Will I Ever Be Able To Read A Laptop In Sunlight?

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Monochrome LCDs without backlights are excellent in sunlight. Some older HP notebooks had these. Kindle-type monochrome displays also, but they're very slow.

James Arthur

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If monochrome is acceptable, some of the old reflective and = transflective=20 LCD displays (without backlight) are inexpensive and generally best in=20 bright light conditions. Most of the displays listed above are quite=20 expensive. You may just need to get a hood like the NFL officials use, = or=20 like the old-time photographers used.

Paul=20

Dell sells notebooks with daylight readable displays. I got one of these notebooks off their refurb list. I don't think you would like the new price. They are used by police and in some military applications. [The Toughbook is what the military really uses.]

The Dell refurb website is the kind of thing you need to stake out. Eventually what you want will show up. It doesn't make sense to do this for a run of the mill notebook, but for their military grade stuff, you really don't want to buy it new.

Mine was primo. I'm told this is typical of mil/governent grade purchases. Some police department orders the gear then finds out they have to lay off cops instead, so they return it whatever credit they can get. In the case of the one I bought, it was configured kind of stupidly. They paid for win 7 64 bit, but only got 3G of RAM. I ran it for a while, made sure it was good, then upgraded it to the full 8G for $100 at the time. Next up is SSD to make it more rugged.

On a sunny day (Thu, 9 Feb 2012 19:28:41 -0600) it happened "Snowy" wrote in :

How about video goggles? and a black sack over your head. ;-) LOL'

LCDs, CRTs, b/w TVs, Hell! even motion picture cinemas are viewed in near darkness or at least dim light. Has there ever been any technology for viewing video or simulated graphic screens in bright light? No. In effect, you are asking if anything can provide a viewable moving graphic brighter than sunlight. DUH! Short of reflected sunlight, i.e. photo print, not likely.

nb

Have you not seen the latest in electronic billboard technology? "Motion pictures" in Arizona-level sunlight... using LED's... I just finished an LED driver chip design... 48 LED's, with 2ns TR/TF ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Which is probably 50 times faster than the LEDs.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I have no idea about light output. The client is happy, he does some spreadsheet manipulation to produce light output curves, and fretted over TR/TF and settling time. This is 0-25mA LED current. ...Jim Thompson

Check out the transflective LCDs. We've got a DRS Hammerhead tablet with one for field measurements. It's usable in bright light, but not as good as a good LCD indoors.

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I literally just got back from Costa Rica. And while I can't tell you much about sunlight-readable LCD's, I can state with some authority that San Jose, Costa Rica is a shithole. What happened to the place?!! The tourist literature says the city is "undergoing modernization". Truly, some of the best spin I've ever heard! The streets and sidewalks are SO BAD, this place has got to qualify as the sprained ankle / broken leg capital of the world (however you say that in Spanish).

The city was without water for 2 days, yet the restaurants were all open and serving customers. WTF? When the water returned, there was no boil water notice, etc... According to the locals, the city loses about 1/3rd of its water to leaks, and the water is out regularly in some parts of downtown. I think they've underestimated it.

Oh, and did I mention San Jose is a pretty city - if you like razor wire and security bars on every building.

And don't even get me started about the electric grid. It sure looked to me like all the electric meters were installed with black electrical tape. Many, many instances of exposed wiring all over the city - and I'm not talking about branch circuits - I'm talking about service entrances! (I have photos) One travel companion reported live electrical wires in the hotel shower. Yikes!

Now that said, I must agree the eco-tourism is pretty damn good. As a photographer, the places outside San Jose are great! I particularly enjoyed La Paz Waterfall Gardens, about an hour north of San Jose. And of course, those toucans are cool, but not enough to make me want to set foot in the country again anytime soon.

We went to the Occidental Grand Papagayo a couple of years back, and it was pretty nice. (#1 daughter is a flight attendant, so we get to go on the interline price, which at the time was _dirt_ cheap.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I agree. Although Escazu and some parts of the city are nice San Jose has all the charm of a mud puddle. We almost passed over CR because of it. Still, CR is a beautiful country with many small communities such as Atenas that are very livable. We drove up to La Paz gardens last week. The drive alone was wonderful.

Gary

That's the _current_ rise and fall times. ...Jim Thompson

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Sure, no worries. I figured even you hadn't figured out how to build LEDs on a CMOS process. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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This is only a driver chip... external LED's. And that's the real current TR/TF, whether it meets your approval or not ;-) ...Jim Thompson

Pure nonsense. Have you ever been to a race track? Saratoga, at least, has tens of outdoor displays showing the race (no need to even go into the grandstands). Ever seen DiamondVision in a ballpark? Outside advertising signs? LED billboards? Outdoor video displays are all around.

How about a crazy idea of a planer LED based on a thin oxide, thin enough to have tunneling for electron injection into a junction that would be used like an accelerator.

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Tunnelling transistors have been around for awhile now, e.g.

What would the light emission mechanism be?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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And this is where some Americans who don't like high taxes and razor wire on every building in LA want to go for their escape?