A PDA or Pocket PC screen is most infuriating when the alignment goes ‘out of whack’.
I own a Dell Axim x51 and found after its year of use, the screen started to become unresponsive to my clicks, or click something on the other side of the screen – it was not fun. I used the hardware controls to run the re-allignment program and managed to get the screen in working order however this only lasted about 5 taps before the original problem returned.
After searching and searching, I discovered a well hidden post describing how the touch screen worked and possible causes of screen misalignment. As I use my PDA everyday, it usually sits in my pocket. Over the year since I first purchased it, the tiny gap between the screen and the casing filled up with ‘pocket lint’. It was described on this post that this ‘lint’ can cause the ‘digitizer’ (the hardware that reads the taps) to misinterpret a tap and report it incorrectly to the Mobile OS.
There is a solution!
The post suggested getting a piece of paper, then place one of the corners into the gap between the screen and the case, to literally push out the ‘lint’ that had built up. I was careful not to get the paper caught as a loose piece of paper would just cause more problems. Once I had gone around the entire screen, I re-run the calibration program and it worked like a charm.