Pandora Getting A New Screen?

[greendots]

I hope this is another easter egg on MW site: http://www.openpandora.ca/

The page had said:
800x480 resolution touchscreen LCD, 4.3" widescreen, 16.7 million colors (300 cd/m2 brightness, 450:1 contrast ratio)

and

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?s=&am...st&p=573484 (from december 07)

It now reads:
- 800x480 resolution LTPS LCD with touch screen, 4.3" widescreen, 16.7 million colors (300 cd/m2 brightness, 450:1 contrast ratio)

Which could mean we have gone from a transmissive panel LCD screen to a LTPS LCD (TFT) screen?

 

[mazza558]

What's the difference between LCD and LTPS?

 

[Chip]

It's not a change, just a clarification. Thin-film Transistor is just a type (the best, most common for good displays) of transmissive LCD panel. LTPS is just the material that the display is made from. See here for more info on TFT displays.

 

[Tor]

I was going to ask earlier, but forgot: Is the LCD screen transflective? I.e. will it be usable outdoors?

(The big positive difference between the Nokia N800 and the N810 is that the latter has a transflective screen. Works outdoors. A non-transflective screen is invisible in sunlight.)

 

[JayFoxRox]

the post which greendots linked says:

It is a transmissive panel which means that it does wash out in direct sunlight. I have never seen a panel like this available in transflective (by MWeston)

 

[greendots]

Thanks Chip... I was confusing TFT with transflective

@Tor, no its transmissive

 

[Capn_Fish]

So why isn't the N810 screen being used? It's transflective, though I don't know about availability, price, or size.

 

[gruso]

So why isn't the N810 screen being used? It's transflective, though I don't know about availability, price, or size.
Probably something to do with availability, price, and size.

 

[Tor]

the post which greendots linked says:

It is a transmissive panel which means that it does wash out in direct sunlight. I have never seen a panel like this available in transflective (by MWeston)

Ok. It's a bit unfortunate that it's transmissive. My N800 is close to useless in daylight, which mostly affects me when I'm walking around in a town somewhere with GPS and Maemo Mapper running.

As for transflective - they exist: The N810 has got one (800x480, same size), as was mentioned by someone else already. It's much better in sunlight.

 

[Etinin]

There are some screen protectors which claim to increase visibility in sunlight.

 

[mali]

There are some screen protectors which claim to increase visibility in sunlight.

Yes, they reduce glare, it works.

 

[joseluisjazz]

As for transflective - they exist: The N810 has got one (800x480, same size), as was mentioned by someone else already. It's much better in sunlight.

I'd like to know if the n810 screen is compatible with the Pandora's. Could MWeston provide us with that kind of information? Because that would mean a Sunlight-Readable Mod I'd go for.
Now you can find new n800 LCDs in eBay for around 40€-50€. At some point in the future there will be n810 ones... B) hmmmm

EDIT:The only site I've found selling n810 screens over internet is in yourhandy.de, and it costs 94€. Let's see how much cheaper they get in 3 months time.
And I've also found that the n810 has an ambient light sensor, which I hope it's not necessary for the "transflecting mechanism" to work, and only be there for automatic brightness adjusting, which can always be done manually.

EDIT2: The n810 screen is a bit smaller: 4,13' vs. 4.3'. That means the screen would be 3,7 mm less in the horizontal and 2,22 mm less in the vertical (226 dpi vs. 217 dpi) but that's really secondary; the main thing to know is the signal compatibility.

 

[Capn_Fish]

So why isn't the N810 screen being used? It's transflective, though I don't know about availability, price, or size.
Probably something to do with availability, price, and size.

I was kind of hoping for something specific, though I guess it doesn't really matter. <_<

 

[mali]

The outdoor readibility comes with a sacrifice of overall picture quality. The N810 has a yellowish white, the n800's screen is much better.

 

[fr4n]

it does wash out in direct sunlight

...and so would most of us

It burns, it burns!

 

[Tor]

The outdoor readibility comes with a sacrifice of overall picture quality. The N810 has a yellowish white, the n800's screen is much better.

That doesn't have to do with it being transflective.
I have two Palm PDAs, one with a Samsung display, another with a Sony display, otherwise they are the same PDA. Both are transflective, but the colour temperature is completely different between the two manufacturers.

And I've also found that the n810 has an ambient light sensor, which I hope it's not necessary for the "transflecting mechanism" to work, and only be there for automatic brightness adjusting, which can always be done manually.

The ambient light sensor doesn't have anything to do with the transflective screen, it's just a convenience feature (at the same time they muddled the manual brightness adjustment feature to be more cumbersome!)
With a transflective screen you don't need backlight when out in the sun. In fact you want to get direct sunlight exposure for best visibility. But there are big differences between transflective and transflective. My Palm PDAs works reasonably well outdoors, but I've seen a Garmin (I think) GPS navigation unit which worked incredibly well outdoors - it even retained most of the colours, while the Palm screen gets a bit washed-out.

 

[mali]

The outdoor readibility comes with a sacrifice of overall picture quality. The N810 has a yellowish white, the n800's screen is much better.

That doesn't have to do with it being transflective.
I have two Palm PDAs, one with a Samsung display, another with a Sony display, otherwise they are the same PDA. Both are transflective, but the colour temperature is completely different between the two manufacturers.


You might be right, but transflective is per se the more difficult technology. Take the best transmissive and the best transflective and the transmissive will win. There are of course many different qualities out there and the quality increased dramatically in the last few years. Just thinking about my Asus A600 PPC, its screen was very bad and my Dell Axim's screen is quite good(both transflective).

 

[Chip]

You might be right, but transflective is per se the more difficult technology. Take the best transmissive and the best transflective and the transmissive will win.
This is broadly correct. The way transflective screens work is by having a semi-reflective layer (like a half silvered mirror) between the liquid crystal layer and the backlight. Under low ambient light conditions, light from the backlight passes through this layer, through the liquid crystal matrix, and out to your eyes. In high ambient lighting conditions (direct sunlight), the bright ambient light reflects off of the semi-reflective layer, through the LC matrix, and to your eyes. The tradeoff is that this semi-reflective layer will always dim (and sometimes discolor) the light coming from the backlight. A good transmissive display will always be brighter and crisper than a transflective display because the light does not have to pass through this extra layer.

 

[Tor]

Chip, thanks for the explanation. The Nokia N800 screen (transmissive) certainly looks superb compared to my other, older devices, at least indoors. It's bright, for sure.
Another thing I noticed with the N800 screen is that its got a very wide viewing angle - it can be viewed from essentially any angle, until you see it edge on. But I don't know if that's just because it's a newer, better LCD or because it's non-transflective.