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Why the GBA shouldn’t be backlit:
Many of the people at this board are educated enough to know the reasons for the GBA not being backlit. Though there are some people that go out of their way to criticise Nintendo for not inputting some kind of lighting devise. Those people are ignorant idiots that don’t know the kind of effort and research that has been done by Nintendo and third party companies to implement this. Basically this post is for the people here who think the GBA should have been backlit and the people at www.portablemonopoly.com .
Firstly the main problem with implementing a backlight devise into the GBA would of course be the battery life, the battery life would be shortened from the 12 hours it has now to a mere 3-4 hours. You might think that it’s OK because you can use an AC adapter, but that’s just stupid, it’s supposed to be a PORTABLE console (i.e for use on a plane or on long car journeys). For the same price you could get a PS1 with a few games if you don’t travel that much why get a GBA? You might as well get a PS2 or an N64.
The size of the GBA would have had to be significantly bigger because of the extra chips that the backlight would need. The backlight is not as simple as sticking a bulb in between the screen and the back screen, the LCD would then have a distorted picture and the light, unless directly overhead would dissipate unevenly over the screen. The light would have to be a light screen behind the LCD screen and sandwiched together so that the pixels don’t look distorted and enough light passes through the LCD to the eye. Because of this extra screening the GBA would also be more fragile. The Neo Geo Pocket colour is a good example of how to do a screen that can be seen in a wide range of light conditions. It probably has the clearest screen out of all the handhelds.
If you look at the past systems with backlighting, the Atari Lynx and the Sega Gamegear, they were huge systems that had short battery lives and flopped to the inferior Gameboy. The reason they flopped was because of portability issues and battery life. You may also see that horizontal and vertical lines are visible on the screen and it becomes a problem on the eyes after a while.
The cost of the GBA if it were backlit would be at least £50 extra plus the extra batteries, it would get more complaints than now. Less people would be interested in it and Nintendo would lose more money than they would need to. Nintendo could have really done what they wanted because they are alone in the handheld market and a certain amount of people would buy their console no matter what.
So those people who believe the GBA should be backlit should think again. Would you rather have a backlit screen or an exterior lighting device for £8.
Many of the people at this board are educated enough to know the reasons for the GBA not being backlit. Though there are some people that go out of their way to criticise Nintendo for not inputting some kind of lighting devise. Those people are ignorant idiots that don’t know the kind of effort and research that has been done by Nintendo and third party companies to implement this. Basically this post is for the people here who think the GBA should have been backlit and the people at www.portablemonopoly.com .
Firstly the main problem with implementing a backlight devise into the GBA would of course be the battery life, the battery life would be shortened from the 12 hours it has now to a mere 3-4 hours. You might think that it’s OK because you can use an AC adapter, but that’s just stupid, it’s supposed to be a PORTABLE console (i.e for use on a plane or on long car journeys). For the same price you could get a PS1 with a few games if you don’t travel that much why get a GBA? You might as well get a PS2 or an N64.
The size of the GBA would have had to be significantly bigger because of the extra chips that the backlight would need. The backlight is not as simple as sticking a bulb in between the screen and the back screen, the LCD would then have a distorted picture and the light, unless directly overhead would dissipate unevenly over the screen. The light would have to be a light screen behind the LCD screen and sandwiched together so that the pixels don’t look distorted and enough light passes through the LCD to the eye. Because of this extra screening the GBA would also be more fragile. The Neo Geo Pocket colour is a good example of how to do a screen that can be seen in a wide range of light conditions. It probably has the clearest screen out of all the handhelds.
If you look at the past systems with backlighting, the Atari Lynx and the Sega Gamegear, they were huge systems that had short battery lives and flopped to the inferior Gameboy. The reason they flopped was because of portability issues and battery life. You may also see that horizontal and vertical lines are visible on the screen and it becomes a problem on the eyes after a while.
The cost of the GBA if it were backlit would be at least £50 extra plus the extra batteries, it would get more complaints than now. Less people would be interested in it and Nintendo would lose more money than they would need to. Nintendo could have really done what they wanted because they are alone in the handheld market and a certain amount of people would buy their console no matter what.
So those people who believe the GBA should be backlit should think again. Would you rather have a backlit screen or an exterior lighting device for £8.
Ortega said>
>maybe just maybe, they could have put a light in that you >had the option to turn on and off.
This would have been quite difficult to do. If the light were to be sandwiched between the screen and the back screen like the Gamegear then when the light is off the pixels on the screen would be nearly impossible to see.
>maybe just maybe, they could have put a light in that you >had the option to turn on and off.
