Where are the good displays?

What happened to the display manufacturers? A few years back you could get a notebook with a good high res display, and by good I mean good contrast and brightness. If you look at the tests of current top notch notebooks, most of them are shipped with extremely bad displays, dull, dark and low res.

Apart from Dell and Sony, who still seem to value quality screens, nobody has high res screens anymore, and even they only offer either low res or Full HD, nothing in between...

What happened? Are customers so undereducated or blind or both, that such crap can be sold?

 

Almost every company has a model that has a "relatively" good screen if you know where to look for it. HP Elitebooks 8730w/8740w, Lenovo X200 (AFFS+), Apple MBP, etc. However, on the average, as consumer notebooks have gone down in price, so have the quality of the parts (the cost reduction has to come from somewhere).

 

Huh? Nothing could be further from the truth; and the technology is still going through continuous changes and improvements. Just look at the remarkable increase in resolution of your average hand-held device. Not to mention that LCD screens have all but replace standard view finders in almost any type of camera you can buy.

In fact, screen resolution has improved markedly since their introduction and especially over the last couple of years where they have gotten thinner, lighter, and brighter. Since the introduction of LEDs in LCD screens, we not only get a much brighter display, but one that lasts ten times as long.

As for the manufacturers, I I'm not mistaken, there's only a couple of them in the screen business--Samsung being one of the major ones. As the technology continues to improve, we will be seeing the introduction of OLEDs in laptops as well as screens with display films literally as thin as paper. Just you wait!

 

well asus do offer full HD res on gaming laptops , Sony even offer it on 13 incher and Dell does offer on alienware and studio XPS... it's not standard to offer full HD as it is expensive... and 720p isn't crap.. in fact, its just right for reading... Full HD is useful in seeing movies and playing games maybe but the costs still outweigh the benefits so it hasn't become standard yet.. if u really want a full HD screen , research and u'll find many laptops with it...

 

720p per se is not crap, but if it has a contrast ratio of 1:140, it is! Unfortunately this is the case for most notebooks apart from Apple, Dell and Sony...and by the way, show me an 15" Asus with subtle looks, power under the hood, which is available with anything other than HD.

 

720p is kinda low on the vertical side though. People are easily lulled by the whole "HD" movement that the term "FullHD" makes them go "ooohhh" then they don't realize that the previous "high res" screen was actually larger(i.e. 1920*1200 vs 1920*1080).

As for the screens, I believe the big manufacturers are Samsung, LG and AoC for the big companies.

And yes, customers are quite ignorant. My previous example about screen resolutions is just one among many cases.

 

720p can also be ok on 13" or 14", like I said the problem is that the screen quality gets worse with each generation...1:140 contrast screens are normal now...2 years ago most had 1:250...

 

I was thinking of making a thread about this. Displays in general (meaning, in standalone monitors, phones, etc.) have gotten better, but displays in laptops have either stayed the same or got worse. It's now fairly common to see a machine with a decent GPU and an atrocious display. And I don't think this can be blamed on computers getting cheaper: they did get cheaper, but at the same time practically all other components (CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD) got better and only the displays stay the same or get worse.

I wonder if the LCD manufacturers are up to their old price-fixing tricks again. They got busted for it back in 2008, but it could have been profitable enough for them to resume after some time.

 

I'm very happy with my Sony's screen, it isn't perfect (or LED) but it very bright and the colors look great. My roommate's MBP 13 has a decent screen for its size, but the resolution is rather low. The HP Envy 13 were available with a 1600x900 "Radiance" display that was about 410 nits. I saw one in person and it looked better than my Sony's display in my opinion.

I just don't buy a laptop if the screen is not up to my standards (bright and clear) but of course I consider resolution in respect to screen size as well. Perhaps other consumers buy online only or are just unable to be bothered by the poor quality.

 

you can get almost any kind of display you want if you are willing to pay for it.

and that is pretty much all it takes; a willingness to pay.

 

This can't be. Are you sure you mean contrast ratio?

 

I know right? After a quick look at Notebookcheck, here are a couple of recent notebooks. Of course these are just examples, there are many variants of back lighting and panels out there.

HP Probook 6540b WXGA++ LED
Information
Maximum: 230 cd/m²
Average: 213.9 cd/m²
Illumination: 86 %
Black: 0.41 cd/m²
Contrast: 551:1
Brightness on battery: 226 cd/m²

Acer Aspire 5740G Notebook (budget) 1366x768
nformation
Maximum: 187 cd/m²
Average: 176.8 cd/m²
Illumination: 91 %
Black: 0.96 cd/m²
Contrast: 177:1

Clevo X8100 (FullHD)
Maximum: 220 cd/m²
Average: 204.2 cd/m²
Illumination: 88 %
Black: 1.10 cd/m²
Contrast: 200:1
Brightness on battery: 220 (Konst.) cd/m²



Now lets look at something older. (2007 Santa rosa notebooks)

