W3V screen questions

I have yet more questions about my w3v, particularly regarding the screen. Overall I am very impressed with the screen. However, I am new to laptops, so I'm not quite sure what falls into the range of normal for laptop lcd's, and I have a few questions.

1) When I turn down the screen brightness to the lowest 1-3 settings, the screen is unevenly lit - it's brighter on the right side. This doesn't seem noticable at higher brightness levels. Now I won't usually be using these levels as you can't see the screen unless the room is very dark, but I don't know if this implies an intrinsic problem with the screen.

2) I know people have commented on the limited vertical viewing angles, but it seems more limited than I would expect. When browsing the net or working with text, it's not too noticeable, but with pictures and video very slight shifts from 90 degress result in significant changes in color saturation, contrast, and brightness. Again, not a big deal, but want to make sure this is normal.

3) I briefly had a Toshiba Tecra A4 with Trubrite (I returned it) and felt the color saturation just about matched my FD Trinitron CRT. While the W3V is very good and better than most, the colors are a little washed out. I know I'm probably expecting too much from a laptop LCD, but just checking.

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for any replies.

 

I see the same (1,2 & 3) with my W3A (same hardware except for the GPU).

100% brightness results in the colours washing out. I use a maximum of around 75%-80% brightness, although PowerGear keeps pushing it back to 100% when moving from battery to mains power.

PowerGear or the BIOS should have a default brightness for mains power operation.

John

 

I have looked at every screen imaginable in the last couple of weeks with the exception of the W3V (which I am interested in) mainly because I can't find any place close to me that carries one I can look at (I live in South Jersey near Philadelphia). The screen that I liked the best that seemed to have the best and most consistent viewing angles and the best color saturation were the Sony vaio screens. This by far is one of the most important laptop features to me. I will try to look at the W3V screen as soon as possible but I can tell you this.....even the XBRITE screen on the Sony seems to dim at the edges. Even at the highest brightness. It never looks washed out....but it definitely isn't as strong at the edges as it is in the center. Regarding why it would be on one side only......could be a defect.

HP ZV5220US 15.4"WXGA 512MB RAM 60GB HD AMD XP+ 3000 8lbs. (heavy)

 

1. mine is perfectly evenly lit up except for the first tick mark, which basically turns off the LCD so I won't even count that. I've seen many LCD's where at dim levels the backlight diffusion is horrible. It might not matter on desktop LCD's but I'm thankful the W3V has even lighting even at the 3rd tick. I often use low levels to squeeze every ounce of battery power.

2. I've commented long ago about the limited vertical angles. Compared to what I've seen in stores with other brands, it's worse by a couple degrees or so. It doesn't have the best vertical angle but it's not gonna get much better with this technology at the moment, so it's a non-factor to me.

3. As John mentioned, colors look washed out at maximum level. You'll often notice that many new owners of desktop LCDs will complain that an LCD is too bright and colors are washed out. A couple notches down will fix the problem. I don't think I've seen any LCD that needs to be at the maximum level.

 

Tnaks for the replies. I feel better baout the viewing angles and color saturation. I'm a little concerned about the uneven brightness since eightone does not have this problem. Do you think this is just variation in manufacturing or a defect?

 

I should clarify that I see uneven brightness only at the lowest three brightness settings, which I would never use. At normal brightness levels the light distribution is very good.

John

 

I can only see the uneven lighting on the lowest setting (and it is quite noticable, you can only see the right half of the screen). 2nd tick and up are perfectly normal.