ASUS to begin using LED backlit Screens

So far the use of LED's as sorces of light in screens has been limited to a few sony models, but now according to this recent report over at DigiTimes
we could expect to see a few ASUS notebooks early next year with LED backlights.

"Asustek Computer and Quanta Computer, have started to volume produce widescreen notebooks that feature LED-backlit LCD displays, indicated Taiwan LED suppliers, who expect that the penetration rate for LEDs in the notebook backlight market will reach 8%, from 2007"​

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Now these screens are brighter? How about are they better on your battery life?

 

ok I read the article, and i remember reading something about this technology about 4 months ago.

This is supposedly called DRIM Technology, and was made for smaller screens like 10" and then suppose to be brought into the mainstream .

DRIM technology, does 3 things basically.

1) Screens will have better brightness and colour.

2) DRIM technology uses more GREEN dots (lcd/leds) which are more natural to our eyes, thus causing increase brightness, colour, and most of all VIEWING ANGLES!!! (You can expect CRT like viewing angles)

3) Saves batterylife, oh yah!! we've been waiting for this for a long time. The website says 30% saving in batterylife compared to the regular LCDs.

Mystery and I have been discussing about laptops and batterylife for some time, we estimated that the LCD on 15.4" screen uses something like 80+ Watts, while the X1600 uses roughly 40 watts, and possibly the X1600 under full load is 60-80watts.

And we know the Yonah uses 31 watts.

All in all if the current LCDs use 80+ watts and if you take out 30% that would leave you with 55-66 watts for the new DRIM LCD technology. Making your batterylife roughly 10-15% more? OR MORE.

This can translate into a minumum of 30mins increase of batterylife and more depending on the screen size and laptop, dedicated GPU or not.

Hope this clears some stuff about this new technology.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Just curious, is DRIM technology the same thing as OLED technology? Im just asking since OLED screens have many similar characteristics such as: they were first used in small screens, they offer better brightness and color, and they use significantly less power.

 

I believe I read a while back that the higher end Sony SZ models already use LED. If this is true, then the SZ should have a much better battery life than it currently has, which I believe with the extended battery is around 3 Hours. I am not sure how many cells the Sony battery has though, nor am I sure whether the LED technology is comparable to the DRIM.

 

OLED or DRIM....we may never be sure on which is which or even if they are the same...remember, all brands call their glossy screens one thing or another lol.

Lets assume DRIM and OLED are the same... either way its a good thing.

I really doubt the Sony SZ is using this new technology, but it could be one of the reason why that series is ungodly expensive for what it is. But then again its Sony.

I say forget about the past, lets look into what new model from all brands, Sony, ASUS, even Dell, that use this new LED technology. However, expect this new technology to come with a price..a hefty one too, because only a small 8% of the market will be using LED technology and thus production costs will be high.

Once the LED technology is mainstream we can expect cost difference between regular and LED screens to be negligable.


Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

See these links regarding Sony's LED implementation, it appears that the backlighting, power consumption and weight were the largest benefits. Some discussion on notebook forums regarding the incorporation of led backlightingon the SZ is in the other link

http://www.club-vaio.sony-europe.com/clubvaio/en/experience/devstory/story_tx_3.jsp

http://www.notebookforums.com/post1600136.html

 

Nice info hox, thanks for the links, so you do pay a hefty premium for these LED backlights lol, ohwell. On paper these benefits are amazing! In real life, from one person on the NBF thread discussed the TX and the SZ series being susceptible to cracks.

Many here know, that the smalelr the screen the thinner the Lid is that houses the LCD. Thus a greater chance of flex and possibly cracking the glass/screen.

On larger laptops there are thicker lids and this helps because there is less flex and a less chance of breakage because of more housing around the LCD itself. This is just in general, and may not hold true to all cases.

I say since LED backlights cost so much, I would rather have the MOST strongest material protecting it, possibly using Carbon Fiber LID because of it beneficial characteristic, or even Titanium like the Leveno and Samsung X60 T series.

 

I seriously doubt that any of the 15.4" panels uses 80+ Watts. The power brick for the 21" I'm staring at outputs 20V with a maximum current of 3.5A. That's a maximum of 70W for a very old desktop 21" LCD.

 

Well, I don't know about DRIM besides what's in this thread, but OLED is an organic panel technology which emits it's own light while also determining color, while LED's are used to backlight existing LCD panels.

LED backlighting does a few things, and you can get a much better overview from an article at Tom's Hardware of a professional S-IPS LCD from NEC which is LED baclit.

1) better colors
Traditional backlights have a colored light, it's inescapable with the technology, and the panels have to be adjusted to compensate for the delta. White LED's are just white, so the color accuracy is left up to the panel and calibration is much easier.

2) more even
You have a lot of little backlights with LED's while traditional backlighting has far fewer lightsources. It's easier to get more smaller lightsources to disperse more evenly than fewer larger ones. This is huge for graphics artists, and all around will make for a more attractive image with a dark screen especially. There's a good comparison of this in the THG article I mentioned above.

3) no dimming over time
LED's last a lot longer and don't dim over time, so the colors stay as accurate and the screen as bright as when you bought it.

4) they're lighter, they're cooler, they consume less energy

5) they allow for thinner screens like on the W7J without resorting to ugly hacks like Asus' vcut tech

The Sony SZ premium models and the Fujitsu Q2010 are the only laptops I know of to use LED's. NEC makes the only desktop LCD I know of with LED's, but I know that Eizo is working on their implementation.

 

Back up a minute here, according to MobileMeter, my computer is Discharging at a rate of 19.5w without wireless, bluetooth, low screen brightness, power saving turned on, 26.4w with full screen brightness, full CPU power, and playing loud music, with a laptop cooler, and wifi and bluetooth. The screen could be at most consuming 10w (half the power when there is still CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD, and everything else the computer needs), so saving 10 percent of that seems to be a very smaill increase in batter life, 5% maybe, or 12 minutes (assuming 4 hour battery life) if I did my math right.

 

I think we need not to assume that using led backlight will automatically make things much more even. In the NEC monitor, the leds are actually placed behind the LCD (that's why it is so THICK!) but in laptop lcds, the white leds are still placed at the edges of the screen so you'll get bleeding as well. Just food for thought and don't assume LED backlighting will solve it all.

 

That's a good point about the LED placement, but it should still be better than vcut I imagine. More like the thickness of a W7J screen but with the eveness of a traditionally and well backlit laptop panel.

OLED's are still a better future, but they're still a ways off in screens this size.

 

I guess to me it sounds like every other technology. It has amazing things to offer, but it just isn't quite there yet. Once they can get the screen thinner and place the LEDs better on the laptop versions, it seems that this will be the screen to have, but it just needs to go through a few versions before it is quite ready.

 

Dell specifications for their notebooks list typical power consumption for their screens. For the 15.4" D820, the typical power is between 5-6 W depending on the panel (scroll down to the 'Display' section). The 17" Precision M90 screen is listed as consuming 7.54 W.

If you take the 15.4" WUXGA screen and reduce the 6W power consumption by 30%, you'll save 1.8W. For a 15.4" incher that can probably save 8-13% of overall power consumption (assuming an original power consumption range at max brightness of 15-22W depending on video card).