6930p screen - LED vs non-LED ?

I'm a potential 6930p buyer. I really want to know is there a big difference in picture quality between LED and non-LED screens ?

I would like to buy a model with dedicated gfx and 1440x900 screen but I would settle with lower resolution screen with LED backlight if it's better than higher res one.

By better I mean better viewing angles, brighter, better colors, etc.

Is it worth getting LED based screen on 6930p ?

Thank you !

 

*BUMP*

Anyone ?

 

It's difficult to say but the LED screen is slightly brighter. 6930p's with LED backlit displays are actually pretty rare configurations as most corporate units aren't configured with it.

 

LED backlights burn much less power than CCFLs and should be more reliable. That's reason enough to upgrade. My next notebook will hopefully have a LED backlight, antiglare screen, and higher resolution. You definitely want antiglare rather than the pretty, eyestrain-inducing glossy screens that are so prevalent.

 

The vertical viewing angles are a bit poor with the 1440 x 900 CCFL screen... the worst I have experienced, although I am switching over from tablet pc's... who's screens generally have exceptional viewing angles.

I would be tempted to go for the LED 1280 x 800. I find LED screens easier on the eye than CCFL screens as well.

 

LED means longer battery life, sometime much longer battery life.
I read some time ago (and dunno if it is still true or not) that on notebooks usually you get arrays of white leds because of the size of the panel, while on high-end TVs you get arrays of triplets of rgb leds to simulate the white light.
Triplets of rgb leds give a more accurate white light than white leds (they are blue leds with some sort of "vernish" inside them), so color gamut and dynamic range may be affected on notebooks.

BTW, if I have the chance, I would absolutely buy LED displays instead of CCFL ones, mostly for battery life. And I don't think LED panels can be so much worse (if they actually are, dunno, but don't think so) than CCFL panels about colors.

I'm not really sure, but newest Macbook pros may use leds, and they have extraordinary battery life.

 

@Matta: Have you made your decision?

Am asking because I have a 6930p with dedicated ATI gfx & WXGA+ display and currently looking for a fix or change to get rid of the display on this machine. I also think that the WXGA resolution (1280x800) is better on my eyes, and if the LED is only available @ WXGAm, it would be ok with me.

Problem is - as chrixx already mentioned - you'll hardly find any 6930p with LED, even less used LED displays on eBay & Co.

The WXGA+ display on my HP 6930p (Dec. 2008) was even built in the first week of 2007 and is an AUO3047. If I'd known that HP equips their new machines with such an old panel, I'd rather have stuck with my older nx8220...

 

That's a true statement and probably the only constant. As for the anti-glare screen. It wouldn't be fair not to mention that by switching to those screens there is a reduced brightness in the picture (which effects vibrance of colors) that results from the anti-glare coated screens. So choosing one would result in some measure of compromise--albeit mostly one of taste.

 

To jke:

How did you determine the manufacture date of the LCD panel? I have an different model HP with an AUO3047 WXGA+ LCD bought in Dec 2008. Would love to figure it out.

 

I wouldn't worry about brightness on anti-glare coated screens, i can't stand my laptops' displays over 40% brightness. Both are glossy. I have a 21" CRT monitor with anti-glare coating, and mind you, it blows the laptop screens away. Of course, you can't compare a CRT with a LCD in terms of colors because the tube is vastly superior (but also f'n heavy ), but on white the CRT has a much more pleasant picture. The glossy LCDs feel harsh to my eyes when the brightness is turned up. Regular (matte) displays look much better to me.

@ blackshard: The new MacBook Pros have long battery life because they are using custom-made rectangular cells in their batteries, so they can fit more lithium in the same package. About time someone figured that out... In contrast, your average laptop battery has a number of cylindrical cells inside, that look like AA batteries without tips, but are of different voltage. Round peg in a square hole... Methinks my next mod would be fitting a bunch of cellphone batteries in a laptop battery housing.

 

The manufacture date given by PC Wizard/Everest/etc is incorrect. The LCD displays are pretty new because the parts are different from the older models.

 

Yup I know they're using rectangular non-removable batteries. Some says that MacOS X is also tweaking cpu voltages
BTW here:

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3580&p=2

there's a nice review, and I never saw 8 hours of lifetime with a 75Wh battery! Actually they almost doubled previous lifetime, I think led-based display is helping very much!

Fitting bunches of rectangular inexpensive phone batteries would be a great idea till you'll have to recharge all of them

 

I have the charging aspect covered already. I did read Anand's article on the new macbook a couple months ago, but honestly i don't consider that real-world use.

It will get 4-5 hours with regular usage, and that's not too hard to achieve with a "normal" notebook and a 12-cell battery. The 12-cell on my dv9700 only has 60% of its capacity left as reported by Everest, yet it still gets 2:50. That's with what i consider "real-world" usage, ie some GTAIV and a movie.

 

I used "PC Wizard" ..but as Chrixx said:

..I then also opened the panel and checked the stickers on the back of the display module. Turns out it's from September 2008 (not 2007).

