15.4" WSXGA+ LCD panel comparison - Samsung vs. LG

Thanks Fignuts!

Very good pictures, it truly shows the many similarities and and slight differences. I agree that the LG is better only by slight margin. I also like the fact that you calibrated the screens to their best before comparing. Very good job Fignut! This should really help many people on this thread always wondering about their screens.

On a side note, you should edit your original post and add these attachments there. Thanks again!

 

Second calibration (screens are calibrated at best display quality as possible, for each panel individually). LG screen is on the left, Samsung is on the right.

01-04: The hue difference at a large vertical angle is more prominent, and we noticed this in actual viewing as well. Additionally, the LG seems to have better blacks (is darker) at the large vertical angle. However, the displays seem equivalent at all other angles.

05-09: We loaded up the NBR home page. The Samsung appears a tiny bit darker/more washed out at large vertical viewing angle. This was barely noticeable in actual viewing. The Samsung also appears to get a bit darker than the LG does at large horizontal angles.

10-13: In this image ("Rock Face", from interfacelift.com), the Samsung appeared to have slightly greener greens (the grass) than the LG did. We noticed this difference in actual viewing, as well. Otherwise, the panels seemed fairly equivalent at all angles.

14-18: In this image (Vancouver Dusk", from interfacelift.com), the Samsung appeared noticeably darker than the LG at large horizontal angles. A second comparison image for the Samsung is included to show it's not just a quirk of the specific angle. In actual viewing, we felt the LG did dark colors a bit better, but there wasn't a big difference.

19-23: The first image is a macro shot of the LG screen. The second is the Samsung, in which I just moved the camera over from the LG to the Samsung, holding the focus and exposure settings the same. I'm pretty sure the obvious difference in brightness between these two images is due to vignetting or some other camera/lens effect. I'm not positive, as it could also be due to viewing angle differences between the panels, but the even difference in brightness around the whole periphery indicates to me that it's a camera/lens effect. Viewing angle quality of an LCD tends to vary for vertical vs. horizontal, so if it was the LCD, I don't think the difference would have shown up so evenly. These macro shots also show that the dot pitch is almost identical for both panels. The last few images just show our panel information in PC Wizard, confirming the left display is the standard 15.4" WSXGA+ LG panel and the right display is the standard 15.4" WSXGA+ Samsung panel.

 

Just a follow-up post: in conclusion, I think the LG and Samsung panels are very similar. The LG seems to have slightly better viewing angle quality, and the Samsung might be slightly brighter or have better reds and greens. The differences are difficult to notice in real life. If given a choice, I think I'd pick the LG over the Samsung, as the better viewing angle might potentially make text slightly easier to read across the whole panel, but that's just a theory. In actual viewing, text appeared to be the same on both panels, when viewed from straight on. The slight differences we saw between the panels certainly do not seem to warrant returning one to get the other.

To satisfy my own curiosity, I also called up Lenovo support to see how difficult it would be to get them to swap an LG for my Samsung. I cited the minor display differences in viewing angle as my reason for requesting the swap. The operator (a nice guy named Clint, in Atlanta, Georgia) was familiar with the complaint (LG vs. Samsung), but clarified that Lenovo would not swap out parts for displays that were not actually defective. That is, if you send your T61p into the depot for service, and the display seems to work fine, they aren't going to swap the panel out at all. I asked Clint if it would be different if I upgraded my warranty to on-site support, and had someone come out with a replacement panel, and he kindly clarified that Lenovo would do diagnostic troubleshooting for the display, to determine if it was actually defective, before sending anyone on-site or swapping the panel. Even if you do manage to get on-site support sent, it's a crap-shoot at best whether they would have an LG or a Samsung panel with them. Clint said there's no way to know which panel they would swap it out with, if they would swap it at all. Lenovo might even make an effort to swap out parts with the same exact replacement parts, so there might be little to no chance of getting a replacement LG for a Samsung.

I'm a little frustrated that they don't give you an option of Samsung vs. LG when you configure your notebook, but having seen the difference between the two for myself, I think there's little to complain about. Also, it doesn't seem that there's much we can do about it, either, except for returning the laptop entirely (with a 15% restocking fee). Getting a replacement LG for a Samsung seems almost impossible, as does requesting a specific panel for your laptop.

Any "night and day" differences between 15.4" WSXGA+ LG and Samsung panels that people have mentioned are probably due to them inadvertently comparing completely different panels, or due to not calibrating the LCD's correctly. Wuzer and I both noticed major differences in display quality for relatively small brightness/contrast/gamma settings changes. A slightly miscalibrated LCD could easily appear to be much better than a properly calibrated one. If you want to calibrate yours, I'd recommend trying out the test images we used, at http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/.

Thanks again, WuzerTheLoser, for meeting up with me to do this test!

