A pet peeve of mine, automotively speaking, is when a vital display washes out. In this case "vital" being the display for the XM satellite radio info. Driving into work this a.m., as I crept along the freeway at 10-20 mph, I flicked through a few of the "decades" radio stations and couldn't see the upper half of the display that shows song title, artist, etc. I soon discovered that there was an easy solution....
I did the usual knee-jerk reaction of twisting the instrument panel light dimmer up. Turning it all the way up (also indicated by a "beep") switched the screen's illumination to the night mode of white on black, which worked perfectly in this instance. Much easier than diving into a sub-menu to change the screen's format. And yes, switching on the exterior lights does the same thing. Sorry for the cell phone pics, but you get the idea.
John DiPietro, Automotive Editor @ 9,352 miles.
willin58 says:
11:07 AM, 03/17/08
Boy, does that satellite radio readout look old fashioned ;)
louiswei says:
11:33 AM, 03/17/08
Not as old fashioned as the Aura's....
ewilfong says:
11:43 AM, 03/17/08
Good solution. But Madonna on the radio? Come now, let's be reasonable.
jriz says:
12:12 PM, 03/17/08
Also, the Honda system allows you to change the color scheme of the day mode. Our's is set to blue, but there's red, grey and something I can't think of at the moment.
bimmerjay says:
03:21 PM, 03/17/08
That's kind of cool, although it sucks that you have to adjust it manually. BMWs automatically adjust the displays based on ambient light, so they are highly legible in all conditions. If you suddenly go from super-strong backlighting from the sun to a dark parking garage, you can see the displays dimming down as you drive in. Also, the amber LCDs will appear reversed to avoid washout, unlike the Aura's apparently.
banhugh says:
03:32 PM, 03/17/08
while there is only manual control of lcd monitor brightness, there is a night/day setting for the screen.
So if you set the lights to Auto, the screen will automatically dim whenever the the lights turn on.
BTW, there are two silver color themes (with black or white letters) and a red, blue and brown theme.
The brown looks classy, and the silver themes modern. The rest are like OS DOS with Blue or Red fonts.
bimmerjay says:
03:37 PM, 03/17/08
"So if you set the lights to Auto, the screen will automatically dim whenever the the lights turn on."
Infiniti does that too - I hate it! The lights being on does not mean the screen should dim. I could be driving in the rain or snow, on a daylight highway section, or in Canada.
1487 says:
05:11 PM, 03/17/08
"Not as old fashioned as the Aura's...."
oh......good one!
thebigal says:
07:17 PM, 03/17/08
ya - but sometimes, good old fashioned easy to read and decipher readouts are teh best way to go. I would much rather have an "old fashioned like" LCD readout (GM's current non-navigation head units, aside from the red ones come to mind) than a full-screened LCD screen that washes out all the time
swurster says:
05:00 AM, 03/18/08
"Infiniti does that too - I hate it! The lights being on does not mean the screen should dim. I could be driving in the rain or snow, on a daylight highway section, or in Canada."
That annoyed me as well, so I just turned the dimmer all the way up on my '05 G35 Coupe. Now all the dash and radio lights are at full brightness regardless of whether the headlights are on or not. The only thing that goes on and off with the headlights is the analog clock.
I was used to not having automatic lights from the previous car I owned, so I still control the lights manually despite the Auto option.