Importance of Contrast Ratio vs Brightness/Darkness vs RGB Coverage In Display Quality

I have studied display panels quite a bit. You see notebookcheck's display analysis which typically includes the brightness, darkness, contrast ratio, and RGB coverage.

So I know that in a perfect world, you want to have it all. But, if you have to compromise, what should you compromise?

All I want is a good-looking display where things looks vivid and crisp.

I'm thinking you should probably focus more on brightness as opposed to contrast (especially if the low contrast is due to high black value). Thoughts? And is high contrast really bad for your eyes?

Also, I'm tending to think that for the average joe, RGB coverage is a non-issue. Of course, if you are doing photoshop professionally, maybe - but otherwise, probably not something all that important?

For those with FHD laptops - do you really use the higher resolution? I really can't imagine using FHD on a 11 inch screen. Maybe for 14-15 inch. Am I wrong? Resolution seems to be a big selling point, but I think most people don't use the higher resolutions anyways.

Thanks!

 

Plasma HDTVs and *VA panel LCD screens are good references for you to see what high contrast can do for an image (or even movies as well). For editing purposes , the color gamut (there are many standards ; NTSC , Adobe RGB , etc.) is more important than the contrast.

You should also realize that the screen coating can make things look more vivid ( compare semi glossy vs matte).

A direct effect of having a high resolution screen is having a more crisp image. Of course scaling needs to be done properly for you to have the best overall experience though.

 

ok these are all my personal opinions and may be biased as I spend thousands of hours editing video and images.

Resolution matters more by screen size. 10-13" I am very happy with 720. 13 & 14 I prefer 800-900. 15"-18" I swing towards 1080.

Contrast ratio is less important than consistent brightness in some lighting situations. if you work mostly in dim rooms or flourecent lighting high brightness is less important. If I work outdoors then I have to flip over to the industrial laptops with 1500 nit screens.

screen gamut ( rgb coverage ) really does matter actually and bad coloring can actually cause a lot of eye strain if you have color shifting in a screen.

whitepoint ..... why does everyone forget this? if your base color is off then everything looks funny.

if you like vivid and crisp images like a good HD TV then rgb coverage ( gamut ) is important because HDTV's use a modified version of rgb called REC709 for their color palette to give the natural hues, tones and nuances that a low gamut screen really misses.

then I would focus more on black levels and whitepoint. and worry less on brightness and contrast.

you have never seen a beautiful image until you wander into the full aRBG gamuts and 1.1 billion accurate colors ( 10bpp )

 

If its for non production use, i wouldn't get caught up too much between panel specs. I would suggest seeing the screens with your own eyes before deciding.

FHD has more real estate to work on and the graininess of pixels are less noticeable up close.

 

Doesn't the coating of the panel affect graininess? I'm quite sure my matte displays look more grainy than my glossy displays with the same pixel density.

 

I was referring to pixel density aka 'Retina displays' as Apple would call it

But yes matte screens (Anti-glare coating) can be more grainier due to the way it disperses light.

 

and then we add in it depends how pixels are rendered. that was why text on a 1050 screen on a MacBook Pro looked noticeably WORSE than a 720/768 equipped windows screen because of the font smoothing/rendering .... hence part of the existence of the retina display. Matching a good screen with another weak point such as GPU that flickers or runs interpolated, O/S or your application or image not syncing or handling output properly can make it look grainy too. a good example is when I need to redo some video work from 2003. garbage in .... garbage out no matter how fantastic my system and screens are

 

I'd sort of like to see the HP Dreamcolor displays. But nobody stocks them pretty much. As far as specs go, The brightness isn't off the charts, and neither is the contrast ratio. And, they're matte to boot. Do they really look that good?

 

For entertainment and general use, I would take high cr (2k:1) with 70-80 srgb over full srgb with 600-700ish cr.(think desktop va vs ips)
For laptop display, there are not much choice. It is either crap tn, ok tn, typical ips with crap qc and ultra spec'd ips with some fault.

Unless you use it alot outdoor, I wouldn't worry about brightness.

 

I have DreamColor 2 displays in an 8570W, 8740W, 8760w and 8770w .... they actually look better than that. Aikimox has a decent comparison from an OLD review of the 8740W around here somewhere. but to be polite current DC2 screens make your Apple Retina 15" look like the $299 discount bin Gateway in Wal-Mart.

ok found it here is the THREE year old screen that still mops the floor with many an external screen letalone laptop
http://forum.notebookreview.com/notebook-news-reviews/503121-hp-8740w-review-full-metal-jacket.html

The only way to compare would be to find a really top end high gamut external monitor that is a close equivalent ( most stores still wont have one ) and imagine it stuck in a laptop. the closest that you may find commonly in retail would be the Apple Cinema Display but the DC2 is still noticeably better than even that

 

Most GPUs can't even drive the DreamColor displays since they are true 30 bit (with 10 bits per main color) displays , right?

 

correct. all Intel IGP's are out and a number of Fermi based Gforce cards. Almost all Radeons from the 9000 series up will drive them including APU's. Plus all Quadro and Fire Pros from the last decade will run them beautifully, hence why those panels as well as the PremierColor panel in the M6700/M6800 stop any configured system from having intel graphics switching

 

Can this thread be moved to the hardware section?

 

While there's a ton of reading one can do on display technologies and quality, nothing can replace interacting with an actual LCD - more like dozens of them, really - and deciding for yourself what works best for your particular needs. A royal PITA of an approach? By all means.