This would have been quite difficult to do. If the light were to be sandwiched between the screen and the back screen like the Gamegear then when the light is off the pixels on the screen would be nearly impossible to see.
yeah thats right !! i got a gameboy light , which has the option to turn the light on and off , it's batteries last a bit less but the screen goes greeny blue and i like it ! , but on the gba a wormlight or something does almost the same thing.
maybe just maybe, they could have put a light in that you had the option to turn on and off. This would have been cool for times when u use an adapter (eg at night). And when u are on the move during the day u wouldnt need the light and so by turning it off you can not drain the batteries.
Why the GBA shouldn’t be backlit:
Many of the people at this board are educated enough to know the reasons for the GBA not being backlit. Though there are some people that go out of their way to criticise Nintendo for not inputting some kind of lighting devise. Those people are ignorant idiots that don’t know the kind of effort and research that has been done by Nintendo and third party companies to implement this. Basically this post is for the people here who think the GBA should have been backlit and the people at www.portablemonopoly.com .
Firstly the main problem with implementing a backlight devise into the GBA would of course be the battery life, the battery life would be shortened from the 12 hours it has now to a mere 3-4 hours. You might think that it’s OK because you can use an AC adapter, but that’s just stupid, it’s supposed to be a PORTABLE console (i.e for use on a plane or on long car journeys). For the same price you could get a PS1 with a few games if you don’t travel that much why get a GBA? You might as well get a PS2 or an N64.
The size of the GBA would have had to be significantly bigger because of the extra chips that the backlight would need. The backlight is not as simple as sticking a bulb in between the screen and the back screen, the LCD would then have a distorted picture and the light, unless directly overhead would dissipate unevenly over the screen. The light would have to be a light screen behind the LCD screen and sandwiched together so that the pixels don’t look distorted and enough light passes through the LCD to the eye. Because of this extra screening the GBA would also be more fragile. The Neo Geo Pocket colour is a good example of how to do a screen that can be seen in a wide range of light conditions. It probably has the clearest screen out of all the handhelds.
If you look at the past systems with backlighting, the Atari Lynx and the Sega Gamegear, they were huge systems that had short battery lives and flopped to the inferior Gameboy. The reason they flopped was because of portability issues and battery life. You may also see that horizontal and vertical lines are visible on the screen and it becomes a problem on the eyes after a while.
The cost of the GBA if it were backlit would be at least £50 extra plus the extra batteries, it would get more complaints than now. Less people would be interested in it and Nintendo would lose more money than they would need to. Nintendo could have really done what they wanted because they are alone in the handheld market and a certain amount of people would buy their console no matter what.
So those people who believe the GBA should be backlit should think again. Would you rather have a backlit screen or an exterior lighting device for £8.
Many of the people at this board are educated enough to know the reasons for the GBA not being backlit. Though there are some people that go out of their way to criticise Nintendo for not inputting some kind of lighting devise. Those people are ignorant idiots that don’t know the kind of effort and research that has been done by Nintendo and third party companies to implement this. Basically this post is for the people here who think the GBA should have been backlit and the people at www.portablemonopoly.com .
Firstly the main problem with implementing a backlight devise into the GBA would of course be the battery life, the battery life would be shortened from the 12 hours it has now to a mere 3-4 hours. You might think that it’s OK because you can use an AC adapter, but that’s just stupid, it’s supposed to be a PORTABLE console (i.e for use on a plane or on long car journeys). For the same price you could get a PS1 with a few games if you don’t travel that much why get a GBA? You might as well get a PS2 or an N64.
The size of the GBA would have had to be significantly bigger because of the extra chips that the backlight would need. The backlight is not as simple as sticking a bulb in between the screen and the back screen, the LCD would then have a distorted picture and the light, unless directly overhead would dissipate unevenly over the screen. The light would have to be a light screen behind the LCD screen and sandwiched together so that the pixels don’t look distorted and enough light passes through the LCD to the eye. Because of this extra screening the GBA would also be more fragile. The Neo Geo Pocket colour is a good example of how to do a screen that can be seen in a wide range of light conditions. It probably has the clearest screen out of all the handhelds.
If you look at the past systems with backlighting, the Atari Lynx and the Sega Gamegear, they were huge systems that had short battery lives and flopped to the inferior Gameboy. The reason they flopped was because of portability issues and battery life. You may also see that horizontal and vertical lines are visible on the screen and it becomes a problem on the eyes after a while.
The cost of the GBA if it were backlit would be at least £50 extra plus the extra batteries, it would get more complaints than now. Less people would be interested in it and Nintendo would lose more money than they would need to. Nintendo could have really done what they wanted because they are alone in the handheld market and a certain amount of people would buy their console no matter what.
So those people who believe the GBA should be backlit should think again. Would you rather have a backlit screen or an exterior lighting device for £8.