Friday, April 15, 2005
pointless diversion day: x-black
I came on to the blog today wanting to write something insightful and meaningful about the world and all who live in it. Then I gazed into my screen and the heart-stoppingly black sheen of the laptop screen just sucked in all my thoughts like a singularity.
not my screen... but very like it.
For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of working on a VAIO PC, it's hard to describe what I'm talking about. (and apologies to those who know me personally - I promise whoring for Sony won't be a regular occurence on this blog!)
the VAIO PCs (and most of sony's new TVs / displays, including the PSP) have technology called X-Black, or X-Brite, or Tru-Brite depending on where you are. Most LCDs suffer from a very grey tone in the black color due to the limitations of the flat panel - put any old laptop side-by-side with a conventional (CRT) monitor and you will see it immediately.
Liquid Crystal Displays don't need power to show black, they are areas where the pixel is unlit. Since the liquid crystals aren't absolute black themselves - they're more silicon-colored really - then you see some greyish tinting. Also LCD contrast levels are lower than CRT, so blacks seem "less" black because the whites are less white.
Sony's put a semi-reflective anti-glare coating on the display (like a 1-way mirror) and improved their LCD contrast technology to the point where there is NO false grey color whatsoever - the black levels are comparable to staring into the tinted out window of a limo. Because on-screen color is matched against true black, the screen appears much more lifelike and "crisp". The screen is more reflective than a normal LCD, which can make it a pain with a light source directly behind you, but then again glare is much reduced anyway.
The absolute best part is, even in bright sunlight you can happily type away with the screen image still as clear as indoors, something I couldn't do even with my favoritest toy ever. People think it's the big, giant-leap-forward changes which make the difference in a gadget, but actually the little things in a user experience can spell the difference between a failure and a phenomenon.
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