Exchanging displays...

Would it be possible to replace the display of the T500/W500 with the Flexview IPS screen from the IBM Thinkpad T60? The screen size is the same (15.4 inches). I'm just worried that it won't fit that well with the screen bezel...

The Flexview IPS screen is amazing! I wonder why they stopped making these displays for notebooks. They're expensive, but I bet there are some people who would pay the premium to get a quality display.

It's so hard to find a QUALITY display these days...

 

I've never seen a 15.4" IPS screen. I don't think they exist. My T60p screen is a 15.0" screen.

 

That's too bad. Is it possible to purchase a T60 and update the components? Which components can be upgraded?

It seems that you have a IBM Thinkpad T60. How is the screen quality?

P.S. I need a notebook with a high-quality display. I have a few on my list so far...

HP Elitebook 8730w (Dreamcolor display)
Dell Precision M4400 (RGB display)
Sony FW series (Hi-color display)
Lenovo W700 (great display, too bulky)

Any other notebooks you can suggest?

 

Yes, you can upgrade the components to a certain extent - RAM, hard drive, CPU are pretty much the only things you can upgrade. You cannot just stick in any CPU, though, it has to be compatible.

And I believe the T60 screen is non-widescreen? If so, it will not be possible to put it in a T500.

 

The FlexView was 15" standard (4:3) screen only, so it's not possible.

They don't make IPS panels for notebooks anymore as it's not profitable... and why they would when they could make money by selling ice-age (compared to desktops) TN rubbish and fool people with WLED backlight, RGB-LED backlight.. whatever backlight. You could expect to see MAGIC-LED backlight very soon, it would have ultra-mega-hyper-amazing color gamut and produce out-of-this-world colors that you couldn't even see.

Anyway, this topic has been beaten to death many times, I myself posted enough about it (even in your thread about the HP 8530), so there's nothing new to debate here really. The IPS technology is pretty much dead for the notebooks industry (tablets are the only exception for obvisous reason) at this point. Sooner or later, we may see OLED screens for notebooks but they still have a long way to go, and we could only hope that this technology wouldn't allow manufacturers to produce utter garbage as most of the notebooks screens these days.

As to the current notebooks, you can try you luck with the RGB-LED backlight screens (both HP and Dell has good return policy anyway), but you as you may know they need calibration and adjustments since most applications can't handle wide gamut, still those screens are probably your best option since they use better TN panels. Btw, "DreamColor" is a marketing name that HP uses for RGB-LED displays, so that's the same that Dell offers in their Precision M6400 with the only difference that Dell offer it in both matte and glossy versions while HP sells only the matte version.

The Sony FW Hi-Color (dual CCFL) display has some issues with bleeding and uneven backlight, so go and check it out in person and see if that bother you or not, at least that's easy with Sony.

 

Sounds good...Would a CPU like the new Centrino 2 work? Would the graphics card be upgradeable as well? Thanks.

 

I couldn't agree with you more. I was particularly interested in HP's Elitebook 8730w because of its "DreamColor" display. It costs $400 more and I'm not really sure its worth it now. The Dell Precision M4400 also has a reasonably good display. Thanks for your advice.

So, most notebooks if not all have TN displays. CCFL and LED are just the back light and there are different variants. The TN LED displays usually offer the best screen quality, right?

However, what interests me the most is the IBM Thinkpad T60 with the Flexview IPS screen. I am willing to upgrade the components. The screen-quality is the most important thing for me.

 

All notebooks use TN panels, the quality of the TN panel that is used in the particular display is the main determining factor for its image quality. The backlight itself doesn't guarantee you quality. The different types of backlights have their pros and cons... I won't go in details as it doesn't matter much at the moment.

The RGB-LED backlight screens (or Dreamcolor as HP says) use better (much batter than most) TN panels, that what's the most important, and then the RGB backlight offer a wide color gamut, which means more natural colors, and which is a nice extra especially in color managed applications like Photoshop.

This gives a general idea (15.4" MBP with WLED vs 17" M6400 with RGBLED - both glossy)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4311761&postcount=8

...

You can't upgade the video card in the T60p, it's soldered to the motherboard. Also, keep it mind that the FlexView is the typical 200 nits, so it's fine but it won't be very bright, especially compared to 300-400 nits displays that we see today, just so you know. You could look at the Mandrake's review in his signature, there are many pictures there.

 

No, I do not believe a Centrino 2 CPU will work in the T60. Also, the graphics card is soldered onto the motherboard (as it is on almost all laptops), so it is not upgradable.

 

Someone over on ThinkPads.com did take a board from a 14" T61 and put it a 15" T60p. So it had the IPS screen along with a Penryn CPU. I think a high skill level is a given. I don't know what you're doing, but certainly a T60(p) with a Core 2 Duo is a very good setup. The best part is you can get one for a lot less than one of the newer machines you listed. The IPS screen is the best notebook screen ever made. My T42 had it. I've seen none better. While the newer offerings are better than most of the crap you see nowadays, none offer the viewing angles of the IPS, which looks the same no matter how you look at it. Check out Mandrake's review of the T60p to see what I mean.

