Unregistered wrote:I cannot understand why Nokia offer free navigation when the screens are so bad that one cannot see the map. Spooner.
Another reason why dedicated SatNav is better, and the explanation why digital camera displays are much better in bright light than phones. Basically, they don't have the same power consumpton management problems that phones do. Phones are on all the time listening for calls on the air using power. They need to save the most power they can for that core purpose, and to have enough to continue to operate in talk time. A camera may only need to work hard for a couple of hours. A dedicated satnav works off the car 12v system. They can afford to be brighter.
All I have to say as an i8910 owner is that I am thankful that I live in england
Sunlight legibility is poor on the i8910 but when it goes into power saving mode, it is impossible in all light conditions (although if you switch the brightness to manual you can still whack up the light)
Unregistered wrote:Another reason why dedicated SatNav is better, and the explanation why digital camera displays are much better in bright light than phones. Basically, they don't have the same power consumpton management problems that phones do. Phones are on all the time listening for calls on the air using power. They need to save the most power they can for that core purpose, and to have enough to continue to operate in talk time. A camera may only need to work hard for a couple of hours. A dedicated satnav works off the car 12v system. They can afford to be brighter.
Er, not quite, or at least not in all.
Most dedicated satnavs charge off the cars 12v system, but they actually run off an internal battery - ie. exactly the same as on a mobile.
If I turn up the brightness on the 5230 all the way, the screens easily visible in the car (mounted by the A pillar), but then its never directly in sunlight.
The iPad is almost unreadable in sunlight.
The main issue of using a phone in sunlight is when taking photos. Even the cheapest of compact cameras don't have any problems with this, but this defeats even the most advanced of smartphones. Very strange.
readability has pissed me off so much that it is priority in my next purchase, so PLEASE PLEASE do include this in all future reviews. Screen readability has always been a given and therefore not considered by many people, this summer will be start or peoples realisation. I say go back to old technology tried and tested. My N82 screen is absolutely gorgeous I don't care how the colours pop on my N86 if I cant read it what's the bloody point! I don't care if I save 10mins of battery life!!!!!!!! Having used both phones (N82 and N86) as my main phones during their contracts 18month (12 so far through N86) I feel no added battery life from my N86. Given the bonus battery saver of no xenon on the N86 battery life is surprisingly no better and in fact worse as at times the phone does not last me even a day, where as the N82 did!
I live in the tropics and sunlight legibility is extremely important here; especially as I work in the construction field. I currently use an E71 for work and a Sony Ericsson P1 personally, both of which have wonderful sunlight legibility. I'm currently looking for a new phone for personal use and this is one of the biggest issues with a number of modern smartphones. Steve, can you shed some light (pun intended) on the Samsung Super AMOLED screens please?
clonmult wrote:Er, not quite, or at least not in all.Most dedicated satnavs charge off the cars 12v system, but they actually run off an internal battery - ie. exactly the same as on a mobile.
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OK, but the phone still has the dimmer backlight because of its intrinsic requirement to conserve power, which the in car satnav doesn't necessarily have because it will usually have access to external power. Hence a brighter backlight is available. Plus they can make a heavier device and include a bigger batter.
clonmult wrote:
If I turn up the brightness on the 5230 all the way, the screens easily visible in the car (mounted by the A pillar), but then its never directly in sunlight.
My 5800 sits in a little recess and views just fine. TomTom is better though, and can be attached to widscreen.
Unregistered wrote:OK, but the phone still has the dimmer backlight because of its intrinsic requirement to conserve power, which the in car satnav doesn't necessarily have because it will usually have access to external power. Hence a brighter backlight is available. Plus they can make a heavier device and include a bigger batter.
Aye, they can include a bigger battery, but there's still pressure to make them thinner.
I don't quite buy the intrinsic requirement to conserve power though - battery life really hasn't improved on phones in a long time.
And of course phones do have backlight adjustment. Why not have an extra bright setting thats only available when connected to power, or just for short periods of time?
clonmult wrote:
I don't quite buy the intrinsic requirement to conserve power though - battery life really hasn't improved on phones in a long time.?
