Are you experiencing eye strain with your 15.6" Asus laptop screen? N56JR with 1080?

I have an N56JR with a 1080 res 15.6 screen and I am finding I get eye strain with this laptop. It could be any number of things. It could be:

1) Presbyopia affecting me as I will be 44 this year, and the the smaller, higher resolution screen does have smaller text (compared to the 17" 4:3 lcd's I use at home and work), or it could be;

2) The led backlight (pwm), and/or;

3)The graphics drivers.

I also suspect:

4) Windows 8 and its faint low contrast text. Changing to the high contrast setting is too stark. I wonder if windows 7 would work better on my laptop. I know I'd like it better.

5) Or the screen, despite looking sharp and smooth, somehow has a fuzzy quality to it that is causing eye strain.

My PC at work is an HP with an Intel Core i5-3570S with an Intel HD graphics gpu and an HP L1710 monitor. I can get eye strain with this setup, but only after working and reading the screen for hours during the day. My PC at home was previously an MSI with an AMD64 3000+ and an ancient GEforce2 GTS agp vga card and a 17" Samsung 712n lcd monitor.

Apart from the difference in text size (I experiment with larger text sizes and it may be helping, it may not, hard to say yet)....I hear talk of newer hd graphics drivers causing issues with led backlit lcd monitors. Also some mention that the lcd monitors are being driven with a pwm method which is especially troublesome at lower than max brightness. Driving led's with pwm is essentially similiar to high frequency on/off.

I will trouble shoot at home trying my older 17" lcd monitor (which is of course, larger, lower dpi and cfl backlit).

Is anybody else experiencing eye strain?

 

PWM luminance control can be the culprit, this article on TFT Central is quite... enlightening Your CCFL backlit monitor is probably using the same PWM method, although, as the article explains, fluorescent lamps react differently to this type of control.

 

I agree. I was reading that today. I am concerned that it is the pwm issue. I tried full brightness, but perhaps that is not great either. That could be more than one factor, ie, smaller text due to higher resolution, higher brightness, and/or pwm when lower than full brightness.

I don't know what I can do to improve it. Ditch the laptop? I know I can get an external monitor, but I should be able to use the laptop portably just like it's intended to.

I will raise the size of the text until it is very large to eliminate that variable.

 

On top of the smaller pt text size from the high resolution 15.6" screen and possible pwm led lcd screen issues, I am just realizing that windows 8 text sucks. I am using my 17" lcd monitor that I used with my desktop and the text looks like crap in Mozilla Thundrbird email, exploder, Chrome etc. The Asus laptop screen actually looked smooth, but this looks worse. I wonder is it the card displaying a lower resolution? I am using my screens native resolution but it looks worse than it did with my desktop and XP Pro. I guess I'll cross my fingers and upgrade the windows 8.1. Just have to review the tricks for the nVidia gpu drivers to work. I have stumbled on other people with the poor text issue so hopefully when I upgrade things will look better on the laptop.

 

I have a quick question....I'm curious about your display ports here. I notice that you mention VGA card at home PC. Clarity is much better in a DVI port than a VGA port. I'm sure you are using a DVI port at work. At my work place, I have a laptop dock and 2 ports to support a dual monitors. One is plug into a DVI and the other, a VGA and I notice the difference in clarity.

 

VGA at work and my previous PC was (is) VGA, and yet compared to both, the laptop output to my 17" lcd looks soft/blurry.

 

Well, my sisters lower end windows 7 acer laptop looks worse on its own screen and on its output to my 17" lcd vs my laptops output to my 17" or the 17" at work so there goes the idea that Windows 7 trumps all. I can't rule out pwm issues now. I look at my 17" lcd and I feel ok. I look back at my laptop screen and I feel eye strain regardless of text size. I need to do more testing, but something about this laptop screen itself is bugging me.

 

hmm...are both refresh rate the same htz? Are both on True Colors or High Colors? Have you play around with the Intel Graphics & Media Control Panel (laptop)to adjust anything to your liking?

 

I have not played around with those things. I am returning the laptop. It's too frustrating. The laptop screen is causing me eye strain no matter what I do with brightness level and/or text size. My 17" monitor at home and this one at work, do not cause eye strain. I'll do some research and try again later, preferably at a place that loans out demo laptops.

 

Good Luck in finding your new laptop...too bad it didn't work out for you...

 

You are not the only one frustrated. I don't know what to do neither. The problem is not your laptop, the problem seems to be the Intel Graphic card. Check this out: [Intel-gfx] Eyestrain problems with new Intel drivers

 

hey
i have exactly the same experience as you. I've already posted in different threads like this:
https://communities.intel.com/thread/53309?start=30&tstart=0

I hope to hear from you so we can talk about our experience's and hopefully find a solution. What did you do since the startdate of this thread?

 

Well you can also watch out

https://www.ledstrain.org/

and join the discussion there. You are not alone with your problems.