I have looked at several Chinese devices but they all seem very similar with average brightness and contrast.

Interestingly my 3 year old Navigo 4 inch screen is better than any of the recent Chinese ones I looked at, it seems brightness is not the only issue but contrast has an effect on daylight readability as well. Looking at my Navigo I'm not convinced that it is significantly brighter but the contrast is definately better with whites more white, blacks are blacker and colours more saturated. This certainly helps readability in poor light conditions. I'm suprised that my old device seems better than modern screens.

Asking Chinese suppliers for screen brightness specs seems to draw a blank so its hard to forecast what you are buying and if it will be any better. My guess is that most screens are around 250 nits (cd/m2) and to be worthwhile we need at least 500 nits. I know that screens specified for true sunlight readability are 1000 nits and above.

I'm suprised that none of the available devices I can locate fill this high brightness corner of the market even at a price premium. They must be made as units like Bendix and Garmin are available but only with their software. 

Has anyone else had any success in locating a bright screen for use in bubble cockpit aircraft ?

It's difficult to buy such devices off the shelf because they have different requirements to car satnavs which represent most of the market for handheld GPS units. You're quite correct that contrast makes a big difference as well as raw brightness. In general I don't believe nit figures that manufacturers quote because they often lie, but car satnavs will usually be 200 - 250.

Legibility of your aviation GPS at lower brightnesses will depend much more on how you mount it than anything else. Units with 1000nit displays can reasonably claim to be legible at virtually any mounting/orientation with virtually any amount of glare, but they are very expensive. The best way to mount a device is generally to the top of the windscreen so the device points directly at you (in terms of yaw and pitch) and pitchwise it cannot reflect the sky. Even a low brightness device can be made acceptable by mounting it the right way.

Thanks for all your work on this

Anyway very happy with SkyDemon but would like you to consider some upgrade path for those of us already with 4 inch devices to enable us to change to 5 inch.

I don't really want the expense to purchase SD Plan software again when I have recently new valid copies (x2), only need the mobile devices themselves. Maybe we could send our 4 inch units back for exchange so that you don't issue a new licence as such and you just charge present users for the new hardware unit,and some handling, not the software ?? (even if 4 inch unit has minimal value to you).

The alternative is for me to sell our existing units and software to a new user but not clear how new user would stand in regard of your software license ? Can you have a method of transferring ownership maybe ??

Sorry, I know these are messy issues but I'm sure you can expect others to have the same questions and after all it is possibly an additional small revenue stream for you.

regards

It's always regrettable when a new product is launched and a few customers would retrospectively have waited. If we figure out a way of allowing some kind of part-exchange model that doesn't leave us out of pocket, we'll be sure to let you know, but we have no sales channel for second-hand items (or returns) so that makes it rather difficult.

Maybe you could also comment on whether I am allowed to sell my present systems, software license and hardware, to a new owner ?

I'm not clear what happens if someone purchased my SD mobile hardware device only, and connected it to their valid SD Plan would my device work as licensed device with their software or is my hardware SD mobile device somehow permanently tied to my SD Plan software ?

Hope you can figure something out,

thanks and regards

It'll be perfectly possible for you to sell your SD device to somebody, but we'll need to do the license transfer (just ask) and if that person doesn't already have a Plan subscription, they'll need to buy one in order to activate the device. Or, you could sell the whole lot (device and plan subscription) and start afresh. We have no intention of preventing anyone from doing any of these things.