Sparkles and viewing angles, are we to smart for our own good?

Yes, this is again a post that concerns sparkles, but it is not "yet another one of those" so please dont just stop reading here and do a past of your normal sparkle-thread-reply

When I first started to use my almost brand new M170 I immediately noticed the dreaded sparkle problem (that really has nothing to do with sparkles but never mind) and was very upset with this, considering what I have paid for this machine. However, not willingly just to give or to belive that Dell delibretly flooded the market with bad screens, I decided to do a bit of experimenting and this is what I found out.

Like probably most laptop users, when I open a laptop, I adjust the tilt of the screen to be aligned with my face, ie as parallell as possible with it. This is done mainly because it feels more natural and because old LCD screens had such problems with viewing angles that it was kind of a requirement. However, with the M170 screen I have found that the sparkle problem get MUCH less obvious if you instead of doing this do not open the laptop as much but place the screen more vertical, ie not tilted so much back as you would normaly do (less angle between the keyboard and the screen). But less sparkles is not the only advantage of this, another very good advantage is that reflections form lights, especially those in the ceiling, now get a lot less irritating, simply because of the angle (you dont see them in the screen any more as it is more vertical). Yes, there is a slight decrease in "viewing plesure" as the angle between your face increases, but this is nothing compared to the advantages I get. So for normal computer usage (word processing, programming etc) where good white background is the most important factor, I use the screen more vertical, and then I play games or watch videos (less white and more need for perfect colors etc) i lower the screen a bit (make the angle with the keyboard larger).

Now, I am starting to think about what is the reason for this, and the 2 I have come up with are these. First, the "coating" on these screens are missaligned, ie optimized for the wrong viewing angle, and this is a bad design that needs to be fixed. The other reason is more interesting, what if Dell has actully been a bit smart here, and realized that the highly reflective screen would cause problems, especially with ceiling lights, and actually tried to compensate for this by designing the screen for more vertical use? I sounds a bit strange at first, but if you think about it, it would actually make some sense, you get a good picture and less problems with reflections. Of course, as experienced laptop users, we probably wont notice this as we are so used to aligning the screen with our eyes, and so we get all the problems with sparcles and start complaining about it. Also, it is worth noticing that because of the huge resolution on these screens, and the fact that most programs open in full screen mode, we are seeing a lot more empty background (usually white) on these screens as we would do on other screens, making sparkleproblems much more obvious than perhaps on a lower resolution with much less empty white areas.

Well, it would be interesting to hear you comments on this, and if you also experience the same thing, that raising the screen (lowering the angle to the keyboard) give you the same advantages as it did for me. And yes, as probably 99% of you, as a self proclaimed computer expert, I havnt even touched the manuals yet, so it might actually mention something about this

/pJ

PS By the way, the answer to the obvious follow up question is....LG.

 

I have the samsung screen, and have used both samsung and lg screens on the dell laptops, I prefer the samsung, the anti reflective coating (erroneously referred to by people as "sparkles") on a samsung is more of a transparent/patterned sheen while the LG has a dusty/metallic look to it and very distracting, on the samsung its not a problem, obviously you can tell its an LCD which means its nothing up to the visual quality of a regular CRT screen ofcourse that many enjoy on their desktops. The samsungs also have better viewing angles and brigther screens. While the LG has b etter colors, you can adjust the samsung in the video cards control panel to make the colors just as punchy as the LG's colors, however if you have an LG screen, you cannot adjust the "sparkle" or the viewing angles.
Beyond this, "SPARKLE" is something of an obsessive compulsive disorder many laptop users seem to suffer from.

I would suggest you contact dell and request a replacement lcd panel that is from samsung.