Multi-touch test
A screen that follows one finger perfectly can still lose the second. Put as many fingers down as you can — each one gets its own numbered marker, so a contact that goes missing is visible the moment it happens.
Put as many fingers on the pad as you can and watch the count.
A mouse is one pointer, so a computer will always read 1. This test needs a touchscreen.
- Touching now0
- Most at once0
What to try
Put five fingers down at once and hold them. Then move them apart and together while they are all down. Then lift them one at a time.
The count is only half the test. What separates a good screen from a tired one is whether the count stays while the fingers move — a screen that reports five and drops to four whenever you spread them is the common failure, and it is invisible if you only ever tap.
Try it near the edges too. Sensor coverage is thinnest there, and a screen that manages five in the middle can manage three at the bottom.
What the numbers mean
| Most at once | What it means |
|---|---|
| 1 | A mouse, or a screen reporting single touch only |
| 2 | Enough to pinch, and low for a modern phone |
| 5 | The normal maximum on a phone |
| 10 | Normal on a tablet |
When the count is right but something is still wrong
Two things this test shows that the number alone does not.
A contact that jumps. Watch the markers rather than the count. A marker that flickers between two positions is the digitiser guessing, which is what makes pinch gestures feel like they are fighting you.
A contact that will not lift. If a marker stays after you have taken the finger off, the screen is reporting a touch that is not there — the same fault behind a phone that opens things on its own. The touchscreen test is the one that maps where it happens.
Common questions
How many should my phone handle?
Five is the normal answer on a phone and ten on a tablet, and both are limits set by the operating system rather than by the glass. Some Android phones report more. What matters is not the maximum but whether it holds: a screen that tracks five and then drops one when you move them is behaving worse than one that only ever reports two.
Why does my computer only show one?
Because a mouse is a single pointer. This test needs a touchscreen — on a desktop it will always read one, which is correct rather than a fault. A touchscreen laptop will behave like a phone.
One finger keeps disappearing when I move the others.
That is the finding worth having, and it usually means the digitiser is struggling to separate contacts rather than failing outright. It happens most on cheap screen replacements, which often use a lower-quality digitiser than the original, and near the edges, where the sensor grid has fewer crossings to work with.
Two fingers close together merge into one marker.
Normal below a certain distance. The sensor grid has a physical pitch — a few millimetres — and two contacts inside one cell cannot be told apart. If they merge while still a centimetre or more apart, that is not normal and points at the same difficulty separating contacts.
Does this matter in real use?
For pinch to zoom, yes, and for games with an on-screen pad, very much. For typing, less: the keyboard uses one or two contacts. If pinching is unreliable but typing is fine, this test is where the explanation is.