who has the s96j graininess problem POLL

Besides the fact that it has a similar trait on a completely different display? I think that goes to show that there is nothing wrong with the display at all. Dont you think?

 

Eddie,

I thought you agreed to disagree. Stop posting already. If displaying solid colors as grainy is not a problem for you, fine. You don't have to keep posting the same thing over and over again. WE are discussing something that is a problem to us, and by the way, I for one am a very happy person.

And no, I don't think that just because 2 laptops have the same problem that it is no longer a problem.

Does anyone else have their LCD model info to post. I would like to find out if there really are different LCDs in these or if some people really just can't see it.

 

I am here to make sure that people dont think that if they buy the z96j, s96j, w3j and probably an array of other models, they will get a horrible grainy screen that looks awfull when displaying pics, movies, games or any other way people like to use their notebooks aside from looking from an all blue or whatever other color looks off to you. Sinse this so called "problem" has been reported my job got hjarder with more and more senseless phonecalls from people who think their screen is broken or requests from potential buyers to swap the screen for another. My simple question to you is. Do pictures, movies, games or video look awesome on this screen or not? They indeed do!. When defining something as a problem you should keep in mind someone may take you out of context and people are. Until you admit the above i will not quit posting. Yes i am reseller bla bla bla. I am also a user and as a user i am entitled to say that i dont agree. If you said the vertical angles are not great you wouldnt hear a peep out of me. If you said there is light leekage. Again i would agree if i even checked for that which i do not. If you said the screen has waves if you push on it then you are stating the obvious. Few people here are saying the screen is of horrible quality. I disagree. The z96j is the best 15.4 screen on an asus barebone ever released

 

Ok, I can understand that, the screen is certainly not terrible. In fact, most things look great. Call me crazy, but I often use a solid color for my desktop background. However, I don't on my S96J anymore, because they don't look clean, which is why I was using a solid color to begin with.

I am sorry.

Most pictures look great, I haven't watched any movies yet, and as far as games are concerned, I am torn. I first noticed the problem when I installed Steam. I played several games of CS:S and although very noticable, it wasn't a big hinderance. I let my brother use it for our last lan party, and it didn't bother him at all.

 

To me pictures and movies look pretty abysmal. especially when i am watching hd video, shades of grey look pixelated, everything looks pretty much 16bit.

it is far from a normal situation. i sell electronics at a electrical goods store in the UK, and I specialise in computing. NONE of the laptops there look this bad. Even the ones from one or 2 years ago.

I personally have owned 4 laptops to date. A dell, a toshiba, 2 fujitsu siemens, and none of their screens look like this. In fact, I can honestly say I have never seen a laptop with a screen like this.

I'm making a big deal out of this because I just spent 900 GBP on a laptop with a ****ty screen.

Look at the poll. 17 people have this problem and 12 do not. Looking at it optimistically though, people are more likely to vote if they have the problem. But still, thats a fairly large number of faulty LCDs.

 

Well, I'm a little surprised to read through this thread and find my name mentioned - whoever said it, I indeed do not have an S96J in my possesion. I was, however, considering it, the W3J, and the W2J. Now I'm looking at the HEL80 and IBM T60 too. A buddy from NJ brought an S96J over a little while ago, though, and I had a chance to put it together/use it.

I voted " yes, I can't live with it " because;

I do photo-editing and I often work with HDR images and other things that require close viewing of shadow areas...and I did indeed see clusters of grain that left me wondering initially how the shot came out so poorly exposed; it only hit me later when I saw this thread that it was the LCD and not the pictures I was working with. Enough noise/grain/whatever you want to call it, for it to be a serious problem.

If Eddie writes that 'normal' viewing distance is about 2 feet - I sit less then 12 inches away from my current LCD (Samsung 170T, DVI) because one of my eyes is farsighted and the other nearsighted, and the nearsighted eye only works very well, although only when I'm super close to something - anyway, this isn't a problem on my monitor and on my old Thinkpad, hence I don't believe distance should be a factor in this equation unless you really are two inches away from it, but who does that?

Am I picky? Very. Is the LCD nice and bright? Yes? Are the colours nice and vibrant? Yes. Do things overall look very nice? Uh-huh. Did I see 'grain' in the grey/black shadow areas? Yes, I did, and it was annoying, and afterwards you start to notice it everywhere. The 'normal' /browse web/send e-mail/type in word/ user wouldn't be bothered by it.