 

Great posts Fignuts! Again it was really sweet that we could do this comparison. Either way, I think both screens are really good. The light leakage on the Samsung wasn't as drastic as I had expected. Also, when calibrated to the monitor's best settings, the LG display seemed to have "less" light leakage. When calibrated to display similarly to the Samsung display, it had almost identical light leakage.
One interesting thing to note, it could just be with my computer, but my Gamma setting is set to 50% while Fignut's is set to around 6 - 10%. There's not a noticeable difference when I change the gamma settings either. Bad driver perhaps?

I also noticed that the range of colors the LG was able to display was less than that of the Samsung. In the wallpaper screenshots (Rock Face specifically), I preferred the Samsung over the LG because it seemed more vivid.

However, the viewing angle of the LG is a little better than that of the Samsung and doesn't appear washed out at the higher angles.

 

Thanks Fignuts (and wuzertheloser) for providing this information. Great job. Quite a comprehensive comparison. There has been so much discussion on the topic, so it is great to see someone finally really putting it to the test.

Also, thanks the link to the calibration site.

 

Also on a note, when the LG was calibrated to it's optimal settings, it "seemed" the light bleed was less, but this could just be attributed to the fact that the screen was a bit darker when calibrated. However, when tuned to about the same as the Samsung panel, the light leakage was just a noticeable.

 

Hey all!

If anyone is interested, I just created a thread w/ pictures of the Samsung 14.1" WXGA LCD Screen.

Link: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=194360

 

Fignuts can you please post your exact Samsung display settings and also what driver version you are using. I would like to configure my monitor to the same settings as yours and compare against your pictures.

Thanks

 

Hey squale, here are the settings I used for my 15.4" WSXGA+ Samsung panel:

nVidia driver version: 6.14.11.5666 (9/28/2007)

First comparison calibration settings:
Panel hardware brightness: 15/15
Driver settings:
Brightness: 50%
Vibrance: 0%
Constrast: 45%
Sharpening: none/disabled
Gamma: 3%

Second comparison calibration settings:
Panel hardware brightness: 15/15
Driver settings:
Brightness: 49%
Vibrance: 0%
Constrast: 45%
Sharpening: none/disabled
Gamma: 6%

Current/preferred settings:
Panel hardware brightness: 13/15
Driver settings:
Brightness: 45%
Vibrance: 0%
Constrast: 50%
Sharpening: none/disabled
Gamma: 13%

 

Thanks for the informative comparison pics..+ rep to both of you.

This confirmed one of my subjective findings when I posted my own critique on my LG screen in which I felt the greens were somewhat muted - not sure about reds since I haven't taken a good look at it but I'd go with your assessment. It's looking a bit better now after a bit of calibration but still falls short somewhat. For my own use its fine but I wouldn't recommend it for someone who needs good colour accuracy ie photo editing. In fact I doubt I'd recommend Thinkpads be it a Samsung or LG for those needs but rather a MBP or Sony.

On the plus side, the viewing angles and the brightness levels on the LG were alot better than I had expected. Overall it's a very good LCD but just missing a few things from making it perfect and this coming from someone who is really picky about things like that. Seems the Samsungs are pretty much in the same ballpark I would say.

All in all I agree with your summary, they both seem good enough not to warrant a switch just for the sake of getting another make unless there 's a specific defect.

One thing I had been suspecting was that the current/recent batch of Samsungs seemed to have gotten better and the comparison pics here seemed to have lend credence to that.

 

Fignuts, thanks for the info. I updated to the latest drivers and played around with the the driver settings. I prefer my contrast and digital vibrance a bit higher than your liking, but so far the display looks much much better, so thanks again!

just one more little questions, you said you have the same dark area down by the clock that I do, is there a way that you can take a picture of this area or do you think it wouldn't show up in a photo?

My dark area is about 5mm x 5mm square starting at the lower right hand corner of the display.

thanks

 

Here ya go, I've attached macro pictures of the lower left and lower right corners of my Samsung LCD panel, for comparison. The "darkness" in the lower right corner seems to change in size and luminosity with the viewing angle. At some angles it is more prominent, at others it's not visible at all. /shrug

 

thanks, I guess that's sorta how mine looks, althought its hard to tell because I have just the regular task bar up, I don't know what window you had up when you took those shots, as I don't see the clock display.

I know what you mean about the darkness changing with angle. If I move my head to the right and look at the monitor from that angle the dark area really shrinks down to almost nothing. If I move my head to the left, the dark area seems to stretch more towards the center of the screen.. If I put my head higher than the lcd, then the dark area seems to go away too. But looking straight on the dark area is most prominant.


I wonder how this dark area happens, it seems that most samsung displays have this issue.. I wonder why..

 

For those pictures, I just resized the taskbar to the smallest size (so only the top part of it shows), launched notepad, and maximized it. I found the dark area showed up a bit better like this, than just with the taskbar.

I think the following formula explains the dark area:

((Samsung - LG) ^ WSXGA+WXGA) * 15.4" / Unicorns = dark lower right corner

 

You forgot to carry over the chicken. B+

 

ah that clears it up now.. duh should of know that formula