LP173WF4-SPD1: disappointed

Hi all
I have a 10 years old VAIO, barely alive with win7 but still loved for its beautiful display (x-black, with a deep black and vivid colors).

Saturday I bought a ASUS N551JK-T7158H (i think it's a special serie sold only in Italy). I am overall satisfied but something was wrong with the display.
Bright and sharp in general, but very bad in dark tones with a bluish excess.

Today I discovered it was due to ASUS splendid "utility" that makes a perfect marketing job, but leaves the user disappointed after bringing home the laptop.

Yet, even after the removal of the "utility", darker tones seem quite posterized.
For instance, in the following image
http://blog.bigsmoke.us/uploads/2009...-calibrate.png
stripes do appear smooth on the right, but on the left there is some vertical artifact.

Hardware side, I found the panel (LG-Philips LP173WF4-SPD1) is a beautiful IPS, but having just 6 bits per color!
My disappointment turned to perplexity after having discovered thet even my old VAIO panel (HITACHI TX39D80VC1GGA) had just 6 bit per colour!! Yet in the image above mentioned, stripes are perfectly smooth!

So, how it is possible that a brand new IPS panel is worse than a 10 years-old TFT?
Is there any way to improve things or I should get rid of that ASUS?

Thank you for reading

 

The LP173WF4-SPD1 is a nice display, but it likely could be Windows. Make sure display scaling is set to 100% in Windows "personalization" menu. Go into Intel settings and make sure there are no funky settings activated. But honestly I would make an image of the drive and do a clean install of Windows of your choice because Asus does add a lot of their personal customization that really is not value added and can bring down the quality of the machine in general.

 

Just curious what the price difference (ignoring tvm and inflation) is between the two notebooks you have?

I think this is just what I would expect in a race to the bottom?

I also agree that a clean install with only the necessary hardware drivers (do not use the restore image the system shipped with) is highly recommended to not only ensure the best Windows experience, but also remove any manufacturers 'customizations' that basically cripple the hardware the system has (in one way or another).

To do this; I suggest buying or borrowing a new (or used, if testing only) HDD or SSD and seeing if after a clean install and latest drivers (and all necessary Windows updates... especially for Win10) gives you a better experience. If it does; great. Go ahead and use the drive it shipped with to do the same, otherwise, put in the original HDD/SSD and return for a full refund.

Good luck.

 

On every ASUS laptop that I owned, I formatted it, did a clean install, and installed everything except Splendid. Even on the ROG forums they recommend not installing it. Uninstalling it alone will not help you need to format to get rid of the mess it made

you have one of the best screens on the market right now

Try this color profile, they are not exactly the same but very similar:

LG LP173WF4-SPF1 Spyder5Pro Calibration Profile

 

Hi all, thank you for your answers and sorry for my late reply but ... it was a tough testing time here

I tried all the windows mess (drivers uninstall and reinstall, GPU-only enable, different sequences of drivers install, tweaking of intel control panel...): no joy.
I also tried a completely different system: Ubuntu with and without nvidia drivers.
Always the same output: banding clearly visible on smooth transitions (lagom gradient test, Stellarium near the horizon).

The unexpected piece of this puzzle is that the same problem is visible on my plasma TV plugged in the HDMI output!
So I would exclude the panel as a root cause...

About prices: the VAIO in 2005 was in the 1300-1440 euros range, whereas this ASUS is in the 800-900 euros range.

Thank you for the color profile: I will try asap.
Your comment about panel makes me worried: it would be a pity to give back this laptop and discover later that was just a software issue :-(

 

@Phoenix: your color profile turned the screen into a yellowish tint (or this is what my brain told me, being used to previous setting...)
Still, the banding issue is not resolved
Thanks anyway !

 

yeah the color profile is a bit warmer. We think it's too warm but when you get used it, that's how the colors should actually look to represent real life