PORTLAND, OR, United States – Smartphones have grown up in recent years, going from mainly keyboard based phones to now having the entire front being dominated by large touch screens. We’ve also gone from resistive displays that had to be pressed significantly to register a press to capacitive displays that are much more of a joy to use.
However, we can all agree on one thing: not all displays on touch screen phones are created the same. Here in Oregon, when the sun finally shines in the summer, we constantly battle screen glare that takes a good screen makes it unreadable in bright sunlight. Other complaints include poor colors, greyish-colored blacks and scratches taking away from the touch-screen experience.
Enter the advantages of Nokia’s ClearBlack Display. This awesome feature is proudly featured on the Nokia Lumia 710 and 800, along with the recently released Nokia E7 and C6-01, and the Nokia N9. To me, the exciting part is that the Lumia 710 and 800 are the only Windows Phone devices that feature ClearBlack Displays and this feature will be noticed every time you show your phone off to someone – they’ll notice the vibrancy of the display, whether you’re showing it off outside or inside under bright fluorescent lights, ClearBlack Display looks spectacular, every time.
What’s the story behind the magic of the ClearBlack Display?
What ClearBlack Display provides
Why integrate ClearBack display in these devices? Nokia’s engineers looked at display-related issues and wanted to provide a solution that would yield vibrant colors, blacker blacks and high contrast but which wouldn’t compromise battery life significantly. ClearBlack Display is an innovative solution that solves many of the issues that plague touch screen phone users.
Think about the last time you tried to use your phone outside, whether it was to post something on Facebook or navigate to a nearby location. To adequately see the screen, you likely had to tilt or shield the screen to see text or a map. To get around this, phone manufacturers have tried approaches such as increasing the display brightness, which helps, but also increases power consumption, affecting battery life. Mobile phone users have also bought antiglare screen protectors in an effort to cut down on glare.
ClearBlack Display helps solve this issue while preserving image quality and and keeping blacks as dark as possible. Also, ClearBlack Display phones create an amazing color contrast that makes your apps, videos and images pop off the screen in a stunning manner.
How ClearBlack Display works
To help explain how the display works, let’s talk about touch screens themselves. The touch screen on your phone is actually a layered pancake of different elements. The facet that makes ClearBlack Display so effective is where one of the layers, called the polarizer, is placed. The polarizer is a circular layer that is effective at removing undesired reflections. Stamping out reflections means higher visual contrast, resulting in vibrant colors and blacker blacks.
In ClearBlack Display phones, the polarizer is placed between the window and the touch sensor. The goal of this layers is to stack the optical performance with an air-gap solution. By putting the polarizer between the touch and display, engineers can block reflection from the captive sensor grid. To envision this, tilt a traditional touch screen phone in direct sunlight…see the grid of tiny dots? That’s the capacitive sensor grid.
Finally, when placing the polarizer in this position, light is diffused and reflection is minimized, resulting in a clearer display where all icons and colors contrast against one another. To see an example of the difference between a ClearBlack Display device, see the image below. On the left, a Nokia C6-01 with the polarizer is in place and on the right, a prototype C6-01 without ClearBlack Display shows glare and reflection.
ClearBlack Display and you
The next time you’re outdoors, either looking up a map, showing off the photos from a weekend event or otherwise reading text on your phone, having a Nokia phone with ClearBlack Display will be of huge benefit.
You will no longer have to squint and rotate your phone to read text or see an image because of this revolutionary new display technology from Nokia’s display engineers. Also, you won’t have to reach for your charger as often because of the battery friendliness this solution provides.
Have you seen a ClearBlack Display yet? What are your thoughts?
Image credit: The Mobile Fanatics
