I just filled my car up at the pump, and noticed that the displays were LCD and perfectly readable.

Is anything using this technology for e-books?

I just filled my car up at the pump, and noticed that the displays were LCD and perfectly readable.

Is anything using this technology for e-books?

Were they in direct sunlight?

I noticed those too, but usually they are covered by the pump's roof so there is no reason for them to be readable.

Even on a very sunny day I can read outside in my 770 if I am in shade...

I just filled my car up at the pump, and noticed that the displays were LCD and perfectly readable.

Is anything using this technology for e-books?
But, LCD takes more battery then eink. So your battery life would be a lot less.

But, LCD takes more battery then eink. So your battery life would be a lot less.

It's not the LCD that's power hungry. It's the backlight.

People with PDAs have known for a while that one battery-power-saving method is to turn the backlight way down.

It's not the LCD that's power hungry. It's the backlight.

People with PDAs have known for a while that one battery-power-saving method is to turn the backlight way down.
LCD still takes more power then eink. Forget the backlight. IT makes no matter.

I just filled my car up at the pump, and noticed that the displays were LCD and perfectly readable.

Is anything using this technology for e-books?

Ummm... wouldn't the gas station miss those LCD's? Not to mention, there are a ton of cameras around, so you might want to use your PDA to throw a glare into them before making your move. :bam:

Many LCD displays are quite readable in full sunlight. The color ones rely on backlighting because of the filters used to set the color for each pixel. Touch screens sometimes impair reflectivity, but not by that much. I still use my Palm IIIxe and it's perfectly readable without the backlight in normal room lighting or in sunlight. In fact, I very rarely use the backlight.

LCD displays do use more power than e-ink, but I'd be willing to bet a backlight uses even more. The issue I consider at least as important when comparing LCD to e ink is the pixel size. For reading books consisting primarily of text, LCD works fine. For books or other documents with extensive diagrams, significant changes in fonts and symbols (e.g. mathematics texts), or a need to support a wide variety of languages, the finer granularity of the e ink display becomes critical.