Apple just announced a boss 6K screen. But what caught my eye was this:
"...and can maintain 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness indefinitely."
That is very bright compared to most screens (though not all-- the SIM2 sells one that is about 5X that but it's a small market device at present). How bright is 1000 nits?
First, let's get some comparisons. "Nits" is a measure of luminance, which is an objective approximation to "how bright is that". A good measure if I want a VR window is sky brightness. Wikipedia has an excellent page on this I grab this table from:
Note that the Apple monitor is almost at the cloudy day luminance (and the SIM2 is at the clear sky luminance). So we are very close!
Now as a light source one could read by, the *size* of the screen matters. Both the Apple monitor and the SIM2 monitor are about half a meter in area. How many *lumens* is the screen? This is how we measure light bulbs.
This 100 Watt EQ bulb is 1600 lumens. So that is a decent target for a screen to read by. So how do we convert a screen of a certain area with a luminance to lumens? As graphics people let's remember that for a diffuse emitter we know wsomething about luminous exitance (luminous flux):
luminance = luminous exitance divided by (Pi times Area)
So 1000 = E / (0.5*PI) = E/6 (about).
E is lumens per square meter. So we want lumens = E*A = 0.5*E = 1000. So lumens = 2000. That is about a 100 watt bulb. So I think you could read by this Apple screen if it's as close as you would keep a reading lamp. If one of you buys one, let me know if I am right or if I am off by 10X (or whatever) which would not surprise me!