For my purposes, I think I'm being fair.

 

Whatever man there will always be one or two or 4 in this case. Polls are unreliable anyways. As you can see some people voted they dont have it. They just like the screen and dont want to look for weird anomalies that do not hinder normal usage. This thread is a repeating trend. As long as screens use light people will always see problems. I just think its funny how w3j never got a single mention of this notorious grainy screen when it is obviosuly there. More expensive notebook i guess means less picky buyers? i dunno

 

Oh yeah.
I have a video. I filmed this with my camcorder and it shows the kind of "graininess" I am experiencing.

http://rapidshare.de/files/27011491/Untitled_0002.wmv.html

Theres close ups of the gray.png image dunktank posted, and also the Nokia monitor/screen test software.

The grey on the image is not solid and the pixels are of two different shades. This problem is very noticable in videos and during gaming. Any kind of detailed graphic editing is made very hard.

On the screen test each individual bar of grey is meant to be solid.

 

What the heck is up with this crappy rapid share service. Who in their right mind will pay for your video. What do you think people will see from your video? WHy are you even linking to rapid share if they charge for downloads. I feel like iam in the freaking twilight zone. I am outta here. Someone who actially has this notebook and likes it dont post. Ur just going to go crazy. In case you wanted to see a real video here it is www.sretup.com/geared2play/z96j/z96j.avi or for lower quality www.sretup.com/geared2play/z96j/z96j.wmv
What can you see? Yes a very bright , vivid and nice screen. Seee ya!

 

Could someone who has this notebook please create a high resolution picture of the graininess on the "comcast" webpage? Such a picture might help this debate-- maybe it would allow us to all be on the same page with our use of the term "graininess."

I'm not sure what the consensus is: do screenshots taken on the S96J show up as grainy on a different computer? If so, a screenshot of the comcast page would suffice. Otherwise, someone might have a several-megapixel camera...?

Thanks
Dan

 

geared2play : you can download the movie for free ! just select the right colum .

 

Yes and it says i have exceed something for free downloads. Not working!

 

My consensus is: screenshots do not show up grainy on a different computer.

Also, download zippo's video to see the problem quite clearly.

 

The only thing that video prooves is that its being shot from a few inches away and that the shooter has no interest to show what a hi def picture or video actually looks like from normal viewing distance being 2 feet away or so. Show me something in color from normal viewing distance please

 

Actually Flip , I was one of the people who said no on the poll. I have had the S96j for 2weeks now and I can tell you that yes, there is a slight "grainyness" with the screen, but its so MINUTE that I rarely see it or my eyes are constantly looking at it. I have done a number of edits of photos on this notebook already and they dont look bad at all. I am impressed by this notebooks capabilitly(and price mind you) and the screen hasnt bothered me at all.

 

I wonder why eddie keeps posting here. It doesnt seem to be a problem affecting all screens and so maybe he lucked out and got a nice screen. But then he goes on and on denying what so many others have experienced. Why are you insisting that we're being nitpicky? Have you ever considered that we might be telling the truth? For some of us, it is literally bad enough that photo editing is impossible. If your screen is flawless, then good for you, visit some other threads, but don't insult our intelligence by tell us what we can or cannot see. In case you're wondering, I don't stare at my screen from inches away. I can see all the problems in excess of 3 ft, so I hope in your future posts you will stop attributing this issue to pressing our noses against the screen.

And there's no need to be defensive. Nobody is holding u responsible. And don't tell us to return the machine cuz we don't really need your approval on that.

 

I see the graininess with these screenshots. On my notebook I have to get within 1 foot to see it (at 100% brightness).

Looking at certian solid colors is the only time I have noticed it. I have worked with photos, gamed, and watched many movies and never noticed this. This is a non issue for me for what I use the notebook for. Several people here have posted that this problem has made it difficult to work with photoshop. Could you please post a picture that is problematic? I really want to see if the degree of this problem varies.

 

sure, try this one. Keep in mind that these pictures themselves don't contain the graininess, but if your screen has this problem, it'll show up when you view these pictures.

listen, I'm more than willing to live with this issue, but you absolutely cannot deny its existence. (but it looks like i will have to give up photoshoping tho)

 

It seems there is a problem, this doesn't look like anyother laptop I have dealt with.

