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Transflective Laptop Screens?

Posted by Cliff on from the transflective-vs-reflective dept.

Ed_Moyse writes "It's a beautiful sunny day here in Geneva, and I've just been outside, enjoying a game of Advance Wars on my GBA. What I'd enjoy even more is to be able to work outside. Does anyone know why reflective laptop screens don't exist? It'd save battery life and should (if the GBA is any guide) work indoors too. Geeks with tans!" Timothy points out that what this reader is probably looking for is a transflective display, not a reflective display. The difference is that transflective laptops don't depend on ambient light, because they can be selectably backlit. Anyone who has ever used a laptop outside will know the advantages this may provide over your traditional LCD screen.

1 of 16 comments (clear)

  1. I suppose *someone* has to answer this... by uslinux.net · · Score: 4, Informative
    Too bad it's not me. I spent some time a while back on Seiko's website when I was looking into building an LCD for a home MP3 player. Transflective, FSTN backlit displays are the most expensive option. But the truth is, I don't know what most laptops use now (and I'd guess not many others do, either, or you would've already found your answer). I would guess current LCD panels are transmissive - they suck a LOT of power, but they look good in everything but sunlight.

    In fact, from lxdinc.com: "A reflective display has the brightest appearance, with the highest contrast ratio possible. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to read at night or under changing lightning conditions. If your display must be readable under a wide range of lighting conditions, you will generally want a transflective display so that it will look very good in the bright sunlight, but will also be backlightable at twilight and at night. A transmissive display must always have a working backlight, and is therefore unacceptable in applications where power consumption is a problem.

    The tradeoff with a transflective display is that it will not look as good as a reflective display during the day, and it will not look as good as a transmissive display at night. It will however enable you to have an acceptable compromise between the two, and provides a very acceptable appearance."