A simple transportable hemispherical solar still was designed and fabricated, and its performance was experimentally evaluated under outdoors of Dhahran climatic conditions. It was found that over the hours of experimental testing through daytime, the daily distilled water output from the still ranged from 2.8 to 5.71/m(2) day. The daily average efficiency of the still reached as high as 33% with a corresponding conversion ratio near 50%. It was also found that the average efficiency of the still decreased by 8% when the saline water depth increased by 50%. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.