Inspiron 1720 WXGA+

Maximum:
194.1 cd/m²
Average:
155.9 cd/m²
Black:
0.7 cd/m²
Contrast:
277:1

Inspiron 1520 WXGA
Maximum: 231.5 cd/m²
Average: 199.6 cd/m²
Illumination: 74 %
Black: 1.0 cd/m²
Contrast: 215:1

T61 14.1'' WXGA+
Maximum:
221.2 cd/m²
Average:
196.9 cd/m²
Black:
1.1 cd/m²
Contrast:
201:1

 

Yeah it's funny how 1280x720 is HDTV, and yes on a TV screen it looks great, cause you aren't staring at it from only 1-2 metres away, yet it's a fairly low end res in the notebook market. It's also funny how the ignorant consumer is misled by all these standards for so called "High Definition" resolution, like how FHD is 1920x1080, and is somehow portrayed as being so much better than WUXGA, which is just sort of left out as a big player now cause it doesn't have a special pet name other than it's official abreviation, which is still unknown as to what it stands for, in most consumers cases.

Also the change in aspect ratios over the years correlate to all these new standards stomping out the use of the good old standard abbreviations, 16:10 i can handle, 4:3 would be even better but well, 16:9, cannot handle.

 

Lower resolution screens also cover up the general crappiness of Laptop GPUs.
My previous laptop was dumped because of the 720p - not enough real estate for premiere/photoshop.

WUXGA is ideal, but pricey and limited available.
1920x1080 next best thing.

[Still dreaming of WQXGA though]

 

Oh yeah i was looking at fitting my old ThinkPad T61p with a WQXGA but it currently is only made in 4:3 QXGA res, which can only be done on the 4:3 ThinkPad T60p.

 

QXGA 2048x1536
WQXGA 2560x1600

On a 14.1"-15.4" laptop screens those would be awesome indeed. Are you sure you didn't mean UXGA and WUXGA (1600x1200 and 1920x1200) instead

 

No because my old T61p had WUXGA and i wanted to upgrade it to WQXGA. QXGA is 4:3 aspect ratio, the W is added for the Widescreen version of QXGA.

 

This pretty much sums up OPs point. On paper those Asus displays are very nice with great resolution. When compared with say a Dell typical XPS display the Asus looks like absolute crap.

He's not talking about resolution. He's talking about image quality and I agree with him 100%.

 

Indeed, no good image quality is avaible on laptop compared to stand-alone displays. Merely bad-worse are available.

But this no news to anyone who concerns it.

Which display manufacturer would make a decent display for a laptop and not expect a beating in share prices. None, the market is too small for the effort.

Decent display?
No choice, go external - the market is just good enough to make some decent releases (pricing being a secondary issue).

 

There are a few laptops with reasonably good displays. They can't match standalone ones, but they're not bad. The problem is that they're not common enough to narrow things down to laptops with a good display and still have a reasonable selection in terms of size, graphics card, battery life, etc. They're usually found on business notebooks and a few gaming ones (e.g. the ASUS G73Jh).

 

http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/laptop-review-asus-g73jh-ty042v-nkmo-1124/4

You call 195:1 a good display? A good display has more than 300:1 contrast with a brightness of 250. And by they way business notebooks, like Lenovo have even worse display, some like the T400 have 90:1 contrast, which is very very bad.

So where are the good LGPhilips and AUO displays as they used to be 2 years ago, with a contrast of 1:500?

 

I think by "business" Althernai meant more the photo/video editing workstations. I don't know what the actual contrast levels are on these screens, but what about the Precision M6400/M6500 RGBLED screens, or the HP 8730w/8740w Dreamcolor 1/2 screens? Seeing as those are intended for photo or video-editing work, they should presumably be better than the average. I think the Lenovo W700 is also intended to fit in that category, but I know less about it.

 

No, but if you read the link I provided, you'll see that the laptop in question has 1000:1 contrast. The German article you linked is talking about a different display (for starters, the AnandTech one is 1920x1080 and not 1600x900).

 

Um no. Go take a look at an XPS panel. Take a look at a macbook. These are quality displays. They exists but builders are unfortunately choosing the display more often than not to cut corners with.

 

Yes, these are excellent display (albeit reserved for expensive workstations) and incontrovertible proof positive that laptop manufacturers are continuing to improve the quality of their screens in notebooks.

The Dreamcolor display is arguably the best in the industry in a laptop, and superior to all but the most expensive stand alone displays available. Anyone who cannot see that, is looking in the wrong places.

 

i for one, would pay up to a $500 premium to have a wqxga screen in my 17" laptop. and if such a thing were offered with dual, top-of-the-line mobile gpu's; i'd probably have one currently instead of my 15.4".

i refuse to move to a larger chassis without a larger resolution to accompany it.

 

This reminds me of digital cameras where they get more megapixels, they have wifi, they have video.......but actually the picture quality is the same or in many cases worse.

In LCDs we see now regard some really awful junk as "standard": poor black levels, poor colour representation, poor viewing angles. I want a better image quality first before the long song and dance about whether the display has LED, OLED, whether it bends, sings or dances. Useful resolution (vertical) is going down. Almost every standard laptop is now using 1366 x 768. Awful resolution even if all you do is browse the web, because you scrolll and scroll forever.

