School me on Polarized Glasses & Smartphone/Tablet Displays

[cbrunny]

TL;DR:
- school me on polarized sunglasses & smartphone/tablet Displays

Just picked up my first pair of polarized sunglasses (awesome) only to find that my Nexus 5 is only viewable in portrait mode while wearing them (not awesome). Did a bit of googling around and it sounds like this is a very common thing inherent to all (all?) LCD displays.

A bit of further googling (albeit with results that I don't understand entirely) suggested that some phone/tab manufacturers are using a polarization filter on their screens, allowing full usage of a screen while wearing polarized sunglasses. Nothing about this seems to add up though, since I can't find any phones (googling) that allow full usage in this way. So the polarization filter is added to the phone for the same reason it is added to the sunglasses, yes?

And what's this about AMOLED screens not being prone to this issue? Again, googling provided inconclusive evidence to this end.

Help? Thanks.

 

[ElFenix]

LCDs are inherently polarized. iirc, my AMOLED GS1 screens were also polarized and dark when held horizontally rather than vertically (it's vertical, not portrait, portrait is a type of content, not an orientation).

a depolarizing filter would fix that, though i haven't seen it advertised. it works by scattering the light again after it's been polarized. they're common on camera polarizing filters because autofocus doesn't work with polarized light.

 

[cbrunny]

Ah, so AMOLED are still susceptible to this then. Interesting.

It seems to me that there is an advantage for the smartphone to have polarization, inherent or added via filter, such that the user gains the benefit of the polarizing the majority of the time (e.g. without having to wear polarized glasses, for example). The result being that a not-polarized smartphone would be considered a sub-par product by today's standards.

Does anyone else have any experience with this and with AMOLED displays? I read that they are not susceptible online, but it appears that they are still.

 

[EightySix Four]

Nokia uses a neat polarization setup to make the screen more visible in sunlight and give deeper blacks.