catnippants

Does anyone know how they are lighting the Nav display? I've noticed that it is REALLY hard to see on snowy bright days, and it also seems to get brighter as it warms up. I'm hoping it's LED sidelit rather than cold cathode, but I'm starting to suspect the latter. I've done some reading on cold cathode display lighting, and cold starts appear to be detrimental to it's life...

Mike

au34tiger

Had same problem until I realized I had the Contrast and Black level too high. Try turning both down - got much, much better for me when I put them both on about 3 or 4 for the day mode.

Stevenm

When its really cold out I noticed the screen seems dimmer until the ca warms upr

catnippants

Thanks - I'll give it a shot. I've got them both in the middle at the moment. I've got the brightness about 2 from the top.

Mike

au34tiger

I keep the brightness level cranked all the way up.

flar

I made a comment about the LCD of the Nav display and how it is affected by polarized lenses in another thread on dash glare, but this thread looks like a more logical choice to follow up on it...

I did some more testing the other day and I think I know why the Nav is visible at all angles with polarized lenses. As I turned my polarized shades through 360 degrees I noticed that the display was readable, but the colors were shifting. It looks like they've biased the polarization of the liquid crystals of the 3 different color components in 3 different angles so that they don't all disappear at the same angle. Upright it looks like all 3 come in, but at other angles at most 1 of the color components gets blocked and the other 2 still come through enough to read the display.

And oddly I noticed another phenomena while I was doing these experiments. The dash display near the windscreen that shows the audio settings and climate temps was only visible when the sunglasses were aligned properly (luckily upright was a "proper" alignment), but on the same display the clock was visible regardless of the angle of the polarization. Apparently the clock is not the same display unit as the rest of the information in that display pod - and it's designed for visibility under polarization at any alignment whereas the rest of that display pod is not...?

chyllintsx

i have a remote starter and i usually warm the car up for 10 minutes before i get in... it still stays dim for another 30 minutes before it gets normal... i never had this problem with my tsx navi...

catnippants

Hmmm....I was afraid of this. I'm seeing a rather disturbing trend here. I've been watching the RDX since long before it was released, and I always knew it was the car I wanted. It had almost everything I wanted, for what I believed to be a very reasonable price. Unfortunately, it sounds like they cut a lot more corners than I hoped to keep the price/feature set. I incorrectly assumed that the existing features would be essentially lifted from the TL.

Some of my gripes:
1. Cheap silver plastic. Was expecting/hoping for aluminum trim. The siliver trim in my wife's 2003 Accord looks better than what is in my RDX. I can't wait to scratch it.
2. Cheap webcam backup camera. Decent CCDs and lenses are fairly cheap...why put such a crappy one in this car?
3. Display. Low resolution, poor backlighting. Apparently lower quality than what was in previous generation Acuras.
4. Uneven control lighting. The steering while labels are significantly dimmer than other dash lights. My Ford was better.

I still like the car, but it does have a slightly lower class feel now, especially when I compare it to last year's TL. While buying my RDX, I was told that Acura was going to discontinue the RSX because they want to position themselves as even more of a higher end brand. If they intend to do this by cheapening materials.....NOT cool. I wonder if they cut similar corners on this year's MDX?

Mike

chyllintsx

well i agree with all of things u said, but as a person who abuses the rear cam and tilting side mirrors... i never had a problem with it except in rain.. its REALLY NOT that bad...

the reason the lighting on the steering wheel is dimmer is because it can distract the driver, i know them american cars are just as bright as the stereo buttons, and it was annoying, i rented a impala when i went on vacation and it was just in my face...

im decently happy with the "chrome" trim on the rdx... its more durable them my tsx which got scratch like a mother f.....