There is no reason why we should not have screens with contrast ration of above 250:1 and black levels of 0.5cd/m as standard. 1050 vertical pixels minimum.

 

Well I do agree that the low cost panels seem to go down in quality lately. The newest Acer review on Notebookjournal (Timeline 3820 and 4820) confirm this. It's also happening with all netbooks.

I guess the average consumer is ok with 150:1 contrast and 150 nits brightness. a glossy layer can cover up the lack of contrast somewhat.

I've also read Asus is lowering the brightness of its netbooks on purpose, so that reviewers will get higher battery life. Seems like a plausible theory because a simple tool can increase the brightness beyond factory settings.

But for those with more to spend it's still easy to get a quality display. Like said before: MBPs, some Sonys, HPs, Dells have good displays. Too easy to find out nowadays.

I'm still hoping NBR will soon start measuring screens.

 

well , will u be able to read ... anyways 17inch is a little too small for such a high res...

 

tell that to the 200dpi iphone users.

here's a good article:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/06/where-are-the-high-resolution-displays.html

 

Other than the fact that it is actually 163ppi?

That said, a WQVGA display for a 17'' notebook would be pretty nice. I have a 147ppi 15.4'' 1920x1200 screen myself.

 

163dpi would be a STRATOSPHERIC improvement for 17" laptop screens.

 

The Vaio P is 200+ ppi, that thing really isn't all that usable.

 

you're also talking about a tiny display. even at 1024x768 or whatever, it's going to be tough using such a tiny display. there is such a thing as a "minimum useful size".

think of it this way. how about we render the same font, the same size, with twice the number of pixels? that way, everyone can be happy.

 

I know, I was just saying, lol relax.

@ The general topic, to be fair (and realistic), I don't think 80% of the notebook buyers out there cares about screen quality to a high degree. No body needs a 100% RGB gamut display to play farmville on facebook or to check Twitter.

 

Acer has just 200 nits typically, but in the worst marketing double speak, they describe it is "High brightness 200 nit screen". Go figure.

Not true. 13" and 14" are probably the most mainstream size and there are very few to be found in this range. Do you know of a Lenovo or Sony or Acer or Asus 14" laptop with high quality screen? I dont.

 

Either way, depending on how much time I have, I might just put together a list of notebook's with high resolution/quality displays so people can find the information easier.

@skagen...Actually you will find the 15'' range to be the most popular size. 13'' is too small to be cheap (yet).

 

13": Sony Z, Apple MBP, HP Envy, Dell SXPS 13.
14": Dell Studio 1600*900, Expected: HP Envy 14.

 

You said there were many. As we see, this isnt the case.
- At 14" you have listed only one. The second one doesn't exist. And even two isn't "many"
- At 13", you have listed four. Again this isnt many when you start counting the thousands of offerings at this size. Its not even one percent of the models out there.

Looking that popular brands like Lenovo, Acer, Asus, which people encounter in retails we have zero offerings with good displays at this size. Even the ones you manage to list here are like one unit from manufactuers that have 5-10 models each in this size range.

That's precisely what I'm saying. There isnt much out there. Your likelihood of finding a junk screen is overwhelmingly bigger.

 

Actually I did not. You may want to read back what I wrote.

I wrote " But for those with more to spend it's still easy to get a quality display."

Still true in my opinion. And if you don't agree that's fine

 

It's not "easy", if all available is ebut a handful to pick from in 13" and a mere one in 14.

"Easy" is for example going to buy a TV or a projector or a car, in which case seeking high quality isnt going to leave you with a "choice" of exactly one item.

 

+1

Samsung and AUO tends to bulk sell displays from what I can see. Viewing angles and color reproduction will differ.


I hear it won't be more than 2 years before we start seeing IPS displays on notebooks. I read on a different forum that IPS panels require a different type of lighting that would make the average notebook's screen prohibitively thick.

With the miracles of engineering, just buy a notebook if you need it now, and look forward to better. In a blink of an eye, we'll also start seeing OLED displays. Now THAT will be a kick() monitor.

But chick magnet? Well...maybe not so much...

 

I beg to differ, IPS monitors are sexy

 

HD Vision sunglasses, anyone?

 

Getting a good display became even easier today HP Envy 14 and Envy 17 are official now.

It packs a larger 14.5-inch HD Radiance display (nearly 60 percent brighter than competing laptops).
HP Envy 14, Envy 17 Hands-on: MacBook Pro Wannabes No More

I wonder if will be offered with Full HD display.

 

My idea of a good resolution is 15.4" 1920x1200. Go ahead and try to find one of these on any new models from any vendor - they don't exist any more, they're extinct. No amount of money will get you this rez on a new laptop, you can only find it on old models. This totally sucks.

 

+eleventy billion.

until clevo pulls it's head out of its ; i'm going to hang onto my sager 8662 till the day the screen no longer functions--even if i have to gut the damn thing & figure out how to run all new internals in a few years.

that may be a high-quality display...but the resolutions still suck.

if you were forced to play COD4 in 800x450, would you?