Eye fatigue is another thing to consider. If you're going to be spending a lot of time looking at your laptop's LCD, you need a screen that's easy on the eyes and that means a high-quality panel, likely something along the lines of IPS/AFFS/AHVA.

The best laptop LCD I've ever seen - and I've seen thousands - is the DreamColor panel found on 8740W. That's what MY eyes say. Yours are definitely different and your preferences might be as well.

My eyesight is bad and I have no problem with FHD or slightly higher on a 15" laptop. I doubt that I'd be able to withstand it on a 13" unit for any serious amount of time, though.

Having said that, depending on the size of the machine you're looking for, the choices are going to be limited to several models from a handful of manufacturers.

Good luck.

 

Since KCETech is back and mentions about dreamcolor, I want to confirm if yours 17" one have corner tint? My own and stock image of all review I seen both show them. ~~

 

Very good point. I went to Best Buy today. I sort of feel like there is a "pretty" display, and also a "good" display. As I looked at the specs on some of the displays, the ones that looked "pretty" were the ones with high brightness. Ironically, some of the cheapest Toshiba cheapos looked good to me. Maybe that's just me. Could be a completely different game when you actually start looking at a photograph on one of them. I don't want to wear my eyes out with a very bright display. And I'm sure the ones with brightest displays are the ones with worst battery life. I'd like the dreamcolor panels, but those sure are bulky laptops.

I have a hard time justifyng an additional 400-600 for 1080p vs 720p with an i7 processor.

I'm wondering how much it would really matter to me. Processor for sure I think is way overstated in importance. I think an i3 or even core2duo with nice SSD and lots of memory would perform just as well as an expensive 4th gen i7 for 99.9% of what most people do on their laptops.

 

It really depends on what you do...additional $600 for a laptop that will be used for 4 years is less than $3 a week...which buys a bagel with cream cheese and a small orange juice in my neck of the woods if you're lucky.

For "what most peole do on their laptops" an iPad is plenty, which is one of the reasons that PC sales are in the toilet.

FWIW, while I own a couple of C2D era laptops with SSDs and they run beautifully, if one is looking for a *really* good screen they have to skip to the first Core i generation, when Dell and HP started shipping workstations with high-end IPS LCDs...

My $0.02 only...

 

I have no corner tint on any of the 5 17" models I have. ( Elitebook 87x0W's and Precision M6700 ) I do have a small amount on a precision m4700 ( before they pulled the Precisioncolor option ).
and to my knowledge Charles, Aikimox etc have had no corner bleeds. in the early batches of the 8740W ( the very first laptop with the panel ) there were issues and we had to send them back to HP for screen replacements but never on the 60's and 70's

 

Find some nice photo from a zbook 17 open box (left), I clearly see the tint. I want cherry pick screen xDD.



http://www.chiphell.com/thread-918452-1-1.html

 

You were lucky. Both of those issues are characteristic of IPS screens, and both are present on my display. Granted, they are small and only in the lower right corner, and you have to focus to see it, but it is there.

 

I'd argue that while the issue is present on some DreamColor panels and their Dell equivalents, it's really not a characteristic/flaw of IPS panels in general...

 

What kind of characteristics do you look for in a panel to eliminate the pixels/blocks/lack of flow between colors during dark scenes of movies, i had this a lot when using my T430, I know it has to do with a combination of the encoding bitrate, higher bitrate would mean better quality, but would an IPS although smaller resolution reduce this type of pixel during dark scenes, i was looking at specifically the X series IPS of lenovo, i don't really like higher resolutions, text gets kind of small for me to read even with 20/20

 

Well, T430 was known for having one of the worst LCDs available even by Lenovo's rather low standards...

That might be a hit or miss, and here's why: while the "flow" that you're looking for will likely be a lot better compared to the T430 panel, backlight bleed which is rather common - and often outright annoying - on X2*0 IPS panels might prove to be just as irritating during "dark" scenes...

 

i see, back to square one, i guess i can't find the perfect laptop

other one i was considering was xps 13 IPS FHD, but it is more than i want to pay and 1080p on 13," not my cup of tea, plus soldered ram doesn't sit well with me.

 

I'm not entirely sure about your terminology, but it appears you're speaking apples and oranges. Bit rate here has to do with your acquisition.

Where you screen is concerned, it can't give you what's not in the original recording. Ideally, ISPs are better at this than TNT.

 

if you process an mp4 at a higher bit rate, the quality of the movie will be nicer, from what i read, but i think the pixels i get during dark scenes is due to the panel, here is a picture from my phone, those are the types of pixels i get when watching dark scenes

 

You need a calibration tool determine the true quality of your screen. That said, you can tell a lot by the picture it displays.

Even so, you don't want to mix display resolution with content quality. MP4 refers to your content. Pixels to your display capability. But even pixels don't tell the whole story.

You can have a reference monitor and fee it a poor picture and it will look crappy. On the other hand, a 4k signal will only resolve to the limit of the display.

 

well just played the same MP4 file on a P780 Dell CRT monitor, same resolution as the T430, 1600 x 900, the quality was crystal clear, especially in dark scenes, colors were very nice, so it is the panel more than likely, i am thinking about getting a T5** series lenovo with a 1080p display 95% color gamut, and better contrast, i am wondering if this is a good option