colors.

MVA and other recent VA technologies offer the highest static contrast ratios of any panel technology. This allows for an outstanding visual experience for movie enthusiasts and other users seeking depth of detail. Higher-end, feature-rich MVA displays offer the consistent, authentic color representation needed by graphic designers and other pro users.

IPS monitors offer the greatest range of color-related features and remain the gold standard for photo editing and color-critical pro uses. Greater availability and lower prices make IPS monitors a great fit for anyone who values outstanding image quality.

LCD or “Liquid Crystal Display” is a type of monitor panel that embraces thin layers of liquid crystals sandwiched between two layers of filters and electrodes.

As a result, active-matrix technology was invented and transistors (TFTs) began being used to help liquid crystals retain their charge and change phase more quickly.

Ultimately, budget and feature preferences will determine the best fit for each user. Among the available monitors of each panel type there will also be a range of price points and feature sets. Additionally, overall quality may vary among manufacturers due to factors related to a display’s components, manufacturing, and design.

If you’re interested in learning more about IPS monitors, you can take a look at some of these professional monitors to see if they would be the right fit for you.

A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directlybacklight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome.seven-segment displays, as in a digital clock, are all good examples of devices with these displays. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made from a matrix of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. LCDs can either be normally on (positive) or off (negative), depending on the polarizer arrangement. For example, a character positive LCD with a backlight will have black lettering on a background that is the color of the backlight, and a character negative LCD will have a black background with the letters being of the same color as the backlight. Optical filters are added to white on blue LCDs to give them their characteristic appearance.

LCDs are used in a wide range of applications, including LCD televisions, computer monitors, instrument panels, aircraft cockpit displays, and indoor and outdoor signage. Small LCD screens are common in LCD projectors and portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, digital clocks, calculators, and mobile telephones, including smartphones. LCD screens are also used on consumer electronics products such as DVD players, video game devices and clocks. LCD screens have replaced heavy, bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays in nearly all applications. LCD screens are available in a wider range of screen sizes than CRT and plasma displays, with LCD screens available in sizes ranging from tiny digital watches to very large television receivers. LCDs are slowly being replaced by OLEDs, which can be easily made into different shapes, and have a lower response time, wider color gamut, virtually infinite color contrast and viewing angles, lower weight for a given display size and a slimmer profile (because OLEDs use a single glass or plastic panel whereas LCDs use two glass panels; the thickness of the panels increases with size but the increase is more noticeable on LCDs) and potentially lower power consumption (as the display is only "on" where needed and there is no backlight). OLEDs, however, are more expensive for a given display size due to the very expensive electroluminescent materials or phosphors that they use. Also due to the use of phosphors, OLEDs suffer from screen burn-in and there is currently no way to recycle OLED displays, whereas LCD panels can be recycled, although the technology required to recycle LCDs is not yet widespread. Attempts to maintain the competitiveness of LCDs are quantum dot displays, marketed as SUHD, QLED or Triluminos, which are displays with blue LED backlighting and a Quantum-dot enhancement film (QDEF) that converts part of the blue light into red and green, offering similar performance to an OLED display at a lower price, but the quantum dot layer that gives these displays their characteristics can not yet be recycled.

Since LCD screens do not use phosphors, they rarely suffer image burn-in when a static image is displayed on a screen for a long time, e.g., the table frame for an airline flight schedule on an indoor sign. LCDs are, however, susceptible to image persistence.battery-powered electronic equipment more efficiently than a CRT can be. By 2008, annual sales of televisions with LCD screens exceeded sales of CRT units worldwide, and the CRT became obsolete for most purposes.

Most color LCD systems use the same technique, with color filters used to generate red, green, and blue subpixels. The LCD color filters are made with a photolithography process on large glass sheets that are later glued with other glass sheets containing a TFT array, spacers and liquid crystal, creating several color LCDs that are then cut from one another and laminated with polarizer sheets. Red, green, blue and black photoresists (resists) are used. All resists contain a finely ground powdered pigment, with particles being just 40 nanometers across. The black resist is the first to be applied; this will create a black grid (known in the industry as a black matrix) that will separate red, green and blue subpixels from one another, increasing contrast ratios and preventing light from leaking from one subpixel onto other surrounding subpixels.Super-twisted nematic LCD, where the variable twist between tighter-spaced plates causes a varying double refraction birefringence, thus changing the hue.

The optical effect of a TN device in the voltage-on state is far less dependent on variations in the device thickness than that in the voltage-off state. Because of this, TN displays with low information content and no backlighting are usually operated between crossed polarizers such that they appear bright with no voltage (the eye is much more sensitive to variations in the dark state than the bright state). As most of 2010-era LCDs are used in television sets, monitors and smartphones, they have high-resolution matrix arrays of pixels to display arbitrary images using backlighting with a dark background. When no image is displayed, different arrangements are used. For this purpose, TN LCDs are operated between parallel polarizers, whereas IPS LCDs feature crossed polarizers. In many applications IPS LCDs have replaced TN LCDs, particularly in smartphones. Both the liquid crystal material and the alignment layer material contain ionic compounds. If an electric field of one particular polarity is applied for a long period of time, this ionic material is attracted to the surfaces and degrades the device performance. This is avoided either by applying an alternating current or by reversing the polarity of the electric field as the device is addressed (the response of the liquid crystal layer is identical, regardless of the polarity of the applied field).