You've answered your own question.
Steve, whilst many pundits comment on sunlight readability, it's rarely such an issue that it overrides the otherwise compelling reasons for owning the device, at least amongst the ones I've been listening to.
That said, I'm not defending one solution as better than another, it would be foolish to argue that *all things being equal* improved sunlight readability is not a desirable option in all devices, I'm just pointing out that there are engineering and practical downsides to the transflective option, and that we are fortunate in many cases to have a choice.
Interestingly there are some research papers I found that mention IPS displays with transflective layers so the option is not impossible, it seems.
Unregistered wrote:You've answered your own question.
I have? Not quite so sure. A phone as such doesn't necessarily have any intrinsic lower power requirements than a satnav. Both are battery powered device that can occupy a similar place on the dashboard, can both sport large touch screens, have bluetooth, GPS chips, etc.
Power saving, be it via reducing CPU speed, bluetooth, wifi, cell power, swapping to 2G from 3G etc. is fine. As is reducing the backlight.
There is absolutely no reason why the backlight can't be brighter - as long as the user has control over it, can reduce it or increase it as they want, its then the consumers choice as to what they use.
clonmult wrote:I have? Not quite so sure. A phone as such doesn't necessarily have any intrinsic lower power requirements than a satnav. Both are battery powered device that can occupy a similar place on the dashboard, can both sport large touch screens, have bluetooth, GPS chips, etc.Power saving, be it via reducing CPU speed, bluetooth, wifi, cell power, swapping to 2G from 3G etc. is fine. As is reducing the backlight.
There is absolutely no reason why the backlight can't be brighter - as long as the user has control over it, can reduce it or increase it as they want, its then the consumers choice as to what they use.
A phone is more likely to spend time away from an external power source than a car satnav is.
Offering people higher brightness on a phone will mean that a lot of people use it without consideration to power consumption, and this will result in faster battery drain and reputation for being battery hungry. It's all very well providing facilities for users to manage their own pwoer consumption, just don't expect many people to ever use them, and those that don't will blame the phone.
And a brighter backlight would create more heat.
Hi Steve. Maybe I'm missing the link somewhere, but is there anyway to digg the article? I actually like it, and should be put out to more ppl to make them aware when smartphone shopping, and hopefully will make manufacturers more accountable to this detail.
-Gene
Dazzy wrote:LOL and what good would choosing a different restaurant do, you still have to find the number. A transflective layer adds about �5 to the cost of a handset so like Steve argues it's stupid not to add it to ALL phones.
Unfortunately, if the phone is being managed by only a single/handful of product manager(s), what they'll more likely to see is the 5GBP*1000000 potential units sold = 5000000 total cost saving by not using TFT, which means a few thousand GBP being pocketed by a handful of ppl. The argument then actually makes more sense to the perspective of a handful of capitalistic ppl.
-Gene
My Nokia 5630 smartphone is fine in sunlight. Although I guess most people here won't know what handset that is without looking it up.
I lucked out when I bought the N97. I planned to use it for GPS navigation and hadn't considered outdoor readability when I bought it. I'm glad I haven't had any issues with reading the display in sunlight.
P.S., I really like the article.
this is a very good idea but it would me far better i you put the exact same picture in the phone and than take a picture in the same condition also there are no indication of the phone setting currently used nor on the power consumption of the screen...
Unregistered wrote:this is a very good idea but it would me far better i you put the exact same picture in the phone and than take a picture in the same condition also there are no indication of the phone setting currently used nor on the power consumption of the screen...
This is a very good point. When I read the article, I actually didn't put too much weight on the pictures. I figured that it would be very difficult to create very similar conditions for each phone and then take a picture of them. You never know if the camera that takes the pictures would automatically adjust the contrast because the image or even the colour of the phone's chasis is different. I mostly relied on the writer to describe what his opinion of the readability of each phone is.
I agree with Steve. Soon there may be an answer for all even the netbooks that are portable but not viewable in sunlight.
check the Pixel QI screen
ran