Why is Garmin screen so sunlight readable?

Snortonnorton · 06-13-2008, 07:42 AM

I went to pick up my brother's twin turbo 300 ZX and drive it down from Virginia to Florida because his Submarine got decommissioned...

anyways, he had a garmin Nuvi in there. I can't believe how much better it was in terms of sunlight readability. (than my Liliput touchscreen)

Why the hell is this 169 dollar complete package navi system so cheap with such an optically bonded LCD?

In another words, why do we have to pay 500 dollars or more to get sunlight readable when Garmin can obviously do this for less than 50 bucks. (Assuming the rest of the unit cost about 100 dollars)

I know it's not that they made the Garmin screen brighter, my liliput is actually brighter, just ****ty touchscreen reflection.

Can't the 7 inch lcd companies find out where Garmin gets their lcd's optically bonded for so cheap and get theirs done too?

technology expands far to fast for us to continue paying 500 plus for sunlight readable screens when it's obviously been established by one company that it can be done cheap.

nobb · 06-13-2008, 09:49 AM

Probably because Garmin has a worldwide market and carpc screens are for a small handful of enthusiasts, so not much demand.

mjb_ · 06-13-2008, 05:26 PM

They also have much smaller, lower resolution screens. Based on the price you mentioned I'm assuming you're talking about a Nuvi 200. It has a 3.5" screen at an eye popping (not really) resolution of 320x240. Compared to a 7" screen at 800x480. That's roughly quadruple the screen area and pixel count.

Taking that into consideration plus the fact that Garmin is buying them in MASSIVE quantities straight from a manufacturer as opposed to us buying one or two at a time from a 3rd party resaler and you have your answer.