Display comparison: HD+ vs FHD

I currently own a T60p with a 1600x1200 @200 nits, and I'm trying to decide which screen to get with my next machine, either a T510 or W510.

It will be either the HD+ (1600x900) or the FHD (1920x1080). Both are LED backlit, as par for today's displays, but the HD+ seems to come with 220 nits and 60% color gamut, while the FHD is, apparently, 270 nits and a 95% gamut (there is also a touch-screen, which I do NOT particularly want, which comes with it seems a 242 nit screen, same 95% gamut).

Can anybody comment on the difference between these two screens, in terms of overall brightness (in both dark and bright ambient lighting), and particularly the color "sensation": is the 95% gamut just "too saturated", as I've read some reviewers say??

My current 200 nit screen on the T60p is not as bright as I would like, as it suffers in a very brightly lit rooms (and outdoors, of course, though I seldom go there); color seems decent enough; not great, but decent.

 

which LCD does your T60p have? UXGA IPS? or the regular 15 inch SXGA+?

From looking at my friend's W510, the FHD is right LCD for movie watching and photoshop work. The HD+ is okay but not brilliant.

The overall brightness of the FHD is also better without the touchscreen, HD+ is good too, compared to my W500.

 

I believe it's the UXGA. It's the "high density flex view", if that helps answer your question. Where can I find out definitively?? I tried looking all over the place yesterday (90 minutes!) but came up empty.

 

If it's the high density flexview 1600x1200, you have what is the best screen for photography work on a laptop ever made, and, sadly, that is likely every to be made (NB: being super bright is of no use to a photographer). You should get the FHD, because everything else will be too big of a step down.

 

one of the biggest complain some people have with the Flexview LCD on the T60 laptops, were that the CCFL backlight dims very fast with age.

 

Lead, I think that was just the 1400x1050 LG-Phillips one. I could be wrong though.

 

@ Set Sail,
You can get a good idea of the mentioned screens specs here (FHD) and here (HD+)

 

I didn't know this flex-view is supposed to be that good(!). I always knew it was pretty good. (Guess I need to get out more and see more different machines.)

It does have very good granularity, I guess that's what it means by "high density", very good detail. What bothers me the most is that all this fine detail is somewhat lost by what seems like a dull screen level of "brightness". Thus, I'm looking for a brighter screen on my next machine, while still keeping the good detail of a higher resolution screen.

 

How does one find out the screen maker's name, short of tearing down the top of the computer??

 

get a HWinfo32 and check the LCD part number, then google the part number it should give an accurate list of the manufacturers.

 

Thanks, lead. Excellent utility! Really good. Wow.

So, it says my monitor is a Lenovo HV150UX1-100. Google took me to: Hyundai-BOEhydis HV150UX1-100 ..... 15" ..... UXGA .... 1600x1200 .... (Matte) .... 1 CCFL. It says also it is a 180 cd/m2, which I guess is 180 nits. So it is even darker than the 200 nits in the lenovo spec sheet.

So, is this a "good" screen? I mean, were there other 1600x1200 high density flex-view screens made for the T60p?? Maybe LG?

 

BOE-Hydis was one of the best display, there was also the IDTech one (maybe that was the QXGA resolution model).

But the IPS CCFL LCD on the T60p does fade with time.

 

The thing is, there are screens that will look better to the eye, but they are not as good for photography because they do not give you an honest representation, even after calibration, of what the image actually looks like.

 

Does this fading continue until total fade-out, or does it level off at some point?

 

i would imagine it would continue.

 

Would that be the difference between the screen I have (CCFL LCD) and the newer backlit LCDs, including the RGB ones?

 

I see. No way to rejuvenate screen itself, outside of course replacing it with a whole new unit?

 

you can replace the CCFL backlight, it is the the backlight aging process that is causing the dimming, and not the liquid crystal panel component.

But it is slightly complicated, and you have to setup a clean environment to do it in, otherwise dust particles may get in the LCD panel.

 

Got it.

I wonder if the new back light could be gotten with a 20-30% increase in cd/m2 output??

 

LED backlighting has its benefits (longer lifespan, and I think it uses less energy too, but that could be wrong), but it also has the downside of naturally tending towards blue. This can be calibrated out with a monitor calibrator, though to get rid of it totally usually takes a more expensive calibrator (it uses a different kind of sensor).

You can buy a new Boe-Hydis for ~$150. I know you mentioned the possibility yourself, but I thought I'd mention it because I know the price is a lot cheaper than I thought it would be.

 

Yes, I believe LED backlighting does use less power; that's the marketing hype I've been reading anyway.

Do any machines have something like "self-calibration"??

$150 sounds about right. The entire screen set goes for about 5 bills: HV150UX1-100 Hyundai-BOEhydis 15" UXGA (Matte) (1 CCFL backlight) LCD Screens, (New) most screens $345 to $455

For just the Boe-Hydis backlight I wonder if I could get one a bit brighter than the OEM? And, if so, would it mess up the rest of the components (burn something out, etc.)??

 

LED backlight does use less power (not by much), but the biggest benefit of the LED is that it lasts 100,000 hours rather than the 20,000 hrs for most CCFL backlight. Also, there is the advantage of no mercury, which is used in the CCFL.

However, most of the good quality IPS LCD uses a wide gamut CCFL, which is only matched by the more expensive RGB LED backlight system.

There is no self calibration feature on laptop LCD at the moment AFAIK, this is only available on desktop LCD.

