Herbert Kilian wrote:


Is there any new technology on the horizon that would address the
situation without costing a fortune?

First of all, you need transflective screens, that is, with a frontlight.
The Sharp Zaurus series have these screens, and it is said that the screen
of the SL6000 is *really* good. Personally, I use the SL5600 while flying,
and I did not have problems reading the screen in the air.
However, it does not run windows CE, but linux. Winpilot, SeeYou Mobile
and
the likes will not run. Cumulus will though ;-)

André


If you want a decent display now, get a IPAQ 3850 or 3870 off eBay (both the
same - '70 has bluetooth) - I have tested the 3870 in direct sunlight while
airborne and running the SeeYou demo and it is better than my Zaurus SL5500
running Cumulus (This does not detract from the functionality of Cumulus,
just the Zaurus screen being somewhat worse than the IPAQ screen - Cumulus
is definitely worth a look). DO NOT get one of the later IPAQ's with
transreflective screens - these are backlit and like the Palm Tungsten T3
almost impossible to view in direct sunlight.

It appears there is an answer on the horizon in the shape of OLED (Organic
LED) technology which an active light emitting technology, but is low power
apparently, maybe next year will see some hardware appearing with this type
of screen.

Rgds,

Derrick Steed