Ah, the great outdoors! Warm days. Ocean breeze. Bright sunlight…uh-oh. Suddenly that beautiful display on your favorite gadget is just one big square of glare.
Device makers tackle the tricky issue differently, depending on the gadget. Some screens—such as those on smartphones and tablets—use special anti-glare coatings.
Other devices—digital cameras, for example—have different ways of handling glare. In addition to special coatings, some cameras feature adjustible screens or an old-fashioned view finder that you can put your eye to in order to see what the camera sees.
When we review mobile devices—smartphones, cameras, tablets, laptops, and smartwatches—in our labs, one of the many tests we perform is to evaluate its usability under harsh lighting conditions.
Here are some champions that performed brilliantly under our testers' harsh scruntiny.
Copyright © 2005-2015 Consumers Union of U.S., Inc. No reproduction, in whole or in part, without written permission. Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this site.
Get a daily look at what’s developing in science and technology throughout the world.