Anti-glare covers for Ipaq - Do they work?

I've been using a borrowed Ipaq 3955 which is supposed to have one of the
best screens - actually it's crap unless the sun angle is just right. No
LCD screen is fully 'sunlight readable' unless it has a monster backlight
that pulls huge amperage. As it is, the 3955 significantly reduced my
battery life over my old 1550 that died from a 6" fall.

I've been looking at a 12V component computer system running WinXP. There
are 6" transflective LCD screens with ultra-bright LED backlights. I'd have
to switch on the backlight with a stick grip switch whenever I wanted to see
it or carry huge batteries.

Just maybe there is hope in new screen technology. Maybe OLED displays will
be better outdoors although some reviewers say not. "E-Paper" reflective
screens look just like printed paper and take very little power.
Unfortunately, neither of these technologies are currently available in a
WinCE device you can buy - yet. I'm trying not to buy until something much
better is available.

Bill

"Marc Ramsey" wrote in message
...
TTaylor at cc.usu.edu wrote:
I recently upgraded from an Ipaq 3760 to an Ipaq 3950 series PDA. I
noticed the screen is brighter, but also I am getting more glare in the
cockpit. Have others tried the anti-glare screen protectors and do
they help?

Actually, some of us would consider that to be a downgrade, for precisely
the reason indicated in this post (want to sell your 3760? 8^). Certain
anti-glare screen protectors help a bit (I use BoxWave ClearTouch
Anti-Glare), but the real problem for many 45+ year old eyes is that the
backlighting on transflective displays is just not bright enough to
provide adequate contrast in bright sunlight. Reflective displays (like
the 3760 has) have better contrast in sunlight, their weakness is in dim
lighting, such as being under a dark cloud, or in an office.

About the only solution I've come up with is maximizing the contrast on
the display, by using a pure white background with black markings. I'm
going to try white on black at some point to see if that works better...

Marc

Hi Tim,
I use the glare reducer/protector offered by Richard at Craggy Aero and
it improves readabilitiy but not enough for me. I often have to
eliminate color terrain features (Winpilot) to get better contrast.

What has really helped me was to move the Ipaq closer and on a mount
where I can rotate it as part of my problem is my polarized sunglasses.


Moving it closer has helped a lot. But that is probably because these
old eyes now need correction close and far and I wear graduated
trifocals now. Oh well!

I am very disappointed with the readability of my HP Ipaq in direct or
near-direct sunlight, although it was reviewed as being one of the
brightest. I switched to gradient sunglasses so that the bottom part does
not darken the screen so much. As someone else mentioned, the next step is
to mount it on a bracket that brings it closer... at a cost of $70-$100.

Grumble, grumble...

"Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote in message
...
I've been using a borrowed Ipaq 3955 which is supposed to have one of the
best screens - actually it's crap unless the sun angle is just right. No
LCD screen is fully 'sunlight readable' unless it has a monster backlight