NP300 15.6 LED Antiglare display strains my eyes

Hello I have very serious problem with my new Samsung NP300E5Z Silver laptop. The display causes strain and discomfort in my eyes after only 10-15 minutes work. It happens at any brightness level. I think there is something wrong with samsung's refresh rate even though both laptops run at 60Hz:

I made a clip, comparing my NP300 and my mom's dell d620

Comparison between the displays of Samsung NP300E5Z and Dell Latitude D620 - YouTube

I made a quick browse in the local technomarket, but only this model shows moving lines across the screen and coincidently cause discomfort in my eyes.
Do you think I can claim the laptop has a faulty display and return it to Samsung?

 

There's definitely something wrong. First, I would recommend that you try the 50Hz refresh rate. Then try reinstalling the display driver (first check if there is a newer version).

John

 

Hi, John. Thanks for the reply. The adapter only allows 60Hz setting. Moreover I don't think it's driver specific issue, because it happens in Ubuntu and other linux distros. I think the display has very low quality....and there is something wrong with the refresh rate..I've read that LCDs shouldn't have this flickering issue.CRT-like flicker can be caused by the backlighting. So i tried to play with the backlighting and the flicker disappears at brightest level 7/7, but returns on lower levels. Do you think I could get my money back from samsung?

 

Your mention about brightness reminds me that I have seen a little flicker on some other LED backlit displays at very low brightness settings (and too dim for normal usage). This is because the brightness control is done by switching the LED backlights on and off (at least at the lower brightness levels). The basic LCD display is permanently on and the refresh rate is how often any changes are written to the screen.

That you can see the same problem in Ubuntu discounts it being a driver issue and points to a hardware problem. I think that you are right to push for repair / replace / refund depending on how long you have had the machine. Samsung support may want you to reinstall Windows to confirm it isn't a driver problem but if you are lucky and talk to one of the better people and explain that the problem also occurs in Ubuntu then they may let you off jumping that hurdle.

John

 

After doing some research I came to a conclusion that the problem resides in the LED backlighting...It seems the flickering is common with LED, especially at lower brightness level, but definetely the problem is more pronounced in some notebooks and less in others. In the case with my laptop - i can see the flikering with a cam even at 6/7 brightness, but other models show flickering in very very low brightness level, so they practically don't cause eye strain. On wednesday I'll try to negotiate a refund from samsung, even though I've used it for a week now...or I'll sell it...