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It's the other way around, unless it's still the 90s. Can't go any deeper, so here goes: LCDs are clear by default with a big light behind them. You can see t
by natesm 15y ago
It's the other way around, unless it's still the 90s.
Can't go any deeper, so here goes:
LCDs are clear by default with a big light behind them. You can see this on any Apple laptop, the glowing logo is just the backlight (watch it fade as you lower brightness or try shining a flashlight through it). White (clear) is the default state, so it takes power to make a color. Think of an LCD watch, all of the text is black because LCDs can't create light (those are LEDs).
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-black-is http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fic...
Of course, it's a minuscule difference, since I'm guessing that the giant light probably uses most of the power, not the actual LCD.
This is the opposite of CRTs (hence the "90s" comment), which do actually create brightness per-pixel.
- hardy263 15y agoI'm genuinely curious as to why you say it's the other way around. Can you elaborate on this? EDIT: Oh, you've edited your comment
- icebraining 15y agoNow there are LCD TVs with local dimming (using arrays of LEDs as backlight) so dark images can indeed use less energy, but no computer monitor uses such technology, so it's irrelevant for websites.
- natrius 15y ago> "It's the other way around, unless it's still the 90s." False. Organic LED displays don't use a backlight. They use less energy to display dark colors, just as vibrunazo said. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_LED http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_LED
- JoelSutherland 15y agoThere are probably three or four orders of magnitude fewer OLED displays in the world than LCDs. Pretty much the only place you'll currently find an OLED screen is on a Samsung phone.
- natrius 15y agoAgreed. However, the comment I quoted overstated the case against dark colors saving power.