Sanyo Epson's "Photo Fine Vistarich" enables extreme-viewing-angle LCDs

Researchers at Japan's Sanyo Epson Imaging Devices Corporation have just developed a series of small LCDs that, unlike most traditional displays, are almost perfectly viewable even at extreme 90-degree angles. Available in sizes ranging from 2.4-inches to 10.1-inches, the displays will be employed in any number of portable devices, from cellphones to PDAs to PMPs, although the best use we can think of is to put them on cameras, which should make it a lot easier to see what you're shooting when you need to take pictures over a crowd. As for the use of this so-called "Photo Fine Vistarich" technology in devices that we're viewing personal/secure information on, well, we're not necessarily sure we want to make it easier for everyone on the subway to peep our Treo screen. Sanyo Epson says production of these displays will begin this fall, which mean we should probably see corresponding products on the market before the end of the year.

[Bean @ May 17th 2006 11:04AM]

How can you view a screen from a 90 degree angle? Isn't that impossible?

[chris @ May 17th 2006 11:25AM]

90 degrees would mean no bezel, at all? so the edge of the disply is the edge of the LCD glass? dont' think I'd like that on a portable, though for a TV it might be nice.

as for better angles, I'm all for that! I often use my Nokia 770 to show poeple "viral" video's, and it's vewing angle isn't wide enough for more than 2 or 3 people to watch at once. the screen is plenty big enough, you just can't get enough people close enough to it, so the same vid ends up being played many times in a row so everyone can see it, and then everyone is sick of hearing it.

[TC @ May 17th 2006 1:08PM]

All well and good, but equivalent OLED displays are due early next year, with the added benifits of quicker response times and lower power consumption; I wonder if SanyoEpson are trying to steal the phosphorent OLED thunder as they seem to have a lack of patents in that area of EL displays?