Who was the brilliant mind that thought glossy screens were cool? Add glossy and reflective together and you have a recipe for a lot of frustration by a lot of users. Not all users mind though. But I’m not one of them. If you have the display angled just perfectly away from lights from the ceiling and from windows, the glossy & reflective displays looks quite nice. If you don’t have that option the glossy & reflective display can drive you nuts. But don’t worry, RadTech has a solution for you.
RadTech’s ClearCal is an “anti-glare film for computer displays.” I received a ClearCal that is “Perfect for Apple MacBook” with a 13.3-inch display. The claims of the company are:
- Eliminates Glare on Glossy Displays
- Reduces Eyestrain & Distractions
- Protects Screen from Impacts & Abrasions
- Reduced Smudging when Touched
You see the picture above? That’s a nice reflection of the square light coming from the ceiling. Now look at the picture below.
That picture-perfect reflection has been nicely diffused. The ClearCal does a very good job of getting rid of glare and reflections. But. There’s always a but. I have extremely sensitive vision. My wife, who is an optometrist, says that I’m very picky. Although glare and reflections are greatly reduced, the ClearCal film adds a bit of, shall I say, speckle. I’m not sure if that’s the right word. A bit of noise is introduced to the display, similar to when you increase a DSLR’s ISO setting from 100 to 400. The rocks that you see in the picture are a bit less smooth. You’ll have to see it with your own eyes, if you can see it at all. Fortunately, the ClearCal film doesn’t reduce the brightness of the screen. For US$19.95 this a very affordable solution if you’re getting annoyed by your glossy & reflective unibody MacBook Pro and you can’t see the speckle I’m talking about, most likely you won’t. You can find more information about RadTech’s ClearCal at its website.
Note: As some of you may have noticed, the picture shows a white 13.3-inch MacBook. The ClearCal that came was much bigger than the 13.3-inch LCD. Necessarily so since it was designed for the unibody LCD glass covered MacBook. Since RadTech doesn’t make a ClearCal for non-unibody MacBooks, there is no other choice. I did put the ClearCal on my white MacBook and it worked very well. If I had the nerve to cut it down to size the glare & reflection problem on my white MacBook would definitely go away.
Wired: The Sony Ericsson Cybershot C905a will be the highest resolution cameraphone on AT&T with 8.1 megapixels. Of course, you and I know better to think that picture quality is higher just because there are more pixels. It is often the opposite. We’ll see when reviews come in. Specs for the C905a’s camera: face detection, autofocus, Xenon flash, GPS tagging. I would like to see more companies move toward high ISO image sensors rather than adding a flash. The reason being that using flash generally makes for less-than-ideal pictures. My moto when it comes to photography is to use, whenever possible, natural light. But that’s just me.
According to Michael Woodward, vice president at AT&T mobility, the C905a is “the best camera available in a mobile phone today…” I’m not sure if Woodward’s claim has any merit; I’ll let the professional reviewers to tell me whether the C905a is the best or not. But I’m inclined to believe that the C905a’s picture-taking abilities will be pretty good.
The 2.4-inch scratch-resistant LCD on the C905a looks to be slightly on the small side. For a quick comparison the iPhone has a 3.5-inch scratch-resistant LCD. The resolution is 240 x 320 (portrait), which is on the low side. Again, to compare, the iPhone has 320 x 480, twice as more. Even if the C905a takes great pictures, I have a feeling the experience will be less than spectacular thanks to the small and low-resolution LCD. And I guess Sony will never learn. Just throw away Memory Stick and ‘stick’ to SD. Is it that hard to internally kill Memory Stick?
US$230: That’s the price of the C905a out the door. You do get a $50 mail-in-rebate in the form of a AT&T promotion card, whatever that means. Just sell the C905a for $199 and trust me AT&T you’ll get more sales. Of course, with a $99 iPhone 3G right next to it, I’m not sure how much more you’ll sell even at $149.
Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) posted second quarter results that were better-than-expected. Better-than-expected, but the expectations were quite low: CMO posted a net loss of NT$8.84 billion (about US$269 million). Expectations were a net loss of NT$11.67 billion. CMO also shared an upbeat outlook further supporting a future recovery for LCD manufacturers.
