Today, I’m sharing a quick review and test of a new IPS touch screen I found on AliExpress. It uses the ST7789 LCD driver and a capacitive touch controller chip, the FT6336. One of the things I liked right away was that the chips used are clearly listed on the PCB. It saves a lot of time compared to dealing with products where that info isn’t readily available.
LCD and Touchscreen Performance
For the LCD side, the Adafruit library works perfectly with the ST7789 (But I would instead use the tft_espi library linked below — it’s so much more powerful and way faster). The display itself is an LCD, not OLED, but the colors look good, and the viewing angles are impressive thanks to the IPS technology. It’s a good deal considering the price, especially since it’s capacitive.
The touch functionality, powered by the FT6336, supports one-point and two-point touch. It’s quite accurate for single taps, but if you try to move your finger around extremely quickly, you might see some inconsistent readings on the Y-axis. It’s not a big deal if you’re just using it for simple button presses, which was my main purpose. However, for more demanding tasks like drawing, it might not be the best choice without some software tweaks.
Libraries and Setup
To get this up and running, you’ll need to install the Adafruit GFX and ST7789 libraries. I’m using a specific touch library for the FT6336 because, while there are several available, most didn’t work consistently for me. You can’t install this library directly from the Arduino IDE, so I’ve provided a link to the GitHub repo where you can download the zip file and add it manually to your Arduino libraries.
The setup I’ve tested includes simple color buttons that register touches reliably, and I also added functionality to track the X and Y positions. It works well, but if you press with two fingers too close together, the second touch may not register correctly. This could affect multi-touch gestures like pinch-to-zoom unless you implement some software improvements.
Additional Considerations
Keep in mind, the screen still uses traditional LCD drawing methods, so when you update elements like buttons, you might notice some drawing delays, although they’re pretty subtle. But move to the tft_espi library below and all of that goes away and the updates are extremely fast.
Conclusion
For the price, I think this IPS capacitive touch screen is a solid choice, especially if you’re just looking for a budget-friendly display for button-based interfaces or simple touch functions.
You can find all the libraries and my code on my GitHub here: https://github.com/aBoyCanDream/240×320-IPS-Touch-Screen-With-FT6336-and-ST7789-Example-Code.
But I recommend just using the touch code from there and instead drive the display with this brilliant library: https://github.com/Bodmer/TFT_eSPI
And the touch display can be found here (affiliate link): https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DkVIfkD Be sure to choose the IPS touch version, as there are multiple options available, including models without touch or with a basic TFT touch. As always with AliExpress, test your products as soon as they arrive.
That’s it for now—take care, and happy tinkering!