Sunlight Illuminated LCD Display by LG Uses 75% Less Power

press photo via LG Display

More news of cool items to be shown off at CES.

LG is unveiling a display that is illuminated by sunlight while outdoors, which means it helps decrease power consumption of notebooks by 75% while outside.

The company's new 14.1" LCD display is the first display of its kind to utilize this technology:

Leveraging LG Display’s “Backlight Data Signal Switching Technology”, the use of selective reflection plates in existing backlight panels enables the switch from reflective mode in a high luminance setting (sunlight) to transmissive mode in a low luminance setting (indoors and at night). This is the first LCD panel to allow users to easily switch from backlight use (transmissive mode) to outdoor reflective mode with the touch of a button.

That means the amount of battery power needed to run the notebook while outside falls to just 25% of previous levels. They're calling it environmentally friendly - though they might want to walk that line carefully (they've been known to, ahem, overstate their products energy efficiency as of late). Yes, it's awesome that so much less power (most likely being pulled from a coal-powered grid) is consumed, but it is still an LCD screen versus LED or OLED, or even telescopic pixels, which would improvements worth getting weak-kneed over.

We'll catch more details as we can at CES in January 2009 - this might end up being a very cool product.

Via Press Release

More on Monitor Improvements
LCD Monitor with ECO-Features and LED Backlight Uses 28% Less Power, Contains No Mercury
Dell to Transition All Laptop Displays to Mercury-Free LED Backlights
Epson's New LCD Display is High-Reflect, Low-Power
Competition for LCD: Better Image, A Lot Less Power