 

Coming back to the initial question of a comparison between both screens:

I recently found another 6930p with a WXGA (1280x800) LED ("Illumi-Lite") screen for sale and instantly bought it - mainly because I wanted to have a direct comparison of the screen to my existing 6930p with a WXGA+ CCFL (1440x900) display. I urgently needed to know what I'd miss out otherwise - especially since I really like the WXGA+ LED on my friend's ThinkPad T500 or the LED screens on both my eee netbooks. The ultimate plan of course was to swap both display...

So, for everyone who's ever been wondering about the difference between the WXGA+ CCFL and the WXGA LED screen, here's my visual take on it. Enjoy!

LEFT: HP 6930p with WXGA LED, Intel 4500MHD, DISPLAY = Samsung LTN141AT06, WXGA = 1280 x 800, 2.344gr with 6cell battery attached

RIGHT: HP 6930p with WXGA+ CCFL, ATI 3450, Display = AUO AUO3047 (accidentaly deleted the pics that show the actual part number of the screen), WXGA+ = 1440 x 900, 2.424gr with 6cell battery attached

Displays set to maximum brightness.

Indoors, in a darkened room:


90°


~140°


~ 75°







With flash.

Outside:







@ minimum brightness (!)

A full set of images is available here.

My preliminary verdict is that the LED version isn't much better on the HP.

I don't know what's so "Illumi-Lite" about the LED screens, but viewing angles aren't any way better than on the WXGA+ CCFL version. And those are really horrible as the user "students" already mentioned. Even the LED on my Asus eee 1000HG is better than this HP Illumi-Lite LED (and the LED on the 1000HG is worse than the one on the 1000H, btw).


HP 6930p LED vs. Asus eee 10000HG LED

Colours are much more vivid on the small eee LED as well as on the WXGA+ CCFL - even though the opposite seems to be true judging by the images alone. I am afraid I really couldn't catch this on camera. I also asked my wife (as an outsider) to judge on picture quality and she also preferrred the CCFL version. The WXGA LED clearly wasn't designed for any colour editing even though HP calls this a business machine. I wonder why HP sells these screens. The LED version may be better compared to the CCFL WXGA version, but it isn't compared to the WXGA+ (and I am saying this as a former nx8220 user which only had WXGA and was ok for me).

The LED version has a really nice battery runtime compared to the 12W-sucking ATI gfx. I'd say it's about an hour you get on top of the WXGA+ / ATI version, but of course this solely depends on what you're using on the machine.

I really like the way brightness is set on an LED screen, but this version here has some dead pixel which is why I won't exchange it with the one on my ATI machine. I'll have to sent it back to dealer and yes, I could also send it to HP for a repair, but the last time I did so, these folks from JABIL in Poland removed the business card holder on the back for no apparent reason and also never fixed the display lock so I am trying to avoid these folks by any means.

Another advantage on the LED version is that there's no light leakage as seen on the bottom row of my WXGA+ screen.

I think that HP really has to rethink the LED strategy (if any) and do it like DELL when they announced that all notebooks shall from now on come with an LED screen. HP, are you listening?

 

Excellent comparisons! I'm quite surprised to find that the brightness on the LED screen isn't much better than the WXGA+ (which appears brighter from your photos). Are the whites and blacks on the LED display better? Between these, I'd obviously opt forthe WXGA+ option as the battery life doesn't seem very significant between the 2.

 

Thx!

I'd say that the whites are better on the LED and that the blacks are better on the CCFL/WXGA+.


A white background on the WXGA LED


white on WXGA+ CCFL

The WXGA+ on my 6930p is very much similar to the WSXGA+ that used to ship with the former nx/nc8200/8230/8240 range, similar colours and narrow viewing angles.

The improved battery runtime really seems to be the only advantage of the LED.

 

Unfortunately this comparison doesn't tell you what's the actual cause for the quality differences you've observed. Viewing angles are entirely determined by the LCD panel technology, not by the backlight. Evenness of light and light leaking are determined by the precision of the assembly procedure, mating the light spreader to the light emitter. I guess it may be possible to make LED emitters narrower than CCFLs, so the light spreader can mount more completely, but overall the spreaders are the same basic technology - just a flat sheet of translucent plastic that takes light in on one edge and diffuses it through the whole sheet.

And yes, common "white" LEDs actually use a blue LED emitter in a case coated with yellow phosphorous. The blue light excites the phosphorous into glowing yellow and the two combine to yield white. It works OK for the most part but it's still not as good for color rendition as actual R,G,B. The problem with RGB LEDs is that it's difficult to position them close enough so that all 3 outputs blend evenly. You'll usually see ghosts where their output fields don't overlap perfectly. E.g., in one region the R+G will be evenly matched but the B will be less, yielding a yellowish tint. And on the opposite side from that region you'll have reduced R but matched G+B, yielding more of a cyan tint. (I've done a lot of work with LED lighting, building R,G,B arrays for other purposes...)

Note that CCFLs also use much the same phosphorous technology, except their main exciter gives off UV light, which is then captured by phosphorous to emit white. As such, you should expect the color rendition quality of white-LED and CCFL to be just about the same.

 

True.

The LED and CCFL difference here is just to draw a line between these two displays.

