Touch Screen Test — Find Dead Zones Online
Rub the panel below like a scratch card. Wherever your touch lands, the foil peels away — and wherever the screen fails to respond, the silver stays. That leftover silver is your dead zone. Put several fingers down at once to see your multi-touch count.
Congratulations — every zone responded. No dead spots found.
About the Touch Screen Test
Touch screens rarely fail all at once. They fail in stripes and corners: one row stops responding, an edge goes quiet, a single patch registers taps only half the time. The trouble is that dead zones hide in plain sight — you never notice the spot with no icon on it, because you never had a reason to tap there.
This test flips that around by turning your whole screen into a scratch card. Every place your finger touches, the silver foil peels away. Scratch the whole panel and anything still silver is, by definition, an area where your touches are not being registered. Fullscreen mode extends the card to the panel's true edges and corners, and the live counter shows how many simultaneous fingers your device actually reports — most Android phones handle ten and iPhones report five, some laptop touch screens fewer.
Nothing you scratch is recorded or transmitted; the card resets to fresh foil with one tap and forgets everything when you close the page. One practical tip before you blame the hardware: cases and screen protectors are notorious for blocking edge touches, so peel them off and scratch again before drawing conclusions.
How the touch screen test works
- Wipe the screen first — grease and water drops cause touch failures that are not faults. Then rub the panel slowly with a finger (or drag with a mouse) to peel the foil.
- Use the fullscreen button to reach the panel's true edges and corners.
- Look for cells that stay silver after thorough scratching — those are dead zones.
- Press several fingers at once and read the simultaneous-touch counter.
- Using a case or screen protector? Remove it and compare a second run.
- Press 'scratch again' to reset the card to fresh foil.
Frequently asked questions
Some cells will not scratch off. Is the screen broken?
Check the innocent suspects first: screen-protector bubbles, case edges, moisture or grease on the glass. Clean it, remove the protector, and scratch again. If the same patch stays silver every time, the touch sensor in that area may genuinely not be responding — repetition in the same spot is the tell.
How many simultaneous touches should I get?
Most Android phones and tablets report ten touch points, while iPhones report five. Some laptop touch screens and older devices support two to five. The number shown is exactly how many pointers your device, OS and browser actually deliver.
Fast swipes leave gaps in the middle.
The test reads the intermediate points of fast swipes as densely as the device reports them, but very fast motion can still dot rather than paint on slower hardware. Judge dead zones with slow strokes — a spot that stays silver under slow scratching is the real finding.
Does it work with a mouse?
Yes — hold a button and drag to scratch. Touch, pen and mouse run through the same code, so on a touch laptop you can compare finger versus mouse to isolate which input is misbehaving.
Why doesn't the page scroll while I scratch?
Scroll and zoom gestures are deliberately disabled on the panel itself, because the scratching gesture is the input. Everywhere outside the panel scrolls as normal.
Are my touch positions recorded?
No. The scratch state lives only inside this page and vanishes on reset or close. There is no code that stores or transmits coordinates.
Is the Touch Screen Test free, and do I need to install an app?
Free, with no account and no app. That is the practical part: diagnosing a touch screen usually means trusting a downloaded tool with a device you already suspect, and here the page is the tool. Open it, scratch the grid, close the tab.
Will it work on a tablet or a touch laptop?
Yes — anything the browser reports touches from. On a touch laptop it is worth running with the lid at your usual angle, because a screen that behaves on a desk sometimes misses along one edge when it is tilted, and that is exactly the kind of fault a grid finds and daily use hides.