Transreflective Display

As one can change parts easily on the Framework Laptop.
I would like a reflective, or trans-reflective display so I can work outside is bright sunlight in the summer months, and then use a normal display at other times. So be able to swap the displays as I wished.
Technology wise, I think the trans-reflective displays are not quite a good as the normal ones, but vital if one wishing to use them outside in bright sunlight. :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the forum

Swapping display sound like a lot of trouble, so in such a situation I would buy two laptops.

Spending money once or swapping screens forever …

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You mean like the TCL Nxtpaper? While the lower energy and better sunlight visibility is nice, I wouldn’t go out of the way to constantly swap screens. I’d be happy with a matte screen.

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I would love a transflective display, Not sure if that TCL NXT paper is the same thing, as they are still going on about nits, when a transflective display would only a bit of edge lighting for when it’s dark, and when there is light it would simply reflect the light.

Basically makes nits irrelevant because You can take it outside and use the reflected light of the trillion+ nit ball of fire in the sky.

This old display tech could also be put to great use with smart watches and render the current screens obsolete and get the battery life closer to the Pebble watches from years ago instead of the low end battery life and poor readability of Apple Watch Ultra.

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That is how TCL NXT works. Their advertising even calls it transflective display. Nits is just measure of brightness, natural or not

Not sure if the this responding to the correct post, but NITS seems wrong: natural lights shouldn’t be counted as nits, and if it is, their number seems too low.

The “Transflective” I meant in the original post was like this:

So, in bright sunlight it is in “reflective” mode, but then indoors it then has a backlight and works like normal screens, “transmissive” mode, where a backlight is used. The “transmissive” mode would be what the NITS value applies to. It would not effect it in “reflective” mode.

A good comparison of the screens types is here:
http://infracanis.com/yggdrasil/Articles/gear/garmin550/vsphone.html
The “direct sunlight” example demonstrates is nicely.

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I can’t seem to find what I’m talking about, but I know that static cling screen covers exist. Maybe they exist for the particular coating you’re looking for. The idea is that you just slap it on before you go outside or whatever.

I made an account to help add visibility to this post as it is a few months without posts. Youtube used to have actual videos of laptops and screens with transflective displays, but spam-like videos have made it basically impossible to find those.

Pixel Qi, if their videos haven’t been deleted, has one with a comparison between a toshiba laptop, e-ink and pixel qi.

I think transflective or pixel qi screen would be great, but it seems our society doesn’t want that. E-ink seems to have more demand or at least manufacturing production, and assembly lines have moved on.

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It probably is multiple trillion nits from the source of the sun, I bet the inverse square law could do the math on that, but standing on the surface of the Earth, we receive about 120,000 nits.

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The apparent lack of a proper sunlight readable display option is why I (with much regret) opted to buy a Dell rugged laptop. It’s a terrible compromise, but afaict the only way to get a sunlight readable laptop. I would buy a Framework 13 in a second if there’s a viable path to installing a transflective, sunlight readable 1000+ nit display. I really like this project, but like OP sunlight readability is super important for me.