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I've tried this a couple of times. IMO screen technology in sunlight is the limiting factor - no-one's made a laptop screen good enough to make this work without you straining your eyes. Shame, because I write this from my office and I can see that it's a gloriously sunny day outside!

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There actually are quite a few devices with transflective displays out there, and for quite a few years, too (at least ten IIRC). Most of them are in tablet format, tough, marketed for the medical and construction industries. Panasonic has the Toughbook line of notebooks and used to sell them as outdoor capable. I don't know whether these use transflective/reflective panels or just really powerful backlights, though.

I've worked from the beach for months. Granted, this was in the UK, and there wasn't much sun to worry about :)

But the best solution I could come up with was a screen cover. It attached itself to the monitor, and created a foldable 'camera obscura' for the screen. Works great to avoid reflections, and to minimize brightness needed.

Ha, I'm also in the UK. That was one of the solutions I came up with - in fact I built the first one out of cardboard. I just would feel like a bit of a tit sat on the beach with a cardboard laptop hood but I guess if I spent a bit more time making something sleek looking...

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