Vaio SZ & M1330 Comparisons (Mainly the screen)

Hi all,
Am very interested in changing laptops from an SZ3 to a M1330 (mainly because of build quality problems I'm having with it)

I know there are a few sacrifices I'd have to make, mainly the weight (even though the extra weight of the M1330 is negligable) but also possibly the screen which is what I'd be more concerned about. Every Sony laptop I've ever owned seems to have a brighter, greater contrast screen than that of every other brand I've owned, especially the LED one on my current SZ.

Has anybody used both of these laptops first hand to be able to compare the differences in screen? Is there much of a difference in brightness and contrast? If someone owns both would it be possible to make a visual comparison with a camera (very unlikey but you never know!)

What appeals to me more is the price of the M1330 but I don't want it ending up being a 'downgrade' if you know what I mean!

I've just ordered the Dell with the LED screen but I'm giving myself plenty of time to think about it before I either keep or cancel the order.

Thanks for any replies in advance.

 

I have an m1330, and my girlfriend has an sz3. I will try taking pictures side-by-side for you tomorrow.

 

Thanks darthsat,
I look forward to seeing your comparison.
It should help me decide on whether to proceed with or cancel my order with Dell.

 

This would depend on what screen M1330 has. M1330 currently have Toshiba, and CMO LED screens.

Toshiba is lot brighter, white is actually white. On the other hand, CMO's black bleeds, and yellowish color on white colors. Toshiba is close to perfect screens atleast in my experience.

 

If there are just those two then which one do I have?

1 RP774 LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY, 13.3 WXGA, VIDEO ELEC. STDS. ASSOC., TLF, TRANSFORMER METROPLEX DESKTOP

And what's the part number for the Toshiba.

 

TMD (what you have) is Toshiba.

 

Please no need for generalizations. The CMO screen you had suck but mine has none of those defects.

 

Yes. I have a CMO screen, but it is plenty bright, and almost no bleeding. And whites are true white.

 

If you are going to quote, quote the whole thing.

I said in my experience.

 

...
"Toshiba is close to perfect screens atleast in my experience."

A new sentence which is misleading.

It is obvious you are pissed off at your experiences with CMO and you show a lot of bias.

 

Yes. I was very disappointed when I first saw the screen - bleeding, yellowish whites, and worst was the CPU whine, then found out there was Toshiba screen, got the replacement, and it was trully night and day difference.

Other user who didn't really compaint about their screen (who had CMO) who got their system replace will tell you this too - I can remember one ID at the moment - WilliamG (I think).

 

Have you used one with a Toshiba screen to compare? If you've never used a high quality screen on a laptop then to you your CMO may look just fine. This is the first Dell screen that I've actually liked. I've had several Inspirons and a couple XPS laptops and the screens were all poor quality compared to some of the better ones I've seen at times in other laptops.

 

That is very true (the dell screen that I actually like part) - This is also my first Dell screen that I actually love.

I've had 17" WUXGA screens on E1705, and M90. They were Samsung - sucked, LG - okay, - and Sharp - good.

The Toshiba on M1330 - Love it.

 

personally i think the sony sz is brighter than the m1330. i have seen both and just received my sz660 and very very pleased with it (got an amazing deal for $1500, even the lesser sz650 sells for atleast 1700 on ebay).

and i also think that the sz is better in general, have used both but having the feature to turn off the video card is a def bonus for battery life and especially heat. and as far as not having hdmi, if you get the docking port it has dvi.


but hey, its to each its own hope you enjoy whatever you get!

and as far as santa rosa laptops ive owned at one time lol and have sent back due to problems/found better deals/other laptop wasn't released yet: HP DV2500t, Asus C90s, dell XPS M1330 and now and permanently! sony sz660

 

Right. So now it is to the vote? Great logic.

 

Have you seen a Toshiba? Let me know when you seen one. I'm not trying to tell you what you should like. If you like the CMO, good for you.

I guess I tried to defend my great logic since you quoted me which caused to defend your screen - sorry for reacting to your quotes, and enjoy your CMO.

 

You have entirely missed the point of the discussion. I said my screen had none of the defects that had been mentioned. That is, bleeding, yellowish whites etc.
I did not say CMO was better than Toshiba, vice versa.
Even comparing both screens, people would have different interpretations which in the end is subjective.

My post was to stop any misleading generalisations about CMO. I have seen and compared many Toshiba screens and the ones I've come across have more restricted view angles and colours is not as rich. But as I said above, it is purely subjective interpretations.

 

Nvidia GeForce Go 8400M / X3100 Hybrid Graphics

That's interesting.

