Everyone is saying the old LED-based one was better – I would agree… until you need to add more stations to the line, which will happen to most lines that we currently have. I would honestly take this new LCD screen over that “The LED will not light up at Canberra station” LED panel any day of the week.
Also note that for the NEL, where the addition of another station in the future is extremely unlikely, they do have the LED panel for new trains (with Punggol Coast behind a sticker), because for this line, the pain point above is not applicable.
Why not an LCD screen always showing the map? Best of both worlds
I think the current LCD screen does aim to do that: showing the line map and the next station in alternating screens. The next station screen is more helpful imo so people know whether they are alighting soon (without relying on the PA or the overhead little screens in the middle of the car which may be hard to see), that’s why they show that screen more often than the line map – for the latter, you do have the system map pasted all over the train car to see anyway.
The main thing I hate about the new screens is the advertisements, but well while it is disruptive and inconvenient for us, it makes $$$ for SMRT so it’s an economical decision for them.
The new screens have a major issue that whenever it is buggy, it becomes completely unusable like in this post (compared to the LED panels where one LED gone doesn’t mean all LEDs gone). Well, as a programmer myself, I sympathise with them as every program is buggy and you never know when it suddenly blows up for unknown reasons (and obviously they didn’t intend to make it fail like this). So if I see a malfunctioning screen like this one (which I have seen a few times on the DTL), I just feel slightly annoyed and try to move on.
The main thing I hate about the new screens is the advertisements, but well while it is disruptive and inconvenient for us, it makes $$$ for SMRT
Hah! Making a lot of money already! Then they'll claim how much they're already undercharging us and losing money/barely breaking even hence why increases are needed, then also have the gall to get taxpayer bailout gift, all the while being a private company!
burn in, over time the words wont be readable. but at that point it would probably be 5 years.
LCD screens barely even get burn in and the image would still be changing because of advertisements and the likes so burn in is extremely unlikely, if at all