Displays for a small number of individual digits or fixed symbols (as in digital watches and pocket calculators) can be implemented with independent electrodes for each segment.alphanumeric or variable graphics displays are usually implemented with pixels arranged as a matrix consisting of electrically connected rows on one side of the LC layer and columns on the other side, which makes it possible to address each pixel at the intersections. The general method of matrix addressing consists of sequentially addressing one side of the matrix, for example by selecting the rows one-by-one and applying the picture information on the other side at the columns row-by-row. For details on the various matrix addressing schemes see passive-matrix and active-matrix addressed LCDs.

LCDs, along with OLED displays, are manufactured in cleanrooms borrowing techniques from semiconductor manufacturing and using large sheets of glass whose size has increased over time. Several displays are manufactured at the same time, and then cut from the sheet of glass, also known as the mother glass or LCD glass substrate. The increase in size allows more displays or larger displays to be made, just like with increasing wafer sizes in semiconductor manufacturing. The glass sizes are as follows:

Until Gen 8, manufacturers would not agree on a single mother glass size and as a result, different manufacturers would use slightly different glass sizes for the same generation. Some manufacturers have adopted Gen 8.6 mother glass sheets which are only slightly larger than Gen 8.5, allowing for more 50 and 58 inch LCDs to be made per mother glass, specially 58 inch LCDs, in which case 6 can be produced on a Gen 8.6 mother glass vs only 3 on a Gen 8.5 mother glass, significantly reducing waste.AGC Inc., Corning Inc., and Nippon Electric Glass.

The origins and the complex history of liquid-crystal displays from the perspective of an insider during the early days were described by Joseph A. Castellano in Liquid Gold: The Story of Liquid Crystal Displays and the Creation of an Industry.IEEE History Center.Peter J. Wild, can be found at the Engineering and Technology History Wiki.

In 1922, Georges Friedel described the structure and properties of liquid crystals and classified them in three types (nematics, smectics and cholesterics). In 1927, Vsevolod Frederiks devised the electrically switched light valve, called the Fréedericksz transition, the essential effect of all LCD technology. In 1936, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph company patented the first practical application of the technology, "The Liquid Crystal Light Valve". In 1962, the first major English language publication Molecular Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals was published by Dr. George W. Gray.RCA found that liquid crystals had some interesting electro-optic characteristics and he realized an electro-optical effect by generating stripe-patterns in a thin layer of liquid crystal material by the application of a voltage. This effect is based on an electro-hydrodynamic instability forming what are now called "Williams domains" inside the liquid crystal.

The MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959, and presented in 1960.Paul K. Weimer at RCA developed the thin-film transistor (TFT) in 1962.

In 1964, George H. Heilmeier, then working at the RCA laboratories on the effect discovered by Williams achieved the switching of colors by field-induced realignment of dichroic dyes in a homeotropically oriented liquid crystal. Practical problems with this new electro-optical effect made Heilmeier continue to work on scattering effects in liquid crystals and finally the achievement of the first operational liquid-crystal display based on what he called the George H. Heilmeier was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of FameIEEE Milestone.

The idea of a TFT-based liquid-crystal display (LCD) was conceived by Bernard Lechner of RCA Laboratories in 1968.dynamic scattering mode (DSM) LCD that used standard discrete MOSFETs.

On December 4, 1970, the twisted nematic field effect (TN) in liquid crystals was filed for patent by Hoffmann-LaRoche in Switzerland, (Swiss patent No. 532 261) with Wolfgang Helfrich and Martin Schadt (then working for the Central Research Laboratories) listed as inventors.Brown, Boveri & Cie, its joint venture partner at that time, which produced TN displays for wristwatches and other applications during the 1970s for the international markets including the Japanese electronics industry, which soon produced the first digital quartz wristwatches with TN-LCDs and numerous other products. James Fergason, while working with Sardari Arora and Alfred Saupe at Kent State University Liquid Crystal Institute, filed an identical patent in the United States on April 22, 1971.ILIXCO (now LXD Incorporated), produced LCDs based on the TN-effect, which soon superseded the poor-quality DSM types due to improvements of lower operating voltages and lower power consumption. Tetsuro Hama and Izuhiko Nishimura of Seiko received a US patent dated February 1971, for an electronic wristwatch incorporating a TN-LCD.

In 1972, the concept of the active-matrix thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid-crystal display panel was prototyped in the United States by T. Peter Brody"s team at Westinghouse, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Westinghouse Research Laboratories demonstrated the first thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD).high-resolution and high-quality electronic visual display devices use TFT-based active matrix displays.active-matrix liquid-crystal display (AM LCD) in 1974, and then Brody coined the term "active matrix" in 1975.

In 1972 North American Rockwell Microelectronics Corp introduced the use of DSM