 

I haven't looked at battery life tests to see the difference between running the 8400M and X3100 on a hybrid laptop but in the tests I saw on one of the Sonys using a Go 7400 and GMA950 there wasn't really much of any big difference between the two. I suppose it would help with heat somewhat but you wouldn't be running heavy 3D on the integrated anyways.

 

I be sold if they can make these function like SLIs lol.

 

Thanks for the responses so far. So it looks to be hit and miss with the M1330 screens then, I suppose much like the latest Sony SZ screens too by the looks of it. I've never really suffered any of these problems with my current SZ screen and I must admit that it has been one of the reasons I've been so reluctant to get rid of it because compared to previous laptops I've had (i've had lots!) it has always been better.

If it wasn't for the side panel of the laptop falling off and me having to superglue it back on, I would of kept with it. I just don't want any more bits falling off my laptop, which will no doubt happen.

 

I live in North Wales, out in the hills! Whoops, forgot to put that on my profile.

 

The SZ models are very expensive for the premium models in the UK. The price difference between these models in the US are less of an issue. To get one with an LED screen in the UK you are looking at least £1,649 for one with a 2ghz processor with a 2mb cache. The non premium Sony with the LCD screen weighs about the same as the XPS M1330.


The Sony hybrid graphics will offer you slightly better battery life but the XPS M1330 battery life is pretty good also. If you don't want to pay for a premium Sony you can also get a LED screen for a decent price with the Dell. It also has a 128mb graphics card compared to the 64mb graphics card.

 

It was just fortunate that I was able to get my SZ3XWP/C (LED backlight model) £200 cheaper than what it was selling for at the time (Dec 2006) I don't think I'll be able to obtain one for the same price again for an equivelent SZ6 model.

I'm really keen on the M1330 but I really wouldn't like the screen to be a 'downgrade' if that makes sense.

 

You only bought your laptop in December and you want to upgrade already?

I don't seem to keep a laptop up to a year these days either.

Anyway with the Dell you do have a 30 day return policy. You can return your item to Dell in the UK if you are not happy with it and get a full refund.

There is also a UK thread on status updates in the Dell sub section forum.

 

It wasn't so much that I wanted to upgrade, it's because this laptop has literally got some serious build quality problems. I've had to superglue the side of the laptop back on after it coming away and not clipping back! I beleive these issues have been resolved with the latest SZ release.
It's just a shame they've had to go through 6 releases to get things right.

From what I've seen of the M1330, it looks extremely well built.

 

How did you come to that conclusion? Toshiba Matsu$hita Display is not TRANSFORMER METROPLEX DESKTOP...

Oh and btw, I calibrated my M1330's TMD* using a Spyder2 Express and it was, by default, much too blue (as in 9600K or higher). Note that most people perceive higher color temps as being brighter. Even after calibration to 6300K, the TMD's "whiter" than my Lenovo's panel, but they were both equally bright.

*Assumed to be TMD based on a Hardware id of LCD2306; this association has yet to be proven...

 

It has already been confirmed by disassembly that LCD2306 = TMD = Toshiba (It said Toshiba right on the actual panel itself - I saw pics of the display completely disassembled, though I don't remember who's post it was). Please don't say things haven't been verified or confirmed without a little bit of knowledge.

Hope that helps to clarify....

 

Here's the post you're talking about and even the poster agreeded that there's no guarantee that Dell didn't label different panels with their own internal designator (LCD2306).

So don't you go off presuming that I didn't do my homework

 

Dude, I saw the Toshiba sticker when I got the replacement LCD on the first system I had, not only that, the XPS tech exactly knew there were 2 manufacturers, and told me that it was Toshiba being sent to me.

That's 2 confirmation I had myself. If that's not enough proof, I don't know what is.

 

Well hold on a sec. Let's fill in a few missing pieces for the benefit of the other readers:

Assumption 1 - your Toshiba was (& still is) listed with a Device/Hardware ID of "LCD2306".
Assumption 2 - there have only been two Device/Hardware IDs noted, "LCD2306" and "CMO".

So sure, I never implied in my prior post that LCD2306 is not TMD, I implied that although there was one account (er, now two) of HW ID LCD2306 AND an actual Toshiba panel that there is no way to be 100% certain that "LCD2306" is Toshiba's offical HW designation and not some internal Dell designator that might be applied to all non-CMO panels*... .

*Of course, this is hardly likely to be the case, but cannot be ruled out.

What we need is a link to a Toshiba whitepaper (or DELL internal specs) that states in black & white, "LCD2306 = TMD". Until then, I will go on assuming this is the case, but it's still not a "fact".

