Screen Light Leakage - A8Js & other models too

Alright, I've posted a bit about the light leakage. I took about 50 photos with different exposure settings and selected a representative sample that I think depicts the amount of leakage I'm experiencing with my A8Js. It was tricky though because checking the images was compounded by the leakage effect itself. The blueish cast in the leakage is not blue in real life, just an even grey.







Here are a few video clips too:

vid1
vid2
vid3

I really don't have a good grounds for comparrison, given that I've never owned a laptop before. Let me know what you all think of this, post your own pictures, etc...

 

it wants a login

 

it asks me for a u of m password.

 

I've seen a lot of new 14" laptops lately with light leakage down at the bottom. Methinks it has something to do with the hinge assembly not allowing proper seating of the backlight/LCD assembly. Or just poor manufacturing of a very common LCD... Long story short, you're not alone.

The review of the e1405 here at NBR has a very similar screenshot showing light leakage in the same area. Anybody know what screen assembly they use in the A8Js?

I have to say, that's a very fine screen otherwise.

EDIT:
My e1405 had the same light leakage problem, btw.

 

I can login (even though I don't go there - haha) but the pictures just aren't showing up...

~ Brett

 

Sorry, I moved the images to the right spot on the public drive. Should be resolved now.

Everest reports that the monitor is AUO1247 (AU Optronics) model B141PW01 V2, which I think is the same as in the e1405 (saw in another thread).

The light leakage is there, but unless I can gaurntee a fix, I'm not going to bother sending it away, it really isn't very noticable when I'm actually using applications or playing games.

 

Its over emphasized due to the whole room being pitch dark, if it was in broad daylight...


It could be worse:



But yea, Light leakage is on most LCDs, due to the lack of backlighting(for obvious reasons), and it won't be til the new gen LCD panels will leakage be, hopefully, nulled.

 

same manufacturer as most screens used on the e1405 but not the same model.

Dont use dell as a guideline they have a horrible return rate. They produce laptops on a whole different scale and the same part will have more defects in a dell.

 

Later this evening I'll post photos of my Dell 2005FPW 20.1" widescreen monitor. I know it's not a notebook but nevertheless it will show that even most best made desktop LCDs might have light leakage.

It is unavoidable issue with LCDs, some manufacturers deal with that better, some less good.
As for myself, light leakage doesn't bother me that much as long as it's in decent limits...

 

Here's photo of my Dell 2005FPW:




As you can see, there is a light leakage in bottom left corner (more) and in bottom right corner (less).

 

I noticed a lot of light leakage when they put a Z96J screen in my Z96JS. In fact, it was almost exactly like yours peekaboom , if not a little worse. I'm not sure of the exact model since I got it taken out of the machine before leaving the shop since the J has a max res of 1280x and a JS has 1680x. I noticed a bit of it on one of the replacement JS screens they gave me, but not much at all and nothing near what you have there. I got a new Z96JS unit because of the screen flicker issue, and it is perfect with no light leakage at all, no dead pixels and now no flicker. But there are definitely some screens that are better or worse than others...and to me this is as bad if not worse than a dead pixel imho..

Cat

 

Ok well peekaboom

I would say your screen has a defect. They are not all like that no. 14 inch screens dont just leak light in the middle if they did who would buy one? Some of what is being said is just wrong.

Its not bad just like you say. Because its in the middle.

If all the a8js screens were like that would that mean its ok? No it means they all have to be returned.

I would live with it actually however if you are not decide quick while the return is quick and easy. A few months from now asus will have reason to say it is not a manufacturing defect.

I mean lets be clear, that is a manufacturing defect. You paid full retail for the product expecting it to be free of defect so you are within your rights to get a defect free screen or a full refund.
You understand that and you want to keep it then correct?

 

i don't think mine has the sort of blooming effect in the bottom center of the screen, but i'm not sure if that's just due to the photo or actually peekaboom's screen. the light leakage in mine is fairly even across the bottom of the screen. and i think my Dell 2005 FPW monitor was worse than the picture of Matta's on the first page, but again, i do think it's hard to tell from photos. and please don't ask me for photos, i don't have a camera at my dorm, not even a phone camera.

 

Note that the picture is taken in a pitch dark room, it is quite expected for light leakage to be so emphasized, there are too many variables to tell. However, if you feel like returning it, feel free to, perhaps theres a chance for a better screen. Best of luck!

