Why Is The Nokia N9 ClearBlack Display So Clear & Black? Elementary, My Dear Watson!

February 07 15:29 2012 by Alexei Rivera Print This Article

Shown here: SLCD, AMOLED ClearBlack, & AMOLED

For the past year or so, Nokia has been implementing a screen technology called ClearBlack on their devices – a unique screen filter that is designed to deliver the best viewing experience for its users. From its name alone you can mostly tell what it does – it makes the screen look clear, and black. (Genius, right?) More specifically, the display has been designed to minimalize the amount of outside light reflected by the screen – thus promising improved sunlight legibility and creating some amazing dark blacks in any condition. (Even your indoor lighting can be reflected by regular screens and can ruin the experience.) But what exactly is this magical screen that seems to be able to do what other “Anti-Glare” screens can’t? Well its elementary, my dear Watson!

On the screen itself there are three layers – invisible to the naked eye. These are made up of a polarizing filter, a circular polarizing filter, and a reflective surface. (Polarization, as you may know, is commonly used these days in two consumer products – polarized sunglasses and the circularly-polarized 3D theatre glasses. Both of these are being used in a ClearBlack display.) When outside light comes into your screen, the first polarizing filter turns it into vertically polarized light. Then it hits a circular filter, which turns it into right-circular polarized light. When this gets reflected by the reflecting surface, it “mirrors” and becomes left-circular polarized. This, in turn, becomes horizontally polarized after going back through the same circular filter it came in. Finally, when it hits the vertical polarizer, all of the horizontal light becomes blocked and doesn’t pass through onto your eyes. Simply put, ClearBlack technology is made up of polarizers that were designed to prevent light from reflecting onto a surface and back into your eyes. Clever, eh?

After seeing a couple of Nokia’s ClearBlack products for yourselves – namely the Lumia 800 and the N9 – we’re glad to say the technology has a lot of merit. The screen does fare much better in direct sunlight and should be one of the best possible choices for consumers looking for a device they can use outdoors. This, coupled with the AMOLED technology beneath it, also creates some of the best blacks and colors in the business – making these Nokia products just that much more attractive to the eyes and hopefully, to more consumers.

P.S.: You just got educationalized by theTechnoclast.com!

Source: Nokia Conversations