This post will cover various aspects of the Mobile Devices section of the CompTIA A+ Core 1 certification endeavor.
Table of contents
LCD
A majority of laptops use a liquid crystal display (LCD). From a laptop perspective, the advantages of an LCD display is that they are lightweight and use very little power, and they’re relatively inexpensive to make, keeping the cost of the laptop down.
However, a major disadvantage to an LCD is the backlight or light source behind all of that shines through to give us the image that’s on our screen. If this backlight was to fail, you could see that it’s part of the display itself, making it relatively difficult to be able to repair or replace. One way to tell if your backlight has failed is to shine a flashlight directly at the screen. If you’re able to make out some of the information on the screen, then it’s very possible that the problem is not with the display, but with the backlight behind the display.
Types of LCDs include:
- Twisted Nematic (TN) - which are inexpensive while having high response times. However, TN displays have low contrast ratios, viewing angles and color contrasts.
- In Panel Switching displays (IPS Panels) - which boast much better contrast ratios, viewing angles and color contrast when compared to TN LCDs.
- Vertical Alignment Panels (VA Panels) - which are seen as a medium quality between TN and IPS displays.
- Advanced Fringe Field Switching (AFFS) - which is a top performer compared IPS displays in color reproduction range.
OLED
If you have a newer device, you may be using an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display. This organic material emits light when you provide it with a current which requires no backlight, and because there’s no backlight and no liquid crystals, these are very thin displays.