Support Thread for the TND 500, TND 700 or future Rand McNally products. (part two)

Here's a tip for anybody who likes to use polarized lenses and has a 7 inch McNally tablet.

You will quickly find out that the 7 inch tablet does not work well with polarized lenses. This is a common issue for ALL LCD displays. Polarized lenses work by filtering out all horizontally polarized light. This helps to reduce road glare, mostly just light reflected from the sun. That's why they are so nice when you're out fishing.

All LCDs are polarized. There's no way around it, that's just how they work. It just so happens that the 7 inch RandMcnally tablet is polarized in such a way that it is impossible to view in landscape orientation with polarized lenses, and the darn thing just won't work right in portrait mode.

The best solution I found is to slap a screen protector on it. The ones with an anti-glare matte finish work best. They help by slightly diffusing the light from the screen, so it's no longer polarized.

I picked up this WriteRight brand, 7 inch "universal screen protector kit" at Walmart for about five bucks. It comes with 2 protectors in the box, so you get one re-do for free. It also comes with a handy little cleaning cloth.

You'll want to do this in a dust-free environment. Your truck is probably dusty. It also helps if there is no wind blowing around you. Any little spec of dust that gets between the screen protector and the screen will create a huge air bubble that cannot be removed.
If you're not successful the first time around, use the first one as a tacky strip to pull off any dust particles.

I can live with a few air bubbles, but I can't deal with not being able to use my GPS with my polarized lenses.

FYI, this trick should work for any LCD screen.

And also, if Rand McNally is looking at this, maybe in the next revision you could give the tablets a matte finish.

I took a picture to show the difference it makes

 

I just bought some non polarized sun glasses. Found some at walmart for $5. All plastic so nice and light too.

 

Some people spent a lot of money on prescription polarized lenses though, and polarized sunglasses are awesome.. I figured I would offer up a solution that allows people to use the tablet with them.

 

Mark, any luck with the stuff I sent you? Also, another thing I didn't mention. Since the last updates, all Walmart locations in Wyoming are missing, including the DCs.