-----------

In any case, this topic is detouring away from the OP's original goals, so I'd like to add that I saw Sony's SZ6-LED model in a store a few hours after working on my M1330 & I could swear they were identical in "grainyness" (or lack of) and brightness. I realize it's no A/B comparison but it was enough to satisfy me and I am more than content with my, ah, TMD


P.S. Like everything else in this world, there are good techs and bad techs and techs that just don't give a damn; thus I would take that Tech's statement with a grain of salt and even if I were being optimstic, Dell reserves the right to change specs without prior notification (& and it will take time to trickle down to the techs....).

P.P.S. have a quick look at this article on Samsung's 226BW monitor; the real kicker is that Samsung manufactures panels but frequently outsources panels for their monitors.

 

Yes. LCD 2306 is Toshiba. Don't ever join the army with this guy. You will never have a confirmed kill.

 

Put your money where your mouth is & prove it.
Don't ever join the army with this guy. You just might be left for dead.

 

He has already shown proof that the LCD2306 hardware ID correlates to the Toshiba panel. You're the one who's making the wild assumption that LCD2306 may also correlate to a panel made by a different manufacturer (or TRANSFORMER METROPLEX DESKTOP as you say), which is preposterous considering that all other LCD panels fitted in Dell notebooks (not LCD monitors) have their own unique hardware ID shown in the device properties. It's unreasonable for Dell to assign any hardware IDs on their notebook LCD panels. They just assemble them, that's all.

 

Sigh...

1. I'm not making an assumption, I'm only stating what's already been stated that there's no guarantee that LCD2306 is the official HW ID for Toshiba panels.

2. I have no clue what "TRANSFORMER METROPLEX DESKTOP" is and I have no idea what those words have to do with Toshiba. This was actually the reason behind my original post and I still don't have an answer to that question.

3. Google LCD2306. Wow, that's amazing, every hit has M1330 in it. No other Notebook on earth using TMD's LCD2306?

3. "all other LCD panels fitted in Dell notebooks (not LCD monitors) have their own unique hardware ID" - well, that's good to know. I'm not sure how you know that, but of course you wouldn't add insult to injury with anything less than facts, right. Right? Btw, what Dell (if any) do you own and what HW ID is associated with it?

 

By you saying that there's no guarantee, you are essentially implying that there could be a possibility that LCD2306 may also correlate to a different panel. You have no basis for making this assumption other than Zetto's comment. No offense to Zetto, but how is he/she credible in this matter anyway, or anyone else who hasn't done the dirty work to prove that Dell use the same hardware ID for two or more distinct components? You are right that there is no guarantee that LCD2306 is the official HWID for ALL Toshiba panels, however for this particular Toshiba panel used in the M1330, it is. Feel free to contact Dell to verify if LCD2306 correlates to other panels, if you disagree.

And what makes you believe Dell is even capable of changing the hardware ID, which is hardcoded on the component that's manufactured by a different company? Sure, Dell can ask each manufacturer to change the HWIDs to a univeral HWID while the components are being manufactured, but it hasn't happened before and it's unreasonable for them to go through all the trouble now.

What are you trying to say and why is that surprising to you? The M1330 is Dell's first model to have an LED-backlit panel and perhaps Toshiba and Dell have made special arrangements to use that unique panel with that unique HWID. The SZ has a LTD133EXBX/LTD133EXBY Toshiba LED-backlit panel with a unique MS_00X0 HWID naming scheme, and no other notebook uses that panel, as far as I know. Google LTD133EWDD, which is the actual model name for the M1330 Toshiba panel. Surprisingly, there are no results; does that mean it doesn't exist to you?

I've actually owned quite a few Dell notebooks in the past and I own a Vostro 1500 now, which is currently being exchanged because of a faulty ChungHwa Picture Tubes screen. Using your same argument, there could be a probable chance that my notebook doesn't have a screen manufactured by ChungHwa Picture Tubes, even though the HWID is CPT141F, right? Maybe CPT stands for something else. how can anyone be sure? I mean, it's not written in any white paper indexed by Google.

 

Thanks - I didn't consider the possiblity of custom large-volume orders but you're quite right to suggest that large firms like Dell & Sony have the weight to organize "custom" panels from the likes of Toshiba, LG-Philips, AUO, CMO, etc. Therefore, I'll retract my "google" theory and agree that it doesn't prove jack...

As for "HW IDs", I would think that anyone with firmware-level programming know-how can alter this field, so while it makes little sense, I'm sure Dell has the capability do just that if they really wanted to.

 

I'm not sure why bogart is typing sooo much for this. I saw Toshiba sticker, and confirmed w/ Dell. It was up to Traveler to take the info or not. I have no control over that, I just provided what I saw and heard. That's enough atleast for me.

I'm reppin you - Bogart for the time you spent on this thread.