This is what a grainy screen looks like compared to a normal screen!

wondering what a grainy screen looks like? here is the best comparison i have found. checkit:

in the first, the bottom is the grainy one. the first is a representation of what grain looks like by intelman (see below). done by adding noise in paint.

the next are pics of my LCD. they are all grainy. my LCD is a SEC3350. keep in mind that this is the absolute best i could get the display to look. it is at its brightest setting in a clearly lit room with the nvidia settings tweaked ad nauseam.

i have another exchange laptop on the way with another SEC3350. i'm sure it's as bad as the first. i'm tired of beating around the bush. dell sucks.

 

bottom is grainy?

 

Umm... that looks like it's just having the wrong resolution set on an LCD. Such as setting a 1280x800 screen to 1024x768. That's not "grainy".

 

uhhh... mine looks worse than the bottom on native res. call it what you want. i call it grainy. is a ****ty monitor by another name still a ****ty monitor? yes. i just want people to get an idea what my monitor looks like compared to normal. ladies and gentlemen, this is what dell's SEC3350 looks like, on the bottom. this is how your LCD will likely compare to a normal LCD should you buy a dell. also check out the pics of my very own LCD!

bottom line- in my opinion if you want a decent LCD stay away from the new inspirons. i know that some people are getting the lg screen and love it, but if you don't want to take a chance on your LCD being lousy, don't get a dell.

 

isn't it the monitor that is grainy? so how can a screenshot show which monitor is grainy? Wouldn't you have to take a picture of it with a camera? It looks like the bottom picture just has a different resolution set for the computer (screwed up looking res).

 

I think that is user created file to show grain, not a photo and obviously not a screen grab (as that wouldn't work anyway).

I think the best place to see the grain is to look at the gray bar in both shots, get up close to your screen and look carefully to make it out, once you see what you are looking for you can easily see it from farther away.

Ignore the obviously resolution issue.

The main problem I see is that this is clearly visible on my nice desktop display, but on my grainy laptop it's harder to make out by a lot... mainly because the screen is... grainy...

Kind of like looking at a blurry picture of a blurry picture, not nearly as easy to tell as a clear picture of a blurry picture.

 

Here is a quick PS of what I think the grain looks like, note this is more grainy that what I see, but I have seen some panels about this bad. It's intentionally bad so that those with grainy screens will hopefully still be able to see the difference... kind of like how on commercials for hi def tvs they purposefully blur one portion to show the contrast even though the viewer is seeing it on a standard def tv (so thus could not possibly see the actual high def).

It's a recreation or representation, not an exact, but hopefully it gets the point across.

Hopefully it's obvious which one is supposed to be grainy. Note the creamy whiteness of the non grain vs the slightly off white and speckled look of the grainy one. And also bear in mind this is a static image of it, and it is mostly caused by the anti reflective coating, so it's effectively a distortion in front of the actual LCD panel itself - thus moving your head around causes the distortion to shift, especially at the periphery (think looking through two screen doors, standing still not so bad, move your head and the distortion becomes crazy).

 

great replies. i think we are all on the same page. post your grainy 1520 pics here! hehe. i will add some pics of my own monitor in a sec...

 

Bear in mind that is not a picture/photo, in my experience you cannot photograph the grain as the combination of a strong backlight and the detail level required to capture the grain is simply outside the realm of most of the cameras we are likely to have.... any light bloom or pixel bleed will cover the grain pretty much up entirely.

And don't forget, we are still at the mercy of the screen quality of the person viewing the pictures... I actually saw the picture in the OP while using my AUO panel... I couldn't see any difference... but on a nice clear panel I can see very easily the difference.

That could be another clue, if you can't tell... you probably have a grainy screen or fairly poor eyesite

 

Ah, I made that picture. It is simply adding noise in Paint .Net. I find that is a perfect representation of what grain vs non grain looks like. On my friends m1330, the screen is crystal clear, on mine things look like the bottom image. You cannot tell the difference if you are on a grainy screen though, at least not as easily.

 

haha, Intelman, that is an almost perfect reproduction of what the sec3550 looks like. i'm glad it's over for me.

 

yes that is correct what the previous poster said about it looking like the wrong res... that is almost what it looks like in real life text is broken up and looks bad... and its as if you blew up a picture almost and it looks all pixelated sorta .. but yes those are great pics and yes thats what the stinkin piece of crap sec3350 looks like.. one more of these and im done altogether

 

wow- the colors are so rotten on my SEC3350 i didn't realize the posts have a different colored background until i saw them on an old dell. that has an lg screen. again, if you want a good LCD i would advise- no dell.

also- i can see the grain from far away. at least arm's length, probbly further. i don't have to put my nose to the screen. if you have a grainy dislplay you probably won't have to stick your nose to the display to notice it. you will notice it right away.

haha... damn you dell (colbert style)!!!!!!!

 

Is this grainy you guys speak of commonly referred to as LCD sparkle?

 

Yes, I believe the two terms are used synonymously here.

 

My 1520 has an AUO screen and I'd say the grain is pretty bad.

But then again, its not so bad that I notice it or think about it each time I start-up my laptop. For future inspiron owners, its not THAT BAD.

Unless you have the in-home servicing, which in that case, change that mofo.

 

the sec IS THAT BAD.. it can be seen in almost any color as soon as you turn it on and it hits windows.. trust me its bad

 

It is especially bad when the screen is completely white, like on Notepad or something. It is pretty noticable on lighter shades of colors, but on dark colors, you will not notice the graininess unless you look for it.

