Vostro 1500 - two problems with 1280x800 LCD

Thankfully I've been spared any dead pixels, or grainy screen, but I've noticed two problems with my 1280x800 screen:

1) The viewing angles. Side to side is reasonable, but it's the vertical one that's pretty awful: if I bob my head up and down by an inch, or sway backwards or forwards, then half the screen changes in intensity... I can have the top half of the screen 'normal', with the bottom half looking 'washed out', or the bottom half 'normal' and the top half looking too dark. It's not a problem I've seen on any other LCD I've worked with.
I can *mostly* overcome this problem by turning down the main screen brightness, and fiddling the gamma, brightness and contrast settings in the Nvidia control panel, but obviously I'm compromising the colour fidelity to overcome a hardware issue. Not ideal!


and


2) I noticed when I first started up the pc, right from the bios screen that there were vertical stripes in the display, where the colours looked different: the blue dell logo appeared purple in 2 of the stripes... a checkerboard of blue and purple pixels.
When the WinXP startup screen appeared, the effect was different: there was a 'dithering' effect, except the dithering between colours was very slow.
I can't remember if the effect just went away or I reset the machine, but when I actually used Windows it was fine for several hours. At some point though the screensaver / powermizer cut in and shut the screen down, and when I woke it up the stripes had returned. I closed the lid and re-opened it, and the stripes were gone.


So... problem 1 is pretty annoying and had me wondering if it's worth rejecting the system, and problem 2 does make me think I've got an intermittent hardware fault as well. I don't think the two problems are inter-connected.

My questions are:

1) Should I contact Dell and ask for a replacement screen? (I'm thinking I should, the only downside is that they might give me a grainy / dead pixelled screen and I might end up worse off, or in a cycle of pointless replacements etc.

2) Should I 'demand' any particular type of replacement panel?

3) Is it worth me offering to pay the difference for an upgrade to a different resolution screen? ie. is the 1440x900 going to be more likely to be better?


Apart from the screen I really like the system, it connected to my wifi faultlessly, it's quiet, it's not too hot (so far... I've not tried any 3d games yet) and it appears to be solidly built. So I'd rather not reject it out of hand.


Anyway... any thoughts most welcomed!

 

The viewing angles are normal, infact their specs for those viewing angles are listed on their site when you are configuring your laptop. Therefore its your fault if you are not happy with them.

As for the vertical lines, it sounds to be more of a video card than the actual display.

 

Nizzy thanks for taking the time to reply.

Hmm... yes, I'd rather ignored the fact the problem might be the video card rather than the screen. That's not good news tbh, as it means I'm more likely to have to send the whole thing back (for repair)

As for the viewing angle specs, this is all I could find:

Now 'standard' doesn't really pin it down, but given the fact that moving my angle of view by about 10-15 degrees vertically (which is easy when you're about 2 ft away from the screen) dramatically changes the image, then I'd consider that even 'standard' (versus their other option of 'wide') doesn't cut it. If they'd said 'narrow, like looking through a postbox' then I'd agree!

 

if you can reproduce the vertical lines problems, try conecting the laptop to an external monitor to check it out

 

that's a good idea, thanks... but would I have to shut down the screen to plug in the external monitor... ie. can I hot-plug my lcd without shutting anything down?


edit: Ooh! Ooh! No-one told me about this option in the Nvidia control panel:

'Extend battery life by using less power for the display'

because switching that off makes a HUGE difference! I just tried my card in 3D for the first time (with Day of Defeat: Source) and was a bit disappointed that the dark parts of the maps were a rather strange mush of purpley-blacks. (Very impressed with the framerate though!). I went to the Nvidia control panel to see if I could adjust the colours in 3d mode, and stumbled across this option instead... unticked it and *kapow* much nicer in-game images!

And the viewing angle problem is MUCH reduced!!! It's still there, but I can *easily* live with it



I'll just keep my eye out for the stripe problem now.


*** Happy ***

 

On the dell site you can check the technical details of the Vostro 1500 including the display specifications:
Viewing Angles

Horizontal

±40° (WXGA)
±40° (WXGA with TrueLife)
±55° (WXGA+ with TrueLife)
±60° (WSXGA+ with TrueLife)

Vertical

+15°/–30° (WXGA)
+15°/–30° (WXGA with TrueLife)
±45° (WXGA+ with TrueLife)
+40°/–50° (WSXGA+ with TrueLife)

These specs are the minimal angles EVERY panel should achieve, depending on the manufacturer and panel type they can be a bit better.

As you can see, those specifications are pretty bad for the WXGA with only +15 in vertical. I've got the LG LPL0201 panel in my vostro 1500, which has bad vertical viewing angles aswell, but you won't get a WXGA with good viewing angles from Dell no matter who of their suppliers made it.

 

Well I couldn't find those specs even when I looked for 'em, they ought to be linked to the options when actually purchasing, then I'd feel like I've no 'excuse'.

But heck, the point is that Dell should be able to source and sell better panels than these. I can definitely live with it, but it's still the worst LCD panel I've seen in the last 5 years.

I'd like to remind any of the Dell apologists out there that Dell's turnover in 2007 was $57 billion. I think they can afford to, and should, look after their customers quite well!


edit:
I also found something else that helped the apparent abilities of the panel. I changed the wallpaper on my desktop to a nice blue sky scene.... the light colours mask the brightness changes quite well. Ironically it looked awful when using the default 'vostro' desktop image - the highlight effect along with the grained and shadowed background seems designed to show the panel off at it's worst!

 

Just in case anyone reads this thread and is scared off buying a Dell, a couple of observations...

1) I'm not sure the 'Extend battery life...' option made much difference to the desktop image, but 3D gaming remains much improved

2) I've found a decent balance of brightness / contrast / colour vibrance / gamma in the nVidia control panel that gives decent colours AND hides the viewing angle problem quite well

3) I've seen a couple of Toshiba laptops and a Fujitsu Lifebook that also have fairly poor vertical viewing angles, so it's a problem that must affect laptop screens much more than desktop ones...?

So... on balance I'm now very happy with my Dell. The stripey screen problem hasn't re-occurred, though I'm keeping my eye out for it, and I can now use my laptop without fretting over the screen (and whether to send it back)