Help - which screen? IPS or not? Comparable with MBP?

I am selling up my Macbook Pro 15" (non-retina) and probably going to buy an M6700 as I need 32GB RAM and the extra storage capacity will be welcome.

I just don't know whether it is worth paying the extra £500 GBP or so for the IPS screen. My Macbook Pro has a lovely screen on it (1680x1050, anti glare, 2011 model) yet is still "only" a TN panel.

Not sure if anyone can answer me but is the standard 1920x1080 LED backlit panel comparable with those shipping on the MBP? Is the IPS upgrade worth the extra money. I don't do graphic work that requires extra colour gamut but I will be staring at the thing every day so in the overall scheme of things if it is just a much nicer panel then I'd be willing to pay for it.

Brightness of both is a concern to me, the MBP goes very bright (mostly due to LED backlight I presume). Having looked at a colleagues W520 and another's M6400 I think both are quite dull in comparison.

 

I have an M6700 with the non-IPS display. Even so, it's the best notebook display I've ever had, and I love it. I think it is certainly comparable to (or even slightly better than) the anti-glare TN panels in the MBPs. I don't do graphics either, I don't think that you need to spring for the IPS display unless you need the better color or super-wide viewing angle.

It is LED backlit, the brightness is the same as the IPS display (300 nits --- which is also the same as the new Retina MBPs, not sure about older ones).

That said, I've heard people say the IPS display is the best notebook display they've ever seen, seriously amazing. Some of the IPS displays have corner tint issues, and although that problem seems to be more prevalent on the M4700, some M6700 people have complained about it as well.

 

Hello,

Here's my quick opinion:

I think you might be better off just getting the standard non-IPS display for your m6700.
The upgrade fee is hefty and you're forced to get a GPU you might not even need/want - as you can choose between Nvidia cards only.
Regarding brightness: the m6400 of colleagues is a tad older as the newer m6700, so it's not a fair comparison to your MBP. A review claims to have measured the 1920x1080 display will do a brightness of 252 nits. (Couldn't find a source saying 300nits) That is bright but probably not as bright as you would like.
The IPS panel is a little less bright, as users have reported.. Are you employing your MBP at 100% brightness a lot? if so: to be honest, if you want to go waaaay up with your brightness you'll find the IPS panel to be not as bright as you want it to be.

The color casts/leaks in the corners on the IPS: they're there. All M4600 and M4700 have reported seeing some (so do I - all three units that I saw with the IPS panel had them, including mine). The M6700 is reported to do a little better but still affected.... They're not a major limit to me, but I do find them annoying - but they're in the bottom corners (lower 1inch maybe) so usually where toolbars/taksbars are covering them up pretty well. Just don't look at an all white image - you'll see them right away.

If you're not after a huge color space, go with the non-IPS. I believe you'll be happy.

 

Mmm thanks for that, I do tend to use my MBP at full brightness yes. Perhaps I'll need to try an see on somewhere.

 

This seems to have changed. You can now configure the AMD card with the IPS panel.

 

The IPS panels on the M6600 and M6700 machines that I have measured were all 300 nits. The myth of the IPS panel being dimmer came from an error on Dell's website where they said the IPS screen was 220 nits. The 220 nits screen was the 1600x900 (I think).

The only screen that is brighter is the 3D screen. It runs at 400 nits.

I have a 2011 15" MBP in the office. Will get some measurements.

 

The 2 main con on getting IPS is cutting the battery life and bigger machine. But the new AMD m6000 have pretty nice battery life w/o any switching technology.

 

Indeed, it isn't at the level of optimus, but you can get a solid 3 hours and a half to 4 hours of DVD playback on it for example.

 

Not too bothered by battery life, just need to work out whether the display quality increase is worth the extra cash.

 

Unlikely for your use-case.