Impressions: Dell Studio has low quality screen panel.

Hello fellow owners!

I got my Studio 17 on Friday and have fiddled with it since then loving almost everything it has to offer. On the flip side I'm deeply disappointed by the screen.

First of all the brightness is borderline acceptable. I didn't opt for the LED backlight since I assumed the brightness would be on the same level as the HP Pavilion I owned. With this being said I urge all of you potential buyers to choose the LED backlight option other else disappointment awaits.

But the biggest dismay is the quality of the screen, it's so disastrous that I can't enjoy watching any movies on my laptop. My Pvilion has absolutely extraordinary image reproduction, the screen quality was second to none while the Dell has a screen I would expect to see on an Acer. It's pale, contrast isn't good enough and colours don't look alive and vibrant. I'm glad that I bought a Sony V4000 32 inch TV two weeks ago which is what I use as a display, and it's light years ahead of the Studio in image qualitly.

More over there is a horrendous leakage of light on the lower part of the screen making the taskbar and the blacks look pale. Lastly the viewing angle is embarassing, the screen has to be tilted in a certain angle or else the image looks terrible. My HP looks spotless from pretty much any angle and the same applies to the Sony TV as well. I'm very disappointed by this, especially when dell equip their laptops with Bluray which isn't justified on such a screen. I feel that they are making the standard screen sub par on purpose so that people are forced to opt for the more expensive options.

Anyone else who share my thoughts?

 

or where you expecting more? its hard to judge just by looking.. and was ur pavilion a glossy screen? are u playing with the brightness levels of ur studio?

btw ur signature.. ur dell has 4096GB ram.. thats a hell of a upgrade =)

 

Sounds similar to the lackluster, grainy screens that were shipping with the M1530s. My original screen was one and it was dull, had major light leakage at the bottom and of course was grainy too. Every single laptop I compared it to, cheap or not, had a much better looking screen. Getting a worthwhile replacement from Dell was an exercise in frustration, determination and patience. Good luck

 

So Homeboy, what is your screen brand? LG? Samsung? AUO?

 

I would definitely second the suggestion to go for the LED screen. Mine is an LG and I couldn't be more pleased with it.

 

Well the Dell is a premium product and in that way I was expecting a premium screen. Now the laptop feels like a Ferrari rolling on tyres from a Toyota.

Yeah the 4GB of RAM are awesome although I had upgraded the HP to 2.5GB. And yes the HP was glossy and 17 inches as well but were light years ahead of the Dell in quality. High definition video looks sort of acceptable but now awesome, SD on the other hand like downloaded episodes of Gossip Girl or Prison Break look unacceptable for a £800 laptop.

How do I check what screen I have? It must be the Samsung cause it's borderline sh*t. I'm contemplating contacting Dell for a replacement screen. The reason why I bought a 17 inch is because I enjoying having a large work area, further more I work a lot with pictures editing them in photoshop and it's utterly a waste of time to work with pictures on a screen that cannot reproduce an image properly. A good screen is important since it's what you look at sitting in front of your laptop. This is one dull screen I would expect to see on an Acer or low-end lapatop. There must be a way to request a replacement.

95% of the time the laptop is connected to my Sony Bravia through HDMI cause I can't stand the built in screen. I just hate when people insult my intelligence in this manner. It feels like a bought a 17 inch screen for nothing. Will certainly give them an email tomorrow.

 

I just received my Studio 17 today and yeah the screen sucks. I checked and I have the Samsung though Im not sure if that has anything to do with the fact that the bottom edge of the screen is way lighter then the rest of the screen (especially the top part). I remember this happening with old laptops but didn't expect those bright edges on this one.

 

If you aren't happy with the screen, don't delay . . . get on it right now. When you have an issue like that you can't usually just talk yourself out of it. I tried doing that with mine, and it didn't work.

While my opinion about these screens is that they are pretty much all lacking (many brands have been tested, and they pretty much ALL fail to provide similar color gamuts, brightness, uniformity, and contrast to comparable desktop LCDs). And last time I checked, it is relatively hard to find desktop LCDs that really compare to our older CRT technology. A case in point, I plugged my lappy into my old viewsonic CRT and well, had to try to love my laptop again.

Having said that, I would just get a refund right now and reorder with an LED. That will be a much bigger change then just holding out for a "better" version of the same panel that you already have. While there are variations in quality, I doubt it would blow you away.

Either way, good luck!

 

4GB is awesome!

4096GB is one thousand twenty four times more awesome. Please explain how you did it

 

Well the HP has a 100% perfect screen. Colours looked teriffic and I enjoyed many hours of photo editing as well as movie watching on it. One of the best screens you could want on a laptop, the speakers on it were ten times better than those and the Dell as well.

I'm gonna contact Dell today and get back to you on their response.

 

To be fair, when I was criticizing the screens, I should have added that I have seen some here and there that I think I could like alot. One Sony in particular (no backlight bleed, good contrast, wider than normal viewing angles). I thought the HP DV5z had a decent screen also. It lacked the contrast that I enjoy however.

Bottom line, I look forward to hearing about your outcome. I hope that the next screen kicks butt!

 

Sorry to report on this a bit late but I did managed to get my panel swapped out in late November without much struggle. Got the Samsung panel and thankfully the graining issue was resolved but the screen still pale in comparison to a macbook pro or anything else with a decent screen.

 

well i have an aou screens im not very good with if the screen is good, so is my screen decent?

i also have a Manufacturer : H709H€B154EW9
Product ID : AUO9274

 

I don't see how the screen can ruin viewing a movie. I have the normal one, and if colors aren't vibrant enough, maybe try using the avivo color option in catalyst? Honestly, I don't know how anyone could nitpick at screens; except for the brightness, they all look the same to me to be honest. Also, Acer's screens are very bright compared to these Dells. Have you used an Acer?

 

I got the Studio 17 with the RGB LED screen the end of last year and have been very happy with the PQ. The screen is LG and not grainy at all and in fact has a soft look to it. The screen is so bright that I have to keep it turned down about half way on the brightness control. The colors are very vibrant and to get them set the right way I had to calibrate with the Spyder 3 and then tweak the saturation setting on the ATI control panel. I feel it is very important to have the ATI video card and control panel with these wide color gamut colors because of the problem with too much color/saturation. Nvidia wont work nor from what I heard the built in video chip.

All of the new notebook computers use the cheap TN panels so you have to try and find the best of the bunch.
I tried a few before I got this one including MacBook Pro, Sony and even the Dell XPS M1730 and they all had problems with the screens.

 

It seems like you don't have a lot of experience with computers and consumer electronics as you classify the all screens as "the same" which is highly incorrect. Just walk into any store and have two screens at different price ranges next to each other. Brightness is far from the only difference, contrast and colour reproduction are two major factors as well.

Most laptop have decent screens it's just that Dell have decided to hog their customers by shipping some of their laptops with unacceptably poor panels.