JP
Having tried to use my UMPC in the garden I’m well aware of the difficulties using a standard LCD display – touchscreen or otherwise – in direct sunlight. It requires a whole lot of angling and fussing to get a position where reflections and sunshine aren’t washing the screen out totally, and if the day is reasonably bright then you may as well go back inside. Over at the AppleHunter blog, however, a frustrated EO UMPC owner decided to do something about it, and has had the screen upgraded with a transflective panel from Advanced Link Photonics.
Using a combination of screen coatings and an additional panel slotted into the display, the transflective upgrade bounces external light back through the LCD and so actually increases visibility rather than washing it out. ALP do normal screen and touchscreen upgrades, and promise no extra power consumption (in fact I would imagine you might even get a power saving, considering you can likely turn the LCD backlighting down as the transflective panel compensates) and compatibility with any size or shape of display.
The EO upgrade cost “a few hundred dollars”, as an example.
