Netbook Reviews

Glarewear sunglasses are a unique product which have been specifically developed to solve a common problem.

Most of us netbook and laptop owners know how annoyingly hard it is to use and view the computer’s display when you’re outside on a sunny day. The sun makes viewing the LCD almost impossible outside, making it appear very dim and hard to read. Glossy LCD screens are even worse, and often all you can see is reflections.

The Glarewear sunglasses are the worlds first and only sunglasses which have been developed to solve this problem, and make outdoor viewing of netbook / laptop screens much easier.

The Glarewear lenses make it possible to use netbooks outside in broad daylight. As the light emitted from all LCDs is polarized, and by using specially designed lens polarization technology it is possible to filter out much of the ambient light, while passing through the LCD emitted light virtually unfiltered.

Also, as LCD backlights (both standard CCFL and LED) have a fairly cold color gamut, which is different from natural occurring light, it is possible apply selective filtering of unwanted color spectrums.

Design

The Glarewear Sunglasses come very well presented in a hard case, which contains the glasses, a microfiber sleeve and three sets of lenses (which I will cover later).

The glasses are light and comfortable to wear, and have rubber grips on the arms and on the nose piece, which keeps them on nicely. I also like the sporty / stylish look of the glasses. They cover your face well, and block out the light from entering the sites.

The Glarewear sunglasses arrive with a set of lenses pre-installed in the frame, with two other sets held tightly in place in the case. There are three sets of lenses, all which feature a slightly different type of polarization, to cover 95% of all LCD technology.

You can tell which lenses you need to use from simply holding then up in front of the screen, and seeing which ones best let the light through from the display. For my main laptop (Dell XPS 1530, glossy) I had to change out the lenses marked “P” for the ones marked “R”.

I found that removing and attaching the lenses to be a little tricky, quite a lot of force was needed and I was a little worried about breaking either the lens or the frame. The instructions did say that they it might be hard the first time. The frames did feel flexible but also very strong.

Once the lenses were in, they felt very secure. With no movement or possibility of falling out. If you didn’t know better, you would think the lenses were fixed permanently.

Performance

Now for the interesting part, just how well do they work.

I tested the Glarewear sunglasses with a number of laptops and netbooks, with a mix of both glossy and mat finish displays to see how well they performed.

After first selecting the correct lens for the specific screen I am testing / using them with it, I tested their performance on a very sunny day, both under the shade of a parasol, and also in direct sun light, with the sun shining directly onto the screen.

Glearwear states that the glasses work best when the sun isn’t shining directly on to the screen, but rather under the shade from something such as a parasol, tree etc.

When you first put the sunglasses on you will notice they darken the surroundings more than they darken the screen it’s self, thus making the screen appear somewhat brighter.

As soon as you put on the Glarewear sunglasses it is immediately clear that the display is now easier to read, and if you give it a few minuets for your eyes to adjust to the now darker light levels the benefit is greatened. Reflections seen on a glossy screen are also significantly reduced, making them much less annoying and distracting.

When I remove / lift the sunglasses to compare the difference, you notice again the improvement that they are having.

I also compared the Glarewear Sunglasses to a number of standard sunglasses, both polarized and non. One pair of polarized sunglasses make the display 100% black, while others just made the screen darker, without helping readability. I also noticed that the tint of the glarewear glasses made the LCD look slightly gray / blue, rather than the common slight brown tint. I assume this is down to the glarewear glasses letting in the cooler color tone from the LCD.

I did try the Glarewear sunglasses in direct sunlight with the sun on the screen. While the glasses did help to reduce the glare and improve the situation somewhat, it wasn’t ideal. So I would highly recommend using them in the shade if possible.

Conclusion

The improvement that the Glarewear sunglasses made to using netbooks / laptops outside was significant, and given the choice of wearing them or not, I would always choose to wear them.

You can order directly from Glarewear.Com, where they ship worldwide!

If you are in any doubt, Glarewear are so confident in their product they offer a 100% money back guarantee for up to 60 days if you’re not satisfied with them!