@Debby It’s the Pixel Qi screen, invented by Mary Lou Jepsen and her team. And yes, it works as described. At the time we called it the transflexive display. You could (and can :) use it in bright sunlight, without backlight, as a rather high contrast greyscale display. You can also switch on the backlight to get better colours. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_Qi and wiki.laptop.org/go/Display