 

An upgraded T60P is probably your best bet.

Another option would be an x61 Tablet or x200 Tablet. Both of these have IPS Flexview (actually FFS and AFFS+ respectively) displays of very high quality. The downside of the tablets is that they are not particularly upgradeable (CPU is soldered) and the GPU is integrated.

Tablets (except for the ultracheap HP models) still use IPS technology because viewing angles are very important (especially when used in portrait mode).

 

When I first bought my T60p I did a review, it's in my sig.

As far as upgrading I have bought bigger hard disks, more ram and I would want to go to a C2D T7400 or T7600 proc but they aren't sold anymore. My only option I can see right now is ebay and I hate buying from them.

My wife uses a Sony FW 290CTO with the FullHD display. Color reproduction is really good. Viewing angles are just OK and black seem blotchy but I believe that is a side affect if the 2-CFFL backlit screens. If you want to see side by side pictures of both screens I can do it after work.

 

Just to finish the RGBLED topic since that's quite debated lately.

TN + RGBLED backlight is a combination that exists solely for marketing purposes as no fancy backlight could fix some of the major drawbacks that TN technology has -- lack of viewing angles resulting in poor color uniformity across the screen, and some other inconsistencies... Especially when superior technologies such as IPS and even *VA do exist and they used to be available for notebooks. To make it even worse they advertise them as "photographer's dream" rolleyes , which is wrong on so many levels that I don't even what to start about that...

Still, those screens are a significant improvement compared to the complete rubbish that has been in most of the notebooks after the IPS displays were phased out, and are probably the best you could get with the current notebooks.

Below are the threads about the problems with the "wide gamut" screens I mentioned before, and that's important as most people don't have colorimeters, but some people already posted color profiles, which solves part of the problem, but still some adjustments are required.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=334227&page=4
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=331809&page=3

 

Does the HP 2730p tablet use an IPS display? People are saying a lot of good things about that tablet...

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I wouldn't mind.

The HP specs page here says it has UWVA, which would lead me to believe the 2730p has some form of it, but I have no firsthand knowledge. The only ones I know have it are the ThinkPad tablets and the Fujitsu T tablets.

 

I am finding it difficult to dig up a concrete answer to that (most manufacturers don't like to list screen specs [the x200T has it buried in the middle of a single line in the gargantuan tabook]).

However, because this is an EliteBook model, I would say it probably has an IPS/FFS display. HP is mostly cutting corners on their cheap Pavilion Tablets (e.g. TX2). Ironically, the HP consumer tablets have the best GPU (Radeon HD3200) to go with the worst screen.

I found this HP spec-sheet for the 2730P. However, it is very light on screen specifics (no listing of nits, IPS/TN/FFS, matte/glossy, 6-bit/8-bit, gamut, etc.). It instead prefers buzzwords that have no real meaning (e.g. IllumiLite).

Additionally, I'm not sure what, if any, advantages the HP 2730P offers over the x200 Tablet. The HP only supports 1.8" HDD/SSD (the x200 supports high speed 2.5" HDD/SSD), both have the same x4500GPU and 45nm Montevina CPUs, a 1280x800 display (quality of the HP is not verified), similar ports/docking options, and the HP w/ 6 cell is intermediate in weight between the x200 Tablet w/ 4 and 8 cell batteries, the HP has a 95% keyboard vs. a great full size keyboard on the x200.

 

HP has a pretty decent and detailed documentation about their business notebooks, it's better than most.
- http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13097_na/13097_na.html

The 2730p probably uses same sort of IPS considering the viewing angles (175/175), Illumi-Lite is HP's term for LED backlighting, the have used it for a while. Also, there is an option for "outdoor view" but that only adds additional layer to the screen, the benefits of which are debatable (and have been debated) since the screen is still 200 nits, and this layout usually makes the screen look grainy as a side effect.

So if anything, the X200t has an optional 285 nits screen.


Otherwise, you will find more information in tablets forums, there are many videos, reviews, side by side comparisons and of course owners.

 

OK, I threw some pics up on shutterfly http://fwt60p.shutterfly.com/. The Sony is much brighter and can hold it's own as far as viewing angles. The T60p has a cleaner look more evenly distributed picture and top notch viewing angles. The FW's LCD is so bright that my flash didn't go off when pointing directly to it. If you want to see anything else let me know.

 

Thanks for the pics. I'm not a brightness whore. My R60, which could probably stand to remedial brightness school, looks fine to me on the top few notches. What I don't like is the sweet spot for viewing angles on it is so thin it's difficult to see the entire screen at the optimum viewing angle, though it's only a 14" notebook. Either the top or the bottom looks good, but seemingly never both. That Sony does look pretty nice. I'll have to check it out.