 

It would ne nice if some of the resellers could comment on this issue, as they probably have the best sense of what is normal as far as light leakage is concerned.

I don't have any frame of reference, and sharring photos of our screens is not a very effective means of conveying the issue (if there is one).

I guess my position is that:

A) I don't know how good/bad the leakage is on my screen, it seems everyone reports some amount of leakage,

B) I have no idea how likely it is that if I go through the hoops and send this in for a screen replacement that it will actually be fixed (i.e. maybe ALL the screens on this model have this problem),

and C) is ASUS going to replace the whole unit if I send it in, I already have put a lot of time into setting up this machine and am actively using it as my main computer.

Anyone care to comment on those points? I'm going to stick with the a8js regardless of any light leakage, so basically the question is, is it worth it to send it in and have it looked at?

 

well you can see the acer screen in a lighted room that coriolis showed and its all over the screen and the bottom 10 pixels are invisible.

So it gets much worse

as far as frame of reference well thats why you posted your screen. When we get more screens in we will see whats going on. You were the first guinea pig.
If a lot of a8jm users took pictures of their screens it would be helpful too.

 

peekaboom, my A8Js has exactly the same light leakage that your pictures illustrate. In regular use, I don't find it to be problematic, but again, just like you, I have no reference points and would like to see some resellers comment on whether this kind of light leakage is to be expected. I might even take my machine back to Milestone and see what they say. Might be interesting to compare with some of their in-store models.

When I find some time I'll try to take some pictures.

 

Jabba, if you take in to the Milestone shop let us know what they have to say about it.

 

Why don't you go back to your reseller and compare your A8Js' screen with the W3J's. You'll find that W3J has much less glare and also much less light leakage at the bottom (but still not non-existent if you crank up the brightness to full). That was one reason why I chose W3J over A8Js. Just check it out in person and you'll see.

 

I have had a few laptops and a Dell 2005FPW that have suffered from light leakage. Maybe I'm just not that sensitive to it, but I don't find it to be a huge issue. I think every A8Js is going to have some light leakage, considering its price point and value. My current laptop, a Macbook, suffers from about as much as his A8Js and I never noticed until I installed Bootcamp and the Windows XP loading screen appeared.

 

I am expriencing road noise with my brand new tires. You think thats normal? If i have no said it before i ll say it again. 90% of all screens i have seen have light leekage. Give it a rest. If you cant deal with it go to best buy and start digging through laptops to find one of 10 that does not have leekage. Does light leekage make the screen any worse outside an all black background?

 

Eddie,

I was waiting for someone to say that. My sense all aong has been that the light leakage from my screen was within the normal range, and that most screens exhibit some amount of leakage.

Anyway, I'm officially done worrying about it, I like this laptop and it isn't worth the headache debating whether or not my screen has a problem. That fact is that the resolution is great, its very sharp, its vivid, the viewing angles are not all that bad, and there is a little light leakage. Nothing is perfect, but this laptop as a package comes close.

 

I'm sorry that I can not post pictures of my A8Js screen. Like Seajewel, I do not have a digital camera with me at the moment. However, I can say that I am experiencing a similar degree of light leakage.
Personally, I feel that the restricted viewing angle is more of an annoyance than the light leakage... but neither warrants a return IMHO.

 

I was not trying to be mean. I ve replied to these same threads about a thousand times. Like i said above. I consider it abnormal if i see a screen without a degree of light leekage. Out of the 8 lcds that i own now (most at work a few on asus laptops that i use and my fam uses) every single one has light leekage and every single one is different.

 

Thank you Eddie, for being the voice of reason. Every LCD monitor I've used has had light leakage to some extent. Some panels are unacceptably bad, but all panels exhibit this issue to some extent.

People need to take into account that LCD panels have become a commodity item which are mass manufactured. The only way to reliably eliminate light leakage is to have each panel lovingly hand crafted by trappist monks... making them so expensive that very few notebook/monitor manufacturers would use them.

 

Well like I said this is in its infancy.

We will see owners eventually that have bad leakage. And to tell them its normal is telling them to forfeit their rights.

We only have one example and its not bad.

I appreciate eddies opinion definitely but dont you think he has a different frame of reference on it that an owner should?

 

I must confess that I'm having trouble determining exactly what "this" is... You seem to be fixated that the display in the A8Js is going to exhibit bad light leakage without seeing it first hand, or with very many reports of problems from other owners. By your own admission, the one person who has submitted photos of his display so far suggests the problem "is not bad."

