Top Windows 7 Screensavers - Make Your Display Come Alive

Before reviewing the top 3 Windows 7 screensavers, let us understand why we need them. As evident from its name, a screensaver helps in saving the screen of your display.

A CRT monitor creates images using a ray of light that scans the screen horizontally from the top-left to top-right, coming down to the last line – one point at a time. You have several grids on your computer screen. Consider the bottom-left corner of your screen as x=0, y=0 and you have a x-y graph containing as many grids as the resolution of your screen. Each of these grids contains three dots (Red, Green, and Blue). To create an image, the ray needs to illuminate several grids across the screen. To create a colored image, it hits the right dot at right grid – with a particular strength. As the ray hits the dots, the pixel illuminates and gives out some heat. The lighted pixel does not stay for long and fades away quickly. To keep any image steady, the ray scans and hits the dots constantly. If you keep the image steady for several minutes, the dots may burn to create a permanent impression of that image, on your screen. Even LCD pixels may burn if you keep an image steady for several minutes.

To avoid burning of the dots, the image on the screen of your monitor needs to change continuously. This makes the ray in the CRT monitor, for example, to hit separate dots at different times. Screensavers help in achieving the purpose. They activate after a given time-period to avoid burning of pixels and thereby, to avoid burning of the screen.

Screensavers are also an attraction and many users like to have special, amazing screensavers on their machines. This is why you can see thousands of websites offering paid and free Windows 7 screensavers.

Having understood the basics of screensavers, let us look at the top 3 Windows 7 screensavers.

The rating of following top 3 Windows 7 screensavers may not exactly match your choice. I selected them based on the number of downloads from CNET portal.

3D Fish School Screensaver is a trialware, meaning you can try it before deciding whether to buy it. The price of this screensaver is USD19.95. The screensaver turns your computer monitor into a bubbling aquarium (see fig 1 below). You have up to hundred 3D fish in different, dazzling colors. You can choose from a variety of fish. The animated background gives you a feeling as if you are looking at a real aquarium. One of the top Windows 7 screensavers, the 3D Fish School screensaver allows you to customize the backgrounds and fish with a range of choices. The screensaver also offers you the facility of displaying calendar and time in a digital format.

The trial version gives you only two backgrounds and limited customization options. Still, the trial version is worth treasuring.

Fire Screensaver 2.00.120 is a free Windows 7 screensaver. As soon as it activates, your desktop is on fire: whatever applications are open, everything looks as they caught fire (fig 2). It allows you to customize flames and sounds.

The Fire screensaver for Windows 7 also offers support for multi-monitors and for TV extensions. Normally, pressing the PrintScreen key would stop any screen-saver. In this case, you can take a snap of the screen using the key. The multi-monitor and TV extension support makes it one of the "real" top Windows 7 screensaver.

Solar System - Earth 3D screensaver 1.4 comes at $17.95. You can also download it to try before you actually purchase it. The excellent graphics present a real picture of space where you can see planet Earth based on the time of day (fig 3). Adding to the glamor, the backdrop contains stars or sunrays depending upon time and weather.

NOTE: There are several screensavers available on the Internet. Make sure that you are not downloading malware by running a scan as soon as you download any of the top Windows 7 screensaver.

Must See:

1. Hidden Screensavers in Mac OS X

2. Matrix Screensavers for Linux

3. Star Trek Themes for Windows