 

1. Would you say the LCD on my T60p is a "good quality IPS"?

2. Do you think I could get a new backlight for my current screen, but one that is brigther?? Or would that mess up the other components, even if such an animal existed??

 

When you say, it "fades with time", what exactly does it mean? Is it like it becomes dimmer and dimmer will the passage of time considered in terms of number of hours of up-time?

 

If you're into photography, the dreamColor2 displays available from HP are the best in a notebook. Otherwise i'd go for the FHD Lenovo option

 

You can get that colorimeter built into the palmrest of the W7xx (and maybe the W5xx? I didn't check and don't remember)

No, I meant $150 for an entire screen. They're on ebay.

 

Isn't the deamColor2 IPS as opposed to AFFS of the Boe-Hydis?

 

Yes, I've seen those, at least on the 17". Don't think they come on the 15", unless maybe the touch-screen.

!!! Wow. Original manufacturer?? New or used?? ... oh, I'll just take a look myself ...

Thanks for the heads up. Now, if I can find one that's running at more than 200 nits ... and if it won't mess up my rig .... you could be talking with one happy camper!

 

Boe Hydis 15" Flexview UXGA LCD panels (HV150UX1-100) - eBay (item 150448538243 end time Jun-26-10 11:07:22 PDT)

I bought one from him and it's in my T60, but I had the old 1400x1050 LG-Phillips flexview before. There weren't that many variations of a 15" AFFS screen for laptop made, so I doubt you'll find anything rated at a higher brightness.

 

1. Your new one is this BoeHydis, and it's different from the LG-Philips?? Two different companies then.

2. How does this new one compare with your old one? I assume your new res is 1600x1200, but what about quality of the display itself, brightness and clarity, did you check the nits??

3. Did you change out the screen yourself? Hard/easy to do?

 

Yes, Boe-Hydis is not LG-Phillips.
The old was was very dim and yellow by the time I replaced it (a couple weeks ago), but the LG-Phillips I'm told are notorious for this.

It's not that hard to replace, just be careful removing the little screw-cover stickers or have some spares on hand. Also pay attention to how the side-frames are mounted to the screen and how the wifi antennas as placed BEFORE you take it all apart.

 

it would take at least couple of thousand of hours before it will start to fade. But if you use your laptop a lot, this could occur within the first year or so.

 

I have the LG-Philips (LP141WX5-TLP2) screen, which seems to be alright for the moment (though the machine is a new one). But in light of what lead_org says, my machine is on (and active) for over 18 hours a day! OTOH, the LG-Philips screen is the LED one and not the CCFL one and from what I have been reading here that seems to make some sort of a difference - hopefully, a positive one.

 

Mine has held up very well, imo. Now four years old, running 10-16 hours a day for most of these years. I do shut down the screen display whenever I'm not using it, or I just go to standby. My *only* issue with the screen is it doesn't have the level of brightness I'd like; it's about 50 to 100 nits too dim. Other than that, it's a great screen.

OK, I'll remember that, thanks. I also saw some diagrams/pictures of the screen on the web, maybe useful.

 

Yeah, I was going to say I've been hearing good things about LG screens lately. Maybe they had a re-birth when they went from the CCFL screens to the LEDs(?). Don't LG screens generally get good reviews recently?

 

So I have read at some places. But having nothing to compare it with, I would not really know. Maybe more experienced folks like lead_org and others can fill us in.

 

in the normal TN arena, the LG LCD does get a thumb up as compared to Samsung.

Not sure about the non-TN LCD, but if you look up their manufacturing capacity, then you would know they also manufacture the H-IPS used in medium priced IPS monitors, i.e. 27 inch iMac.

 

OK, lineS, thanks for your feedback.

 

Thanks, Aikimox. Sorry for the late acknowledgment. Those links help!

 

Many thanks!! Learn something new every day, sometimes more than once a day!

 

Gotta say, some of you guys took me to school. I never really appreciated the greatness I've got in this high-density flex-view BOE-Hydis screen I've got. It really *does* have amazingly accurate color reproduction; photos come out beautiful. I'm gonna kiss her good-night from now on.

The thing that got me going on this is I just attended a seminar where there were about 300 laptops all around me, and damn if almost all those other screens were not all *significantly* brighter than mine. There were a lot of Samsungs, HPs, Macs, a few Toshibas and Thinkpads (newer than mine), some Sony's .... mostly all consumer grade, and mostly all with glossy screens, and almost all making my puppy look dark and dull. Felt like I was still living in the Dark Ages, literally.

Plus, during down-time, a lot of these machines were running videos/movies, and the pictures looked really easy to see, eye-poppingly bright, while my box screen still looked like it had a haze covering it. I know it's a matte screen, and has lost maybe 20-25% brightness over the 4 years I've been using it, but these newer machines and screens looked *so damn good*!!!

Anyway, I don't watch too many movies, so I guess I'll survive. Until I get that w510 with FHD!!!

 

Some of the Lenovo W series (possibly others as well) have an option to include Pantone color sensors which auto-calibrate the screen to correctly show color. The following text in blue was cut & pasted from the product description pop-up on the Lenovo site.

[The] "Pantone display calibrator will analyze how the laptop display emits color and will modify your individual display to show true color over the lifetime of the laptop."

 

Thanks, Swede. I had seen that Pantone calibrator mentioned in the specs Lenovo is putting out. Wonder how good it is(?).