Patent ID: 8194204

Claim:
A liquid crystal panel, comprising: a backlight portion emitting light having a brightness distribution in a horizontally oblong oval shape assuming that a longitudinal direction of a panel is a horizontal direction; a first polarizer; a liquid crystal cell; an optical compensation layer having a refractive index profile of nx>ny>nz; and a second polarizer, in this order from a backlight side; wherein the brightness distribution in the horizontally oblong oval shape refers to a brightness distribution in which a polar angle X in the horizontal direction (0°-180° direction) displaying a brightness of a predetermined value or more in an omnidirectional brightness contour map is larger than a polar angle Y in a perpendicular direction (90°-270° direction) displaying a brightness of the predetermined value or more; wherein the brightness distribution is maintained throughout the entire liquid crystal panel; and wherein the liquid crystal cell adopts as a drive mode one of a VA mode and an OCB mode.