Latitude E7270 13.3" LCD mod

Hi everyone!

I had originally written a long preamble about why I'm doing this mod. I deleted that.

I'm doing this mod because!

The screen that I am using is a Innolux N133HCE-GP1:

http://www.panelook.com/N133HCE-GP1_Innolux_13.3_LCM_overview_27957.html

The screen is 1920x1080. It has a 300 nit brightness, a contrast ratio of 800:1 and a viewing angle 85/85/85/85 @72% NTSC.

This modification will also work on a Latitude E7250.

Ein großes Dankeschön to Jakobus and the other modders @ https://thinkpad-forum.de/threads/209572-X240-mit-13-3-quot-FHD-IPS-aufrüsten for the inspiration!

 

So, to start, here is the original 12.5" screen compared to the new13.3" panel:



A friend of mine is doing a project with acrylic panels and he cut me a piece of 2mm acrylic to use as a template for my work:



I taped the edges of the acrylic to give me a better visual reference for where the edges are.

However, I was worried about the hinges on the E7270, as they were a different shape and size compared to the E7250. I really didn't see a way to trim the hinges, but I remembered that the touch screen back cover for the E7270 has a different hinge, so I ordered a used touch screen LCD back cover and hinges on eBay:



I then masked off the back cover and bezel with painters tape and got to work:

 

I used my acrylic template to measure the inside of the back cover to figure out the placement:



Then I marked where I would need to trim the hinges:



Then I did a preplacement of the actual display:



Once I was sure of how I wanted to install the panel, I grabbed my trusty Dremel and went to work.

(The bottom edge of the bezel is too low to cover the bottom edge of the display, so I'm placing the panel as low as I can.)

 

After removing all of the antenna's and the webcam module, I started removing the inside mounting tabs and posts with the Dremel:



The nice thing about the touch screen back is that it's fairly deep compared to the non touch, so I will have plenty of room to work with. I also trimmed some of the tabs on the bezel, (sorry, I forgot to take pictures). I found out while doing this that the touch screen come with the bezel mounted to the actual touch screen panel, so the tabs for the non touch bezel don't line up. I tried to leave some of them, but if your trying to do this mod, with the same back cover, trim everything off so that the bezel is smooth. But be careful, the bezel is rather thin.

 

I then marked the front and trimmed the bezel with a snap blade utility knife. I made multiple slow cuts, snapping off the blade tip 5 times to insure a smooth cut:



I used regular contact cement to remount the antenna's to the back cover:



Because there is so much space between the back cover and the display, I used my template to measure the depth between the back cover and where the back of the display will be. I got a case of the stupids and instead of using a small drill bit and a jigsaw to make a hole to measure with, I decided to use a bi-metal hole saw that was just a tad too aggressive!



However, I was still able to use it to get the depth.



A two piece thickness of double sided mounting tape was just enough to just touch the back of the screen without pushing it up. I left the peel off part on on the top so that the display wouldn't stick to the tape. I'm not sure if taping it would cause me any problems if the laptop is dropped.

Here's the tape that I used, along with the black silicone I'm going to use to seal the bezel to the back cover.

 

I don't really need the webcam, (I tend to use my phone for Skype), but it looked like I might be able to squeeze one in there anyway:



When the webcam module didn't quite fit, I tried some minor surgery with the Dremel:



However, it was still to high to work, so for now I'm leaving the webcam off. I might try to make it work later.

 

I used the contact cement to cover the inside edge of the bezel where I wanted the new screen to sit, (more on this later). I also very carefully put contact cement on the non viewable edge of the new display.:



Once the cement had set, I glued the new screen to the bezel, (sorry, I forgot to take a picture again. )

I then applied a thin bead of black silicone to the edge of the back cover and the bezel and then clamped it together with clothes pins:



To end up with this:



As the more observant of you might have noticed, I forgot to install the video cable! , so I very gently pried the whole thing open, installed the LCD cable and resiliconed it:

 

And here is my end results:

 

So, here are my final results.

Pro's - The screen looks great! The viewing angles are really nice and I don't have to squint to see things.
Con's - Well, the screen is glossy and I prefer matte. I'm going to go back to panelook.com and see if I can't find a matte display that will fit.
The panel moved just slightly when I installed it, there is about 1mm of the edge of the panel showing:



The other problem is that the look is not as polished as the Thinkpads looked on the German site. It's more of a functional hack as opposed to a nice clean mod. I'm calling this "Phase 1"/proof of concept. I know that I can do a better job than what I ended up with, so stand by, Phase II coming soon!

 

Major props for doing this! I plan to feature it on the front page in the next Forum Spotlight article.

You made it look like this notebook should have come with a 13.3-inch screen to begin with.

Edit: http://www.notebookreview.com/news/forum-spotlight-diy-notebook-mods-edition/

Charles

 

HI Charles,

Thanks for the positive feedback! I agree that Dell should have an option for 13.3" LCD, they definitely had the space. I started this mod on a Latitude E7250, but my daughter snagged it off of me and a found a cheap E7270 on eBay. The E7250 has a REALLY terrible 1366x768 BOE panel that has a viewing angle of 25/25/25/25! How Dell justifies putting such a low end screen on a high end laptop is beyond me!

My current plan is to learn a 3D CAD program and 3D print a bezel so that I can get a proper fit. I will update when I make some progress.

(EDIT) This mod will work on a E7250

 

This is very cool!! For some time I was really considering trying to do this with a 13.1" LCD in a thinkpad. The 13.1" LCDs from the old sony Vaio laptops have excellent color gamut and are EDP.

 

Hi niffcreature,

If you check out this link:

https://thinkpad-forum.de/threads/209572-X240-mit-13-3-quot-FHD-IPS-aufrüsten

You can see how the German modders did this type of mod on a Thinkpad