Optimistic But a future recovery means that LCD manufacturers become optimistic. Optimistic LCD manufacturers in turn begin to boost existing capacity and increase capital spending toward building more capacity. If too many LCD manufacturers move too aggressively there is the risk of oversupply. Samsung, LG Display, AU Optronics (AUO) have all announced plans to boost capital expenditure. An oversupply will certainly lead to another round of LCD panel price erosion causing profits at LCD manufacturers to decline.
Shortage What is making LCD manufacturers optimistic about the future? A shortage of certain LCD panels that have led to increased prices is one answer. The shortage has given LCD manufacturers reason to increase utilization rates from sub-50-percent to normal levels at around high-80-percent. The shortage mainly comes from a government-backed program in China that has boosted LCD TV purchases. However, overall consumer spending in the US and in Western Europe have been depressed. The US and Western Europe compose roughly 60-percent of the overall LCD TV market. Surprisingly, retail sales of LCD TVs in the US have been strong according to market research company NPD despite weak reporting from CostCo and Wal-mart, two major retailers that I think have taken market share of LCD TV sales away from traditional retailers like Best Buy.
Supply Chain Because of a long supply chain for LCD TVs the best quarter for LCD manufacturers are in the third quarter. Most LCD panels have to be shipped in that time period to make it to integrators in China and elsewhere for import into the US, distributed and put on shelves. The LCD panels shipped in the fourth quarter for integration into LCD TVs are geared for sale in the first quarter of the next year; panel sales are usually not very good in the last quarter.
Fourth Quarter With utilization rates and capital expenditures increasing, it is likely that LCD panel prices will start declining rapidly in the fourth quarter when demand is relatively low. Most analysts as well as CMO expects LCD panel prices to continue increasing in the third quarter. What that means to the end consumer that purchases LCD TVs is that those LCD TVs won’t be much cheaper than what you see on the shelves today.
Demand Most US consumers are cash-strapped. The best way to pry money out of them is with a fantastic bargain but if that doesn’t materialize this Christmas season I think retailers will be stuck with a large inventory that will be shipped back to the brands. The brands will therefore curtail LCD panel purchases that will have a major impact on LCD manufacturers that have built up a collosus amount of additional capacity. Speaking again of capacity, CMO plans to increase its sixth-generation monthly capacity from a current 90,000 glass substrates to 120,000. LG Display and Samsung will increase capacity too.
The monitor you see is HP‘s new 27-inch Full HD LCD monitor, the 2709m. Here are the specs:
- Size: 27-inch
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080
- Response Time: 3ms (Gray to Gray)
- Brightness: 400 cd/m2
- Contrast Ratio: 1000:1 (static), 30,000:1 (dynamic)
- Color Gamut: 92% NTSC
- Connectivity: VGA, DVI-D with HDCP, HDMI with HDCP (2)
- Adjustability: Swivel, Tilt
- Power Consumption: 46W (max), <2 (sleep)
- Availability: Now in the US
- Price: US$499.99
High-End Features Probably due to the large size this 27-inch LCD monitor from HP cannot be rotated but the 2709m has a lot of high-end features. Let’s start off with contrast ratio. The 30,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio? That’s just HP blowing smoke. But the 1000:1 static (or native) contrast ratio is solid. The 3ms Gray To Gray (GTG) response time is plenty fast (pretty good for gaming) and the 92-percent NTSC color gamut should provide some very nice colors. Brightness of 400 cd/m2 is on the high side and should be plenty enough to use the 27-inch monster as a TV from a bit farther back. There are two HDMI connections, a DVD connection and a VGA connection so you can hook up to four video source devices to this 27-incher.
High Price The US$499.99 is twice the price of the 23-inch w2338h (here’s my writeup on the w2338h). Both have the same resolution: 1920 x 1080. If you absolutely need to spend $500 on a monitor purchase, I would recommend getting two w2338h monitors. Make sure you have the graphics card to drive two monitors.
Source: HP
This is an official shot of LG‘s New Chocolate (BL40). As you can see it has a 5.0 megapixel digital camera with what seems like a dedicated button for taking snaps in landscape format. The camera is coupled with a flash, which I would guess is of the xenon variety. The slightly titled and 3D icons look pretty nice and is a welcome change from the 2D flat icons that Apple got started with the iPhone. On the front there are at least three sensors: a proximity sensor is probably one of them, an ambient light sensor would be another. I’m not sure of the last one.
via Engadget