Related
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Display is muted color, rarely bright

Former Member
Former Member over 6 years ago
The advertising photos show the 1030 display with colorful maps. My display is grayish, very muted colors, rarely bright enough -- and maps have little contrast in the scenes (such as a park) or 'snap'. Display is set to Color and Brightness is turned up full. Seems to be very low rez, and perhaps I'm just spoiled by iPhone. Other issue is that the programmed route has little contrast with other street colors nearby.

Any recommendations?
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    The images in advertising are screen shots (bitmaps displayed on other types of screens). They appear brighter because they are using other types of screens.

    With engineering, everything is a compromise.

    The iPhone screen is much brighter but it needs a backlight (these kinds of screens are completely unreadable without a backlght). That requires more power. These screens are often not readable in bright sunlight (because the backlght is not strong enough to compete with that amount of light).

    The screens used in the Garmin are a special kind called "transreflective" which can use reflected sunlight as a backlight. These screens are dimmer than smartphone displays but use much less power.


    The Garmin devices are intended to be small (relatively) and be on/usable for long periods of time (always displaying for many hours). This means the Garmins have to be very low power devices. That means they have to make compromises to avoid approaches that use lots of power.