The Fujifilm X-Pro1 interchangeable lens camera (MILC) has been announced and one of the lesser-known features is the shooter’s main 3-inch RGBW LCD panel. The ‘W’ stands for white, which is in addition to the standard red, green and blue subpixels normally found in LCD panels. Because of the extra white subpixel, the display is quoted as having 1,230k dots (640 x RGBW x 480).

While trying to find out more information on this new panel I stumbled upon a new LCD panel made by Sony, and trademarked as WhiteMagic. Sony began marketing this type of panel in October 2011, with a model number ACX432AKM, for digital cameras. From a first look I am pretty confident this is the LCD panel inside the Fujifilm X-Pro1.

What makes this RGBW WhiteMagic LCD panel special? Well the extra white subpixel makes the screen brighter and more efficient. This has two benefits. First off you can reduce the backlight’s power consumption by around 50% or in a different mode you can double the screen’s brightens for better viewing outdoors. For a digital camera, it means you can have better battery life while shooting indoors, or improve the camera’s usability outdoors.
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