Perhaps you should reserve judgement until you receive your A8Js on Friday, then make a decision based on your personal experience.

I'm also not sure exactly what you mean by Eddie having a different frame of reference. As someone who has sold notebooks for several years, he has more experience with the panels used by many different notebook manufacturers... unless you're suggesting that as a vendor, he has a vested interest in actively misleading potential buyers. Based on the many helpful posts Eddie makes here, I don't know how you could reach that conclusion.

 

I agree with you Ted 150% -and Eddie is right. All LCDs exhibit some degree of light leakage (the smaller the panel the worse it is). The Sony Vaio S560P that I'm using to type this reply has uneven light leakage across the bottom of the screen and some at the top -but I never notice it unless I'm looking right at it. Even while watching DVDs I don't notice it cause I'm too busy paying attention to the movie...

 

oh Im sorry.

I think I am saying that lol. I think he has to deal with headaches over this subject so his personal opinion what do you expect?

Oh I hope my lcd is perfect. If it looks like peekabooms Ill live with it and try to ignore it. hehe.

As a matter of fact tedj, there may never be an asus a8js that has bad light leakage. We may never have a picture of one.

You know what? I dont think the nbr asus forum has a picture of an asus notebook with bad light leakage.

If someone has a problem and they want to ask other peoples opinions though the more pictures the more we will know and the more well be able to tell.

I mean if all the lcds look exactly like peekabooms we can rech the point to tell people they all leak light the same way lol and I think thats useful information

When new owners see their lcd for the first time they at least have peekabooms lcd and mine upcoming to look at for reference. If theirs is even more extreme they have a useful reference.
This is something thats pretty frequently done in some of the other manf laptop sites here on nbr and nbf

 

Well, here's my little contribution to this debate. I tried to take some pictures (using various settings on my camera) - not quite sure how well they illustrate the issue. I have no experience with laptop screens, so I can't say if it's good or bad in relation to that. However, my in-laws have a $200 19" Samsung LCD, and even though it's a cheap monitor, it has nowhere near the light leakage of the screen on the A8Js. The leakage on the A8 screen is more reminiscent of the leakage on the 2" screen of my digital camera!

I'm heading up to Milestone one of these days to pick up my router, so I'll bring the lappie and see if I can compare it to others they have in the store.

 

thanks for the pictures jabba. what do you see on windows desktop?

The thing is if my leakage is over the bottom pixels like Ive seen on some screens Im going to exchange it.

your pictures are extremely dark, do you think your leakage is more than peekabooms?

I do I see the leakage over all the way to the left side. With large margin for error of course.

I am concerned enough for you to ask you to take daylight photos of the screen now too

 

i thought from the pictures peekaboom's looks worse, but his was only one picture and as you can see pictures are hardly accurate at showing what the light leakage looks like when you look at the differences in jabba's pictures. in fact, jabba's light leakage looks remarkably similar to mine in his pictures, and it doesn't bother me, but i expect LCDs to have light leakage. you're certainly free to try to exchange to get a close to perfect panel, but i think chances of achieving that are virtually nil.

i think the bigger concern is the viewing angles- looking at text and soforth it looks fine but i did notice when trying to watch a dvd recently that moving to the side can get the black colors distorted pretty quickly.

 

yes i noticed jabbas pictures are different from eachother too.

I was looking at picture 3 which looks extreme because i can literally see splotches in the top right corner and a line all the way to the left side.

what do you think jabba?

 

Just like peekaboom I took a bunch of different pictures using different settings on my camera. I tried ISO 200, ISO 400, and various shutter speeds ranging from 1/8 to 1/200. Due to the glossy screen I found it to be really tricky to take a proper picture without it looking like a mirror! The pictures you see are taken in daylight in my living room with the blinds closed. Obviously no flash is used - that's why they look dark.

stamar, the splotches you see in picture 3 are probably some kind of reflection - the screen is not that bad!

Like Seajewel is saying, I don't think this is a big issue. If I see the same kind of leakage on other laptops (like Eddie is claiming) I'm sure I'd be able to accept it and live with it. It just reminds me why I'm still using a CRT display with my desktop! Haven't been convinced by either LCD or plasma displays (for TV), so I'm waiting for SED.

Btw, I also agree with Seajewel about the viewing angels. They are the real problem with this screen - especially vertically. If my wife and I sit in front of the laptop, working on something together, one of us will suffer. I'm 6'4" and she's 5'3", and there's no way to adjust the display to avoid that one of us will see the screen as a hazy gray. Once you're in the sweetspot it's fine, though.

