Is a FHD screen right for me?

I'm looking at either a T520 or W520 with the FHD (1920 x 1080) screen upgrade. I'll be using the laptop primary for web design purposes, so lots of Web browsing and graphics apps (Fireworks) use; not so much DVD/video or gaming.

I have two questions:

1. Can anyone confirm that the FHD screen can be profiled to sRGB so that my color work is appropriate for the majority of Web users? I'm assuming so, but haven't seen anything explicit.

2. If raw pixel resolution were not the reason to get the FHD screen, would the HD+ 1600x900 screen option be of equal quality for *sRGB* color work? I don't need the FHD for the accuracy of calibrating color spaces to print or other output options, just Web.

Thoughts and opinions are appreciated - thanks!

 

welcome to the forum!

you will need to manually adjust color vibrancy in the nvidia control panel to reduce the effect of the wide gamut for sRGB work.   it's a very nice panel for a TN notebook display but i would find it difficult to live off of for 100% of my paid workflow.   in fact, if you're getting paid to design, consider investing in an external display.   no notebook panel from any manufacturer past or present can compare with a good external monitor from NEC or Eizo.   that's the honest truth.

you'll want the FHD display simply because the HD and HD+ options are lackluster at best.   if your eyesight can't handle the FHD's 140 PPI then you'll be working on an external display anyway.   i personally couldn't imagine my entire workflow crammed into 1600x900 pixels.   that's simply not enough room.

fwiw, i've been designing websites since circa 1994 and still do it as a hobby.   i've been using photoshop since version 2.0.

 

HD+ Display:
Maximum: 231 cd/m²
Average: 193.8 cd/m²
Brightness Distribution: 70 %
Black: 0.33 cd/m²
Contrast: 670:1

FHD Display:
Maximum: 219 cd/m²
Average: 207 cd/m²
Brightness Distribution: ?
Black: 0.33 cd/m²
Contrast: 627:1

I found this information from Review Lenovo Thinkpad T520 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews and Lenovo ThinkPad W520 Keyboard, Touchpad and Screen .

It appears that, besides the resolution and color gamut, the two screens have similar specs.

 

Thanks, asp. If I were to, as erik suggests, use an external monitor as a second display in my "plugged in" work environment, that would mitigate the need for the extra pixels of the FHD display and the reviews/numbers suggest that the HD+ display would be acceptable for sRGB work as part of my combo display or as a primary display in the 5-10% of the time that I'm "unplugged".

I'm just trying to understand if the numbers "lie" and there's an appreciable quality difference even if the FHD were displaying at HD+ resolution.

 

>> you'll want the FHD display simply because the HD and HD+ options are lackluster at best.

@erik: In considering your comment above further -- if I were to use a second display - which is likely, would you still recommend getting the FHD as the primary display for the laptop screen, or get the HD+ and apply the $200 savings toward another configuration item? From the review links that asp provided, it appears that the HD+ screen covers sRGB well enough to use it for proofing sites in a web browser.

 

if you only intend to do soft proofing and check your work later on an external display, the HD+ display would be ok.   even the FHD display needs desaturated to match the sRGB color space so none of the options are perfect in my opinion.   the biggest decision at that point would be if 1600x900 is enough area for you to work when mobile.

 

Thanks for the quick reply - I'll only be truly mobile 5-10% of the time, so I think I can live with that constraint. I may eventually do what I have at my day job, which is drive two ext displays (w/T400) and just leave the laptop closed.

 

I have an FHD display on mine with a color calibrator. Once you have a profile setup you can set any color managed app to proof correctly without dinking with the nvidia control panel. It works pretty good. I also use Firefox with a plugin that loads my color profile so that all website display correctly as well. I think that the FHD with a calibrator will be more accurate than the HD+ can get. At the same time however given your setup of mostly using an external it's probably not critical. I do love the FHD though! I've seen an HD+ and I'm glad I got the FHD.

 

Thanks, infinus. I went ahead and ordered a T520 with the HD+ display. Now I have three weeks to second guess myself! LOL.

 

This is what I was looking for, thanks!

 

The only real issue I've had is in relation to the hybrid graphics. The way the profiles work is that on startup, Windows will load the graphics cards LUT (Look up table) with the right color values to use for your profile. There's an Intel utility however that runs in the background and constantly wipes this LUT table everytime the screen turns on from an off state, or when the graphics card in use changes. I can't remember the name of that program, I'm not on my machine currently, but you can use msconfig to stop it from starting up (I don't think it's used for anything else from reading other forum posts) and it'll stop taking over your LUT table.

I have a spyder 3, and the spyder has a utility that sits in the background and reloads the LUT every minute or so, so this wasn't a huge issue, but it was annoying until I figured out what was doing it. Everytime I'd get on my machine the colors would be reset to default and then get reset to my profile by the spyder utility after a small delay. Now that I've killed that Intel utility I've had no further issues.