Touch Screen Test

This touch screen test covers your screen with a grid of squares. Each square turns green the moment the screen reports a touch on it, so after a few slow passes any dead zone stands out as a dark patch. The outer ring of squares is marked because most faults start at the edges, and the full screen run reaches all four corners. Every finger shows as a numbered circle with the contact size and pressure your screen reports, and a hands off ghost touch test catches touches nobody made. It works in the browser on Android phones, iPhones and iPads, Windows touch laptops, Chromebooks and touch monitors.

How to test your touch screen

1. Press Full screen test. On a phone, hold it the way you normally do.
2. Slide one finger slowly across the screen in rows, from the top left to the bottom right. Squares turn green as they respond.
3. Trace each edge and corner from the inside, sliding outward toward the frame.
4. Tap Done. Squares that never responded turn orange, and the verdict under the grid says where they are.
5. Swipe the orange squares again, slowly and with light pressure. A square that stays orange after three slow passes is a dead zone.
6. Press Ghost touch watch, put the device down and keep your hands off it. Any touch recorded during the watch is a ghost touch, listed with its time and position.
7. Press Copy results to save a report for a repair shop or a warranty claim.

What the results mean

Part of the screen does not respond

A patch of squares that stays orange is a dead zone: that part of the digitizer, the clear sensor layer on top of the display, does not register touches. Work through the causes from the most common:

• A screen protector. An air bubble, a lifted edge, dust under the glass or a cracked protector can block touches in one area. Peel it back or take it off and test the bare screen. Thick tempered glass also weakens touch: Samsung phones have Touch sensitivity in Settings, then Display, and Pixel phones have Screen protector mode in Settings, then Display & touch, then Touch sensitivity.
• Dirt, water or a sticker. Clean the screen with a slightly damp microfiber cloth and dry it fully. Water droplets make a touch screen miss real touches and invent others.
• A case that presses on the glass. A tight or bent case can push on the edge of the screen. Take it off and test again.
• A frozen app or system glitch. Restart the device. A dead zone that appears in one app only points to that app, not the screen.
• A cracked or replaced screen. Damage to the digitizer often shows as a line or a block of dead squares near the crack. Cheap replacement screens fitted during a repair are a common source of dead strips.

If the dead zone stays with the protector off, the screen clean and the device restarted, the digitizer is faulty. On most phones it is fused to the display, so the repair is a full screen replacement.

The edges or corners do not respond

Before you blame the screen for a dead edge, rule out the things that take touches there:

• System gestures. Swiping in from the side edges means Back on Android and in iPhone Safari, and swiping up from the bottom means Home. Tap the edge squares, or start inside and slide outward.
• Cases and protectors. A raised case lip covers the outer millimeter of glass, and many protectors stop short of a curved edge, leaving a ridge your finger rides over.
• Curved screens. Phones with glass that curves over the sides ignore some touches along the curve so your grip does not register. Tap those squares lightly with a fingertip.

A whole side that stays orange with no case and no protector is a hardware fault, often from a drop on that corner.

The screen touches itself

Ghost touches are touches you did not make: apps open, letters type or the screen scrolls on its own. If the hands off watch records touches, note where they land, then check these in order:

1. The charger. Electrical noise from a cheap or damaged charger is the classic cause. If ghost touches happen only while charging, try the original charger, another cable and another wall socket. Run one watch on the charger and one on battery, and compare the runs.
2. The screen protector. Take it off and run the watch again.
3. Moisture. Dry the screen. Condensation after moving from cold air into a warm room can cause phantom taps.
4. Software. Restart, install updates, and on Android start in safe mode to rule out an app.
5. Heat. A phone that is hot from gaming or sun can misread touches until it cools down.
6. Damage. Ghost touches in one spot near a crack, or after a screen replacement, mean the digitizer is faulty.

The ghost touch guide has step by step fixes for iPhone, Android and Windows laptops.

Touches land in the wrong place

If the circle sits a few millimeters away from your fingertip, the touch position is off. On a Windows touch screen, open Control Panel, then Hardware and Sound, then Tablet PC Settings, press Calibrate and choose touch input. If an old calibration made things worse, press Reset on the same tab. Phones and tablets have no calibration for their touch screens, so an offset there points to a faulty screen or one fitted badly during a repair. Apps that promise to recalibrate a phone touch screen cannot change how the screen reads touches.

Samsung, Android and iPhone test menus

• Samsung: dial *#0*# in the Phone app to open the hidden test menu on many Galaxy phones, then tap Touch and trace the pattern. The same menu checks the vibration motor, which the vibration test also does in a browser. The Samsung Members app has a touch screen check under Support, then Phone diagnostics.
• Android: turn on Developer options by tapping Build number seven times in About phone (on Samsung, About phone, then Software information), then switch on Pointer location. A bar at the top shows how many fingers are down and where, and every touch leaves a trace.
• iPhone and iPad: there is no hidden test menu. Check that Touch Accommodations is off in Settings, then Accessibility, then Touch, because it changes how long a touch must last and can make taps seem ignored. Apple Support can run a remote diagnostic if the screen still misbehaves.

Windows touch screens and drivers

If no square responds on a Windows laptop or touch monitor:

1. For a touch monitor, check that its USB cable runs to the computer as well as the video cable. The touch signal travels over USB.
2. Open Device Manager, expand Human Interface Devices and find HID-compliant touch screen. If it shows a down arrow, right-click it and choose Enable device.
3. If it is enabled but dead, choose Disable device, then enable it again. This restarts the touch controller and clears many freezes.
4. If it is missing, run Windows Update, then install the chipset and touch drivers from your laptop maker's support app. Some laptops can switch the touch screen off in the BIOS.

On a Windows laptop whose screen taps by itself, disabling HID-compliant touch screen stops the ghost touches until the screen is repaired.

What a browser touch test cannot check

The page only sees touches inside the browser window. The browser's own bars and the system's edge gestures sit outside it, and in iPhone Safari the status bar and toolbar always stay on screen. The touch rate shows what the browser receives: some phones sample touches faster for games, and that extra speed may never reach a web page. Pressure and contact size appear only where the screen and browser report them. Display faults are a separate check: stuck or dead pixels show up in the dead pixel test. A laptop touchpad has its own touchpad test, and pens and styluses are checked by the stylus pressure test. Drawing tablets and pen displays that plug into a computer go through the drawing tablet test.

Touch screen test questions