 

my screen looks just like yours there is leakage in the center bottom.

I have no idea if mine is the same or better or worse I will work on pictures over the next 3 days.

 

It's only something you'd notice on a black background. Not an overbearing flaw and certainly not worth returning if it's your only issue.

Though resellers sure as heck do have a "different prespective" on it as starmar mentioned. They have to deal with complaints and possible returns over it, both of which could ruin any seller's day.

 

Today I went to Milestone and showed them the light leakage. They basically said that it's normal for that kind of screen. Keep in mind that they are obviously not saying this just to avoid doing some warranty work, since the warranty is directly through Asus and doesn't involve them. They told me that I could take it to the Asus service centre (just a few kilometres away) and have them replace the screen for me, but most probably the new screen would be exactly the same. I'm not going to take that chance since the current screen is flawless with no dead/stuck pixels.

As has been mentioned before, the light leakage only really shows up on a black screen, and you wouldn't do any work on a black screen anyway, so I don't see this as a problem.

 

well I can see the leakage on my regular screen too but Im looking for it.

On the tabs at the bottom of windows the one in the middle is a different shade of blue.

 

That is a small light leakage... It looks pretty good to me. All glossy screens look like that. That is because of the back light.... My z70va dint have that much light leakage... That is because its a mate screen and it was not bright at all (Weak Back Light).

Be Happy! Thats how its supposed to be.... If you are unhappy connect it to a external CRT.

I havn't seen a laptop without leakage.

Viewing angles have improved a lot in lcd's, but they are still not perfect.

 

hmmm

well I was going to say my 4 year old sony had no leakage but it was a matte screen so that must be possible.

 

Well I only read up to page 3 of this thread (i'll read page 4 after posting this) but I can say that I have seen 2 different screens (I know it doesn't really mean anything) but the one on my brand new laptop has a fair amount of light leakage. The one on my LG 1970HR 19" desktop lcd screen has no light leakage at all. Not even the little bit on the bottom that you might get on some screens. However it does get that bit of un-uniform color saturation that does tend to appear on the screens. I've already contacted Dell about my laptop screen and explained in an email about it a bit and I will see if they are willing to ship out a new screen under warranty. I'll do the work myself as it isn't too hard (take off the bezel, detact the wires, unscrew it off the base, remove the screen, put the new screen in, screw it on, attach the wires, replace the bezel). However if I have to send it in to get the screen replaced then they can just forget it. I'll live with it.

EDIT: The light leakage is on the bottom and can extend almost half-way up (fading out by the time it reaches there). There is also a little on the upper left and upper right.

Also should note that my LG desktop screen cost me $400. I better not have any light leakage. I guess some on my laptop is acceptable.

 

You should read my post on page 4... ..... i have seen 2 different wuxga 17" dell uses...

One is the samsung... which is very bright and has some light leakage like you describe... and the otherone is an LG which has less light leakage but is really dimm, specially if you vew it from an other angle other than straight forward.

This was my fathers laptop... Initially he got the LG panel... then he got it exanged for a Samsung because it was so dimm... Samsung has much better viewing angles too... I would rather have a bit more leakage, than deal with screens that are not bright.

 

yea. dell wants me to go through some hoops first. I guess I will play. Got to dig up the response email and do what they ask. Also I have a wxga+ screen. not the more expensive wuxga screen.

 

Question about light leakage:

I have just gotten a new A8js. Now, if i use the default XP screensaver to project black background i can see regular light leakage. I think thats pretty normal but I noticed an abnormality.

On the left side of the screen there are 3 spots that go alongside the screen. Those look like little cones or an 45 ankle. It appears as if light sheds out of those ankles. It is very slight and very hard to see. Can you take a moment and try this out for me?? do you see the same things?

Thanks!

 

I don't have 45 cones on my ankle.. but then I don't really understand what you're talking about either.

 

Can some of you post more pictures of theirs screens on black ground for comparison??? thanks!!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=84736&page=37

please read my post on my a8js screen. i posted a picture too

post #368

 

I actually returned two F3sc because of the light leakage and it was about the same as the posted pictures. I probably expect more from a new "quality" computer.. plus my old Acer and my LCD TV doesn't have any light leakage at all... But I'm not going to return the third one...I WANT TO ACTUALLY USE MY NEW COMPUTER!!!