[lespierres]

I love my Playbook but thought it was broken today. We were taking photographs out on our boat and couldn't figure out why the screen kept going black when turned from landscape to portrait. Oops- we both had polarised sun glasses on! LOL

[Jifffer]

Glad to see that you are putting the PB to good use !!!

[thecellarseller]

I found the same scare! Anyone have the real explanation?

[SEAWARRIOR]

turn off screen dimming...

[F2]

There's some polarizing filter over the screen. Turn the glasses or screen and they go out of phase or into phase and blow the image.

[Carl Estes]

Same thing happens when you are at the checkout stand and use the POS card swiper. You have to remove you sunglasses or tilt your head to see.....

c

[PatrickMJS]

I found the same scare! Anyone have the real explanation?

First of all, this is true of all lcd screens when viewed thru a polarized lens. Check out this youtube video...



Plenty of people have reported problems viewing all types of lcd screens with polarized lenses, so the PB isn't "special" in this regard.

On Amazon I found this believable explanation:

"LCD panels work with compounds that polarize light in different angles based upon a voltage applied across the cell. The surface of the LCD is another polarizer. When the cell is in one state, the full back lighting comes through the cell and the surface polarizer. To make the cell "black", the compound goes to a state that twists the light to a 90 deg angle from the surface polarizer, which then blocks the output.

"It would appear that the new LCDs are manufactured such that the surface polarizer is 90 degrees to the normal angle for polarized sun glasses. {I'd suspect that the LCD makers design for the most common usage -- which is probably PDA and cell-phones, so optimize viewability for the portrait orientation of a most cell-phones... people with the rotating phone/text modes may also be encountering sunglass problems.}"

[F2]

First of all, this is true of all lcd screens when viewed thru a polarized lens. Check out this youtube video...

Magic - now you see it, now you don't!

Great video.