Transflective a must for sunlight readability ?

Hi all,

Super brief introduction.

One of my passions (hobby) is high power rocketry and one of the continuing dramas is finding some form of laptop/tablet/ custom GUI for in paddock use in full sun. In addition to this I am working with custom electronics for in paddock use which also requires this sort of functionality.

I was going to keep putting hours into developing a custom bit of gear for remote monitoring etc using a transflective graphical LCD (mono) but recently discovered the wonderment that is the Panasonic toughbook !

SO what I'm trying to resolve now is if I must have a transflective screen to see very well in full sun.

It seems these are harder to come by than the high brightness transmissive screens hence my question.

I'd be quite happy with a CF-18 or CF-19 with moderate to low performance/memory and HDD storage since this would simply be a paddock mule not a development or office unit.

Sorry if this is explained somewhere else, but at the moment I'm a bit overwhelmed with information, especially since there are so many variants/options for each model !!!

Craig (Sydney, Australia)

 

Actually, I was coming onto the forums JUST to post up this information!

The newer CF-19's have daylight readable screens pushing like 1000nits. Unfortunately these units cost a lot more than an older CF-19or a CF-18.

I can't answer the transflective question, but I found an option that could work on older screens.

Laptop Backlight Replacement Kit

There is a potential problem:

Note: Dimming control, the XB LED converter is using an analog control, so if your original inverter is using a PWM control, you may not able to adjust brightness. For example, Dell & Lenovov/IBM are using a PWM control and Sony is using an analog control.

So does anyone know if the dimmer is analog or pwm??? At $80 this would be a KILLER solution and upgrade.

Sorry for hijacking your thread a bit here Craig!

 

Some older CF-28 have transflective displays. Look on Ebay for the ones with the wider edge around the display -- standard 13" displays have a narrow edge compared to 12" display (800 x 600) for transflective. Should be able to get a working CF-28 transflective for well under $100 with a bit of patient searching.

 

How much power do you want you new toy to have?

 

I have CF-28s that have transflective screens, and i also have CF-28s / CF-29s with standard screen. I tested the Transflective (daylight readable) together with some other toughbooks at the same time (putting them in my garden with full sunlight). The read-ability in direct sunlight is no problem with the transflective screens, but strangely, when i turned my laptops 180 degrees, the transflective was harder to read as the others....

 

Toughbooks are using a pwm-signal for the backlight. But the inverter can be modded also to accept pwm.

 

Hi ADOR,

Hard to say, but something like a 1.2GHz Atom or similar with about 1GB or RAM and 60 to 120GB HDD would be fine.

I think the 'tablet' configuration of a CF-18 or CF-19 would suit me well too.

Masterblaster2039 - Were the transflective screens still OK outside not in direct sun ? ie would you still find it confortable to use ?

CS

 

Here is a CF-29 with transflective display, less common than CF-28 transflective but faster with 1.2 GHz processor and newer DDR memory:

Panasonic CF 29 Toughbook Laptop Notebook 1 2 GHz 512MB Touchscreen 100GB 1821 | eBay

As best I know Panasonic never put a transflective display on a CF-18 or CF-19, only on CF-28, CF-29, CF-M34 (700 MHz only?), CF-VDW07 wireless display very desireable for boaters. Note that all transflective displays have weak red that makes colors look washed out.

 

The CF-28s i have with the transflective screen have a grey-ish screen inside my house. Because of the extra layer on top of the screen. So, if you like to play games or like to have bright colourfull pictures these CF-28s are a NO go. because of the grey-ish/blue-ish tint on all colours. (like Ador said, the colours look a bit washed out).

I bought 3 of those CF-28s for a cheap price (108 euros) just to play with, and to be able to read PDF-books in sunlight (like in the park).

 

CF-19 mk5 and mk6 have transflective 6000+ nits display (and 1000nits backlight also), but starting at $1500+, I don't think they're an option in this case.

Later Edit: see this last post by Alecgold (19mk5 with transflective screen):
http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/677334-review-user-experience-cf-19-mk5-2.html#post9155699