Talk:Transflective liquid-crystal display

This page is not completely accurate. The description of a transreflective display is close, but not detailed enough to distinguish between the various ways of achieving transreflectivity. The "trade name" examples are definitely wrong. The two examples given are transmissive LCDs that have had top-surface treatments to reduce the surface reflectivity. A transmissive LCD with this treatment can be seen outdoors if the backlight is bright enough and the surface reflectivity is low enough (an example of an actual product is the Dell ATG laptop). But as the sun gets brighter (above 30K lux, heading for 100K lux), the screen becomes less readable because the effective contrast ratio drops. With a transreflective display, as the sun becomes brighter, the screen becomes more readable because more light is reflected from the reflective portion of the pixels (or from the retroreflector film, if that's the mode of construction that's employed).

I could rewrite this page, but I just don't have the time.

Geoff Walker —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.54.103 (talk • contribs) 22:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Pixel Qi ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.240.216.94 (talk) 08:06, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Added the link. Neználek (talk) 12:42, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Deleted 'Under exposure to direct daylight ... the display itself may be physically damaged'
It may be damaged by temperature, but not light as such. Unless you can provide and cite a reliable source ! --195.137.93.171 (talk) 16:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Possibly the freemasons and the oil cartels but...
Is there a logical reason why this technology isn't present in modern day phones and mobile computing devices? At first look it's vastly useful, results a lighter (thinner) display, lower power consuption and it's not way more expensive. I have guessed - based on the linked photos in the external links - that these displays have one half or third the vertical resolution than the trensmissive-only displays but that is the only thing I could have come up with and doesn't seem to be a good eough reason.

The article could offer some explanations, if there's really any apart from the conspiration theories. --grin ✎ 09:34, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Originally, all LCDs were instead of being backlit, reflective with front-lights, which produced inferior color during indoors use. As backlit (both transmissive and transflective) LCDs came onto the market in the mid-1990s, reflectivity became associated in the minds of consumers with the older displays, especially since this coincided with the switch from passive matrix addressing to active matrix addressing. As a result, nearly all manufacturers discontinued their transreflective panels by the time LCDs achieved monopoly over all classes of direct-view display. 66.91.236.73 (talk) 12:40, 7 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Initially, all LCDs were monochrome, either black/white or with a single color hue. During the 1970s and early 1980s, most LCDs were of the reflective type (calulators, digital watches, clocks, gas pump displays, first "Gameboys"). Some were transflective but still monochrome. When color switching was added to high-resolution, matrix-addressed LCDs, backlighting of transmissive LCDs became predominant, because reflective LCDs were unsuitable for showing colors by using color filters as part of the internal setup.--BBCLCD (talk) 09:25, 9 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Aren't the color filters placed all the way on the other side of the liquid crystal shutters, let alone the backlight, to the extent you can pull a modern backlit LCD away from its light entirely and see through it from both sides? I don't think the rest of an LCD's design has any influence whatsoever on the design of its lighting system. 66.91.236.73 (talk) 08:45, 20 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The majority of present day color LCDs works as follows: A pixel is formed by three adjacent LCD light-valves (sub-pixels) associated with a triplet of static color filters RGB in as close proximity as possible. Each LCD sub-pixel controls the intensity of one of the basic colors. The eye integrates the three color hues. If the color filter would be moved away from the LCD, the intended correct color of a pixel could be seen only in a stictly vertical direction. At a very slight angle, the alignment between the LCD sub-pixels and color filters would be lost as well as the intended color of the pixel.--BBCLCD (talk) 12:09, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

What is the technology?
This article does not explain how transflective displays work. (It does tell what they are.) Some expert needs to get into the technology.   Solo Owl   15:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)