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correctly polarized LCDs

Match orientation of sunglasses and LCD

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The light that LCDs emit is polarized. Polarized sunglasses block almost all light of the wrong polarization and almost no light of the right polarization. Sunglasses have to have the polarization oriented a certain way in order to block out glare from horizontal surfaces. LCDs on laptops, watches, and other PDAs should orient their polarization to match so that people can wear polarized sunglasses to dim the too-bright world without dimming the display at all.

—	aigeek, May 04 2000

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You have got to be kidding.

—	HKUSP9, May 04 2000

As a habitual wearer of polarized shades, I can report from experience that just about all LCDs are correctly polarized (in the horizontal direction). Somebody out there, clearly, was thinking.

—	rmutt, May 04 2000

Oops. I stand corrected: the (UK-made) Psion 3a PDA has the wrong orientation. I guess people in the UK don't notice, as it is rarely sunny.

—	rmutt, May 06 2000

why would you be wearing sunglasses while working on a laptop?

—	--chris, Oct 29 2002

My ibm thinkpad a31p laptop is polarized incorrectly. My previous thinkpad (a 560) was polarized correctly. My Palm V and my Kyocera 6035 (palm-based) smartphone are polarized correctly.

—	bradley, Dec 09 2002

Also, I rented a Volvo S80 (the high-end volvo) and was annoyed to discover that some of the LCS displays had one orientation, and some had the other. The instrument panel was OK, but the radio was incorrect.

—	bradley, Dec 09 2002

chris - why *wouldn't* you be wearing sunglasses while working on a laptop?

—	cameron, Feb 28 2003

I have played with polarized glasses in a room full of assorted LCD displays and was surprised by their apparently random alignment. I think the likelihood of getting every LCD supplier to settle on vertical final polarization is pretty slim. If you're typically only looking at one display at a time then I'm with Steve on adjusting the glasses instead.

—	matman, Nov 11 2006

I used to wear polarized sunglasses while driving, and found that a lot of gasoline pumps had LCD displays oriented the wrong way.

—	baconbrain, Nov 12 2006

I really think the industry needs a polarization standard. As to circular lenses that rotate, easier said than done.

"why would you be wearing sunglasses while working on a laptop?" Maybe you are outdoors.

—	geo8rge, Nov 15 2006

This is really annoying on my Canon S80 camera - if I'm wearing my sunglasses, I can't shoot in portrait. I think polarising on the diagonal would be most sensible.

—	neilp, Nov 15 2006

// If you're typically only looking at one display at a time then I'm with Steve on adjusting the glasses instead. //

Polarized sunglasses are polarized the way they are for a reason. If you changed their polarization by 90°, they'd be worse at being sunglasses than unpolarized sunglasses are.

—	notexactly, Dec 18 2018

In my experience, most "old school" LCD displays (7-segment or dot; watches, calculators etc not TVs) are polarised at 45 deg, as is my computer monitor. My smartphone seems to have different colours polarised in different directions. The little screen on my deskphone seems to not be polarised somehow (may have a second filter on top? perhaps a circular polariser...).

—	neutrinos_shadow, Dec 18 2018

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