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In a frontlight setup, the LCD is as it normally would be, no light source and a reflective backing. But a light source is placed directly in FRONT of the LCD, and that is then reflected back as if in normal operation. This has the advantage or requiring minimal additional engineering, because the LCD itself is unmodified. It also retains the reflective backing of the original LCD, so that if conditions warrant, the front light can be deactivated and the LCD can still retain useful visibility. The biggest drawback to using a frontlight system is that it can often create a "washed out" look to the colors, especially if the color of the light source is too bright or is not very close to pure white light. It also has the potential to be a physically bulkier solution (although this is minimal with current technology) because in addition to the light source, the display still retains the reflective backing as well.
Also, because a frontlight has to be clear in nature, the light source is restricted to being around the edges of the display, so larger-size screens would suffer from being dark in the center, which is why they are not used for most laptop or notebook computer displays. The source of the light is usually a light_emitting_diode or LED, as they are small and consume very little power. Backlight systems are usually flourescent in nature, due to the fact that the bulbs are capable or covering a larger area.
Usually a florescent bulb, which projects a bright, white light from the top of an LCD screen, to brighten the image. This technology has replaced backlights in LCD screens, and consumes much less power.