 

Just rendered w3j video on it and a few family pics. Excellent screen. Very detailed. Beatifull hi definition. talking about the z96j here. s96j is a bit less resolution but still very compatible with photoshop

 

geared2play:I get it that you dont have any problem with your laptop but have you ever looked at different s96j's ?

 

Yes they are all the same so are all the z96j and the w3j. Granted if you are going from z96j to s96j the screen can appear low quality simply becuase of the low resolution. People should know this. If you are going from a sxga+ the same will happen. If you went from one wxga to s96j wxga then......They are all the same. Try not to stick your face into every pixel.

I have absolutely no doubt that it does NOT!

 

Actually, in the 3 that I have had, the problem definitely varied. The first one I had was the worst, the next one I got was much better, and the one I have now is somewhere in between the two, leaning towards better.

Also, at least in my case, I am switching to the S96J from a Gateway 7508GX with a wxga screen. The Gateway does not have this problem. In fact, I am cosidering pulling them both apart to see if I can switch out the screen.

 

nice. Please tell us how it pans out. What better way to see if it's LCD hardware problem

 

I hope that they are compatible. I once tried something similar with an old HP laptop and another screen and the connectors between the two were completely different. I wonder if manufacturers have started making any standards, or are things still very much proprietary?

Dan

 

You need a different connecter.

 

No. According to Eddie himself, he has been diagnosed color blind. Therefore he cannot see the differences between two very similar shades of color nearly as easy as we can. It's just like those color blind test... they write numbers and letters in dots of one color on a background of dots of another color. If you have trouble picking out the letters and numbers, you are color blind. Therefore if you are color blind, you cannot pick out one color from another, thus resulting in the fact that you can not tell two similar shades apart that consist of very small pixels on an LCD screen.

As for all of you who are shouting out about normal viewing distance... I normally look at mine around say 18 inches, but if it is on my lap, it is normally more like 12 inches. Viewing distance does not have much of an effect for me.... I can see the problem from across the room- and I wear glasses and probably could be considered legally blind without them.

I must agree with a comment by the person who does the Image editing with HDR textures... I'm not going to dig up the quote, but it goes something like this:

If you ask me if the screen is bright, I say yes. If you ask me if images are colorful and vibrant, I would fully agree. If you asked me that images and such generally look awesome, I'd say yes again. If you ask me if the screen is nice, I would say yes. But some things just don't look perfect on the screen, and it is hard to do things such as video and image editing. But that won't stop me from liking this computer or the screen- it is still very nice.


The opinion above is basically identical to mine- it probably is more my opinion than his since I re-wrote it from memory. Don't let this discourage you from buying the computer unless you are serious about working with images. It is still a great buy.

 

Aye aye!

The image editing HDR comment guy is I - and that is, almost exactly what I wrote, slightly rephrased. It's just that...you don't need to tinker with complex HDR textures to notice the problem, it shows itself in normal scenarios too.

I think we have a slight misunderstanding though, whoever is literally posting screenshots with "prtscn" is a little misinformed. This is a hardware problem that shows itself when you look at the screen itself or perfectly exposed photographs, not at screenies. The screenies are just poor quality jpegs or whatever.

Let me bring forth an example - give someone 50% cotton/50% polyester pants and they'll nag to no end that they're scratchy and won't wear them. This bothers them and this is a valid complaint. Give some other person the same exact pants, and you'll hear nothing from them because they simply don't feel it. Does it change the fact that the pants are 50/50, simply because the latter does not notice/is not bothered by it? No. Does it make the pants bad somehow? No, it doesn't. Hopefully that made some sense; different strokes for different folks, much like this laptop just isn't for everyone.

It is a very nice laptop. It is an amazing deal for the money and it IS a nice screen. But, there IS a quirk with it, yes - and I think with all of them, notice it or not.

 

Well said, Nick-m.

Also well said, JPZ. I'm not going to let this little quirk discourage me from getting it. From what I've heard, the S/Z96J still seems like a great value. I'm going to order mine tonight or tomorrow. I've had my eyes checked, and I am definitely not colorblind, so I will be able to notice this quirk, but it shouldn't be a problem because I don't plan to do any hardcore image editing.

Besides, screen will be AMAZING compared to the screen on my friend's old laptop that I have been playing around with lately (an old HP pavillion, 800x600 res, washed out color, unspeakably HORRIBLE viewing angles!).

