CarPCgarage.com

Touchscreen

The single most important component of your Car PC is the touchscreen. It serves as your primary input and your visual interface.

What follows are our recommendations for the most important features to look for in your touchscreen.

• Interface: Touchscreen
• Size: DIN sized unit with 7 inch display
• Dead Pixels: Ensure 100% no dead pixel guarantee
• Motorized: Either fully motorized or not is fine
• Resolution: 640x480 or better resolution
• Power: Ideally <12W power consumption
• Cost: $400-$600

Interface: Touchscreen

You can get a display unit that isn't also a touchscreen, but then you have to come up with some other sort of input mechanism. And while voice recognition is making great advances, it's not quite there yet in terms of using it for your only input mechanisms.

Size: DIN sized unit with 7 inch display

"DIN" is the standard size slot for a dashboard component in most modern vehicles. And 7 inches is the largest screen size you can get in a single DIN size slot. The advantage of having your touchscreen fit into a DIN slot is that you'll be able to close the display unit when not in use. This is important if you don't want your new display unit to get ganked.

Dead Pixels: Ensure 100% no dead pixel guarantee

Dead pixels in the display can ruin your experience. Make sure that wherever you buy your touchscreen, they guarantee no dead pixels. This is far more common nowadays than it used to be.

Motorized: Either fully motorized or not is fine

While a motorized display unit lets you open and close your display with the touch of a button, are you really so lazy that you can't close it by hand? That one is totally up to you.

Resolution: 640x480 or better resolution

800x480 is a typical default resolution for a 7" touchscreen, but the absolute minimum you should consider is 640x480. Some newer touchscreen even go as high as 1280x768, although the usefulness of that resolution on a 7" display that will be used in a car in sunlight is questionable at best...

Power: Ideally <12W power consumption

This item isn't really that critical if your display is only going to be used while the engine is running. But in general, you want to try to minimize all of the power consumption in your vehicle, and <12 watts is not to hard to find.

Cost: $400-$600

You should be able to find the ideal touchscreen for somewhere in this range. Keep in mind that the touchscreen is your entire tactile and visual interface to your Car PC, and is therefore the most important part of your Car PC purchase.

Specific Recommendations

Xenarc 700IDT 7" In-Dash LCD Monitor with VGA and Touchscreen
~$430
http://store.karpc.com
(Would also be good to purchase "Xenarc AC-DC Adapter 12 Volt" ~$16)

VMI70 7" in-dash TFT LCD Touchscreen monitor/TV
~$399
http://www.mini-box.com

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