If you’ve ever tried to use a laptop, iPad, or pretty much any other device with an LCD display outdoors on a sunny day, you know that most of today’s screens aren’t really designed for outdoor use. There’s no shortage of companies working on solutions, but one of the few that actually has a shot at mass producing the displays this year is Samsung.
The Korean electronics manufacturer acquired a company called Liquavista earlier this year. Liquavista uses a technology called electrowetting that makes it possible to view full color displays even in direct sunlight. The company is also working on reflective monochrome displays which use less power than LCD screens since they don’t require a backlight, but which offers a refresh rate as much as 70 times faster than the E Ink displays used in most eBook readers.
Engadget caught up with Samsung this week and learned that the company is hoping to start shipping its displays later this year. It’s not clear at the moment if this means we’ll see Samsung eReaders, tablets, or laptops with Liquavista screens, or if the company will simply be making screens for other companies to use in their devices.
Can’t wait to upgrade my kindle with a device that has better sun light readable screen.
Is this any less vaporware than Mirasol or Pixel Qi?
So we have Pixel Qi, Qualcomm’s Mirasol displays, and this Samsung Electrowetting tech all of which are outdoor displays.  This seems like good news in terms of having a lot of choices across many brands for outdoor displays.
Any tablet or smartphone I buy will need to have a display that works outside, so the more displays that do that the better.
wow we might actually get an affordable version of the Pixel Qi screen out of this.Â
Nice post. Thanks for it.