Thanks to everyone for their opinions regarding this screen issue.

~Dan

PS:
I just wanted to clarify something: Many people think that "colorblind" means that you cannot tell the difference between crayons in a box of crayons without reading their labels. In reality, colorblindness is often much more subtle than that-- not being able to tell the difference between very similar shades of certain colors. It can be so slight that many people would not realize it. I just learned recently that a friend that I have known all of my life was colorblind-- yet only slightly, which is why it had never come up before.

I read once that about 1 out of every 12 men is colorblind (the figure is much smaller for women because of the way the genes are carried). Unless there are an exceptional amount of S69J owners that are colorblind, we will have to assume that the reason why about 50% notice the screen thing and about 50% do not is more along the lines of Nick-m's cotton-polyester pants analogy-- humans only notice the things that bother them.

 

I know this- and this is exactly why "colorblind" people cannot see the graininess; this graininess is a result of the screen displaying two very similar colors side by side for some reason or another. The little specles are only a hair off, but that is enough for them to stand out to people who can tell the difference between two close shades of color. If people were so colorblind they could not tell between all the crayons in a box of crayons, they wouldn't be seeing very much on the screen at all. It would look like one giant solid color. Well, probably not, but you get the point.

Fully agree. Every word. All ye who read this, read carefully. You aren't going to find such a truthful statement in this entire thread.

 

The issue definitely exists, there is no question about it. What is the source?

 

Looks like its the lcd

 

just received my s96j yesterday. looked at all possible tests, no graininess at all... also compared screen with my Dell laptop at work. absolutely no difference. btw, colorblind people should perfectly see graininess (if it exists on their screens) on the different shades of grey even if they miss it on colour images.

 

I remember reading Eddie's review on this laptop and his review said this screen was awesome or something along that line. I have read other reviews Eddie has made on different laptops that werent kind to the ones being reviewed. I find it funny after reading these posts that you would think it is some sort of conspiracy since he has talked negatively about other laptops that he sells. Wouldnt that hurt his sales? Do you think he is lying about the S96J's screen? I doubt it, I found most what he has said is to be honest, whether I wanted to believe it or not. I lean to the theory that some people are hypercritical and must "look" for problems.

 

And I am going to vote no even though I dont own the S96J just to negate this yes vote since this guy doesnt own one either.

 

So, what to do? I have a S96J on order and I'm mainly going to use it for graphic work. I'm not a gamer so that part is not very important for me. The quality of the screen is very important. Now with all these issues should I still hang on to my order or should I look elsewhere (hel80?)...

Anyone?

 

Toshi, read page eight - what I and three other people wrote.

Other then that, I wish this thread would end, because it's much like walking up to a wall and asking it to move over.

Also; if you can try it out and have a 30 day back, maybe you should. You're in the Netherlands, so maybe you have a local dealer? Shipping back and forth to the US might not be the best idea, I realize.

 

here's a picture of my screen taken with a camera:

 

Unfortunately that picture doesn't tell us anything at all, cept for...what the heck are those white streaks?

Auto exposure/auto process/ 1/8th of a second at f/4.2 at what ISO speed? To show the whatever you're complaining about you'd have to carefully expose the picture yourself, not let the camera do it for you. Sorry mate.

 

This is an excellent photo of the problem. I couldn't get mine to come out anywhere near that clear. If you can't see the grainyness, I don't know what to tell you.

 

* shrugs * I do see it, it's just a poor picture that really over-illustrates the problem. It isn't that bad.

I've said everything as coherently as I could. I'm done with this here thread, big thanks to everyone who tried to help out reason things out.

 

Have you at least used one to base this vote on? Nick-m said he used one for a while, and based his vote on that.

Are there really still people who say they don't have the problem at all???

 

How big of an area is that picture (approximate inches wide)? How close where you to screen?