 

zfactor - I have the same screen you have on my Inspiron 1520 and can say that I find it to be very usable. There is some degree of graininess but it doesn't bother me very much. Blocks of color do not look entirely pure but the full resolution is still there and I can still see text clearly.

I may be getting this laptop replaced over the headphone jack noise issue anyways though, so we'll see how the replacement looks.

 

the one i had was just horrible then... i could easily see even on blue and green screens hwo grainy it was.. greens looked almost like raised felt on a pool table or something similar same with blues.. and it looked as if the screen had larger "blocks" sorta going all the way down.. really hard to describe but if anyone's sec looked like mine i dont see how for any amount of money besides free you are using it.. imo

also some have reported the their sec3350 was not as bad as the previous one when they recieved a replacment so maybe it has only affected some of the sec3350 ones but it sure doesnt look that way from these forums and others i have been looking on recently

 

I'm not sure it's the same, though a screen can have both. The worst screen for grain that I've seen was an Asus GS1-X1 with WSXGA+ screen that was on display at Best Buy -- worst-looking screen in the store. It had no sparkle and you could see the dinginess on pretty much any color other than black. The Dell 1520 I saw at the Dell kiosk had sparkle that was obvious when you opened a window with a white background, but it had nowhere near as much grain as the Asus.

 

I think it's impossible to capture the graininess on camera. I used my 8mp camera and took about 20 shots and none of them captured how bad it really was.

It's just a dirty, sand sprinkled on olive oil screen. If you got it, you know it.

 

Thanks to OP for trying to replicate the graininess of LCD screen. I never really had issue with LCD screen before but after looking at those pictures omg that's bad. Thankfully I double checked my screens and none of them are close to that.

 

The sparkle is different to me.. Some also call it the screen door effect. To me, it looked like smeared vasoline on the screen. The sparkle can be a wet look, or a sparkled texture. You want to rub it off but it does not. I don't consider that to be the grain. I could see grain and what looked like smeared vasoline on the AUO I briefly had.. and I mean briefly. That last replacement was on for less then 10 minutes after which I boxed up both systems and ended my dell days forever. I actually placed the cancellations through dell chat and got the reference numbers etc late that night.

But to answer your question, the sparkle is another problem on dell displays on top of graininess issues. Most likely if you get a bad AUO or something you will have both issues. There are two reasons to stay away from dell, bad headphone jack static in the 1520 and allot of bad displays being used. It really appears that the odds of getting a good one are less then getting something with some issues to it. Even people who decide to keep their dells often times state there are minor issues but that they will just deal with them. I think as long as people keep buying these cheap dells with crappy displays dell will continue to profit on keeping their cheapo glass makers.

It appears that dell is using whoever can supply their glass needs. Dell has to know about the problems at this point. They also have long wait times on systems so they have put more priority on trying to improve on time deliveries over quality at this point in time. If you order a dell at this time.. don't expect a HP or Sony quality display at this point. However, you may get lucky and get a good one. Its all about luck with dell. Its been about luck since the new inspiron launch in June and its still about luck today. It may be worth trying to get a good one and maybe wait on one replacement. But after that, its time to move on.. I did and happy for it.

Its funny, that dell came up with the idea storm web site to try to get in touch with users wants and needs. But this whole mess with displays shows how much dell is not in reality right now. They are so out of touch that they cannot even make it right on replacement systems.. You would think, to avoid having to absorb two or three returns that they would set up a system to put "good displays" on replacement systems. But instead, Dell is just acting out the huge corporation with "set in" processes with no controls to make things right with problem systems. In my case, I was actually promised a non AUO display as a replacement and received the worst AUO nightmare I have ever seen. Dell really needs to get in reality with all this.

 

Just something I inadvertantly came up against while watching a vdieo, try finding a video of something large and uniform panning (such as a nature show panning across a large snowscape or sky area) and see if there appears to be some kind of pattern in front of it not moving.

Also apparent if you load something with a large white background (try windows explorer with a lot of white showing) and move the window around the screen... look for a similar pattern not moving on the screen.

 

I just got a replacement Inspiron 1520, not because of my screen (WSXGA+). Originally I had SEC3350. As I mentioned above, it looked kind of grainy, but ultimately okay.

My replacement has a LPLF300, and it looks beautiful. There is absolutely no grain, and the screen is substantially brighter as well. It's hard to notice just how subpar the SEC is without seeing them side by side, but it really is substantial.

The headphone jack noise I sent it in for is still there, but that's okay because the screen is big upgrade and I got a free processor boost from the T7300 to the T7500 as well.

 

you lucky dog!!! congrats. why does dell put these awful SEC3350 LCDs in their monitors. come on, dell. we know you are here. why?

 

My SEC3350 is crystal clear.

 

LOL I can't tell if its the picture that's grainy or my grainy AUO2077 screen!!

 

Is this similar to the graininess that accompanied most laptops equipped with the X1600 a while back?

 

Also worth noting is that my order and invoices for both computers list the same part number for the screen. Dell seems not to keep track of the distinction.

 

Well , just bought Dell inspiron 1520 and got it last Friday...

Still no idea whether my screen is "grainy or not".

When i play DVD movies , it looks like VCD quality , and the edges are not sharp at all. Is this the legendary "Grainy Screen"?

 

i thought mine was grainy, but looking at some of those pictures wow! i'm viewing them on the laptop screen and they look horrible