 

That was a very zoomed picture. You can even make out the details of each individual pixel almost. Tho i would agree it somewhat details the actual thing i would also agree it makes the actuall issue look 1 million times worse then if viewed with human eyes from normal distance. Anyone considering doing graphics work with this machine dont be scared unless you are very picky and overly sensetive. I can do graphics work just fine on it. I am color bling. jpz described the problem correctly however he missed one small part. Colorblindness is a problem with the brain not the eyes. Take a 3d pic with many 3d diamond shapes in green. Then draw a triangle in an off color out of the same or slightly different shape. A color blind person will see that there are different color shapes however a color blind person will not be able to connect the dots and see what the assortment of shapes actually make....a triangle. Atleast that is my situation. Not every colorblind person will see the same as the next. Not every 3d picture will be impossible to see some will some will not. It depends on the angle, the texture, the shape the color.....you get the point

 

Before I say anything else, I am again going to make this clear:

This is a nice notebook; beatiful screen, and everything is wonderful.

Now then, there are, however, some "quirks" as others have put it before me. The picture on the previous page is somewhat accurate, yet it is also inaccurate. The problem is that it is so hard to take a clear picture of an LCD. All those vertical and horizontal lines and the fact that the colors are washed out does no justice to the actual screen.

HOWEVER: The picture is accurate in the sense that you actually can see the issue. It is probably hard for those to pick it out who have never seen it, however what I seen in the picture that is true to this issue are the speckled colors on the LCD.

TO EDDIE:

Here is the reason why you don't make such a big deal out of it. Again, it is a nice screen, which is a big plus, but when you keep telling people to stop looking at their screen so close, that only works for you. YOU can see the problem when you are close in- you notice the difference in shades. BUT when you look at the entire picture, you can't "connect the dots" and it doesn't look as obvious to you. That is why you don't have a problem as long as you are at a normal viewing distance. Others however, like myself, can see it from across a room.


I have spent a full week playing games and watching movies, as well as programming, and I rarely notice this. About 99% I am in awe of how great everything looks. As I have said countless times, the only people who MIGHT have an issue are photo editors.

Can we please end this now? Let's stop arguing about the issue. If anyone finds anything that makes the issue less noticeable, please post it, but until then, this discussion is going nowhere. People are just repeating themselves. The problem has been spelled out; the greatness of this computer has been mentioned time upon time. IT IS A GREAT COMPUTER. BUY IT, AND YOU WON'T REGRET IT. IF YOU DO, THEN JUST RETURN IT.

 

If that is true then why cant you use it for video or photo editing. I can. I ve done it. If my job was to create textures like cloth, backgrounds and such then yes ok not the best screen. But video editing generally does not involve that. Someone who wants to capture movies on their digicam and upload in dv (like i do) or in hdv (like i still cant figure out) will think otherwise.

 

I'm not even going to answer that. I shall quote myself.

 

Maybe this is just a problem with the first shipments of the s96j. Maybe there was a small mistake in assembling the monitor. Has anyone that has recieved an s96j recently (last week or so) seen a problem? I know one person already said they didnt have the problem on their screen.

I have already ordered a s96j and am hoping for a perfect screen. Something like what rudiger took a picture of would not bother me. But if screen displays pictures like that ingame Doom shot... I would be sad

 

Ummm... chances of you getting a "perfect screen" are slim to none. If you read through this thread, you would know that I have a Z96. Eddie also has a Z96 but as a reseller has handled both the S and Z96's.

I will have to go back and look at the Doom screenshot, as it was posted before I got my hands on my Z96, but I think that you will be seeing things like that; however as I said it is not noticable at all during gameplay. I played Doom 3 every day during school during a mid-day break for the last week and a half, and no one ever said anything bad about the screen or even the computer. There were some, however, that complimented the screen. Graininess is not noticeable except in a few small segments of certain games. Most of the time everything looks superb.

Let me repeat myself:

 

I've been away from the forums for a bit but coming back it's nice to see someone has finally posted a perfect screen capture of the problem. "what the heck are those white lines?" is exactly what I was thinking when looking at my screen. It's not a problem with the photo, it's in the LCD screen.

So, there is a problem at least with some screens and it only bothers people who do photo editing, 3d rendering (that's me) and anyone with good eyes who are viewing images or video that's dark or greyscale or solid colours.

Not everyone finds that this is a problem even if they do see it and I understand that. However, for those who do see this as a problem we need a solution. And I'd rather that solution wasn't to look elsewhere because I love everything else about this Asus.

I want to take my laptop in to get the screen replaced but I want to know if this will even help. I'm worried that the problem exists everywhere but just in varying amounts. For those who can properly identify the problem (and I don't care if it bothers you or not) have you seen a S96J or a W3J completely without it? I love everything else about this computer but I want an LCD that works properly.