The basic question is/was: is it worth the upgrade? I'd say: as long as HP uses such AUO or Samsung panels, the customer won't notice the difference except on the battery runtime maybe.

I've seen the WXGA+ LED on a Lenovo T400 today which was slightly better. HP should really come up with a WXGA+ LED display for the 6930p as the rest of the notebook is great. How many ppl have switched from HP to a Dell E6400 or TP T400 just because of the display?

 

jke, did you ever succeed or attempt the swap as to have a 6930p with an LED WGXA+ display?

I'm interested in the 6930p, but the display is the only thing I keep thinking about. I'm not worried so much about the colors or viewing angles, but about the longevity and "ruggedness" of CCFL's, as I want to keep this notebook for a long time.

 

The Inverterboard for the LED WXGA is different from the WXGA+ CCFL version, so it just isn't a question of getting LED WXGA+ panels from eBay & Co as you'll also need the board that also powers the webcam (or was it the small keyboard light?). As long as I can't get these small pcbs for the 6930p, I will have to stick to the WXGA+ CCFL variant. And yes, I thought about swapping both displays.

Oh I've stayed with a CCFL on my old notebook for a very long time without problems and just in case something brakes and warranty is out, it's often just the panel or the inverter that needs to be replaced.

The WXGA+ CCFL isn't bad - it produces better colours than the WXGA LED version - but it could be improved. Also thought about swapping the current display with just another WGA+ CCFL from e.g. LG or Samsung which *may* be brighter, or rather: come with less "fog" on the screen.

As for ruggedness, I'd say that the 6930p is a top performer (once the display locking mechanism is fixed, i.e. new machine since 2009 and/or serviced by HP Service Center). It of course doesn't have the clam shell design of a ThinkPad, but it is well built and even when you dismantle it you'll see this in so many details. It's just a full metal frame with only a few plastic pieces.

 

LED displays do not require an inverter board, and its one of the reasons why HP also had to put in a different webcam in the LED versions of the Elitebooks since it would require a different power module.

 

Yeah, true. I didn't know the correct name for this pcb at the bottom of the LED display. Here's a pic of it anyways:

 

LEDs still require a PWM output for dimming purposes. (You can dim LEDs just by lowering the voltage, but doing it that way causes a color shift in their output. So the recommended way is to keep the voltage constant, and just pulse it to achieve lower brightness.) So you may as well keep calling it an inverter board, it's taking a constant DC input and turning it into a pulse wave output. (Of course it's not as complex as a CCFL inverter; CCFLs also require high AC voltage and LEDs use low DC voltage.)

 

sorry to bring an old topic back to life
but how do you check to see if a model has the Illumi Lite LED backlit screen?
I read that the Illumi Lite doesn't contain mercury? If that's true... then only the CCFL screens should have this label correct?

 

Interesting question. Mine is CCFL and does NOT have such a sticker... so I wouldn't really care about it.

Simple. Just change brightness on the screen and see how it reacts (as compared to other notebooks).

CCFL: fluent change
LED: brightness steps are visible

 

thanks
most of the sellers on ebay don't seem to know what I'm talking about when I ask if it's Illumi Lite (LED) or CCFL and I was hoping that sticker might be an easy way to figure it out...

 

Yes, I agree - most of them don't know what they are selling.

Another chance would be to see if those eBay laptops come with an 80GB SSD because afaik the LED version often have those. And of course the 1280x800 resolution. But I've also seen auctions that had confusing info like WXGA+ and 1280x800 in the same text.

I always ask for the part number and then google it to see if it is an LED notebook (unless they are corporate / built-to-order machines).

 

that's exactly what i was thinking
i don't think an 80gb hdd was ever offered, only the 80gb intel ssd
i know one seller is selling one configured exactly how i want (illumi lite w/ intel graphics) and he lists 80gb hdd @ 5400rpm. kinda tempted to just buy that and hope for the best

UPS just dropped off one 6930p that i ordered last week. surprisingly this seller knew what he was selling. although he listed a generic list of specs (that simply listed all the possible configurations), he emailed me back and said it had ati graphics and 1440x900 screen. i ordered it, taking his word for it, and it was exactly as described! smoking deal, only $600 and it really was brand new sealed in box, not refurbished. i want another 6930p though that is configured more for battery life since the one that came in today is a christmas gift for my brother.

 

just finished setting this one up. it was kind of a guinea pig to see how i like this config (p8600, ati 3450, 4gb, 160gb hdd, 1440x900 display). after doing a clean install of windows 7 and messing around with it a bit, i'm thoroughly impressed with every aspect of the 6930p. i underestimated the capability of the ati graphics, tried installing NBA 2K10 and was surprised to find that it actually runs smoothly (not at native resolution).
at first, i was disappointed by the brightness from this display... until i realized i needed to turn off the ambient light sensor i was hesitant to get another laptop with a CCFL display, since my Asus G50VT is CCFL and is nowhere near as bright as my HP DM3 w/ LED backlighting. however, your previous comparison is absolutely right on, the 1440x900 CCFL display is about on par with an LED backlit display. having the DM3 w/ 1280x800 sitting next to the 6930P w/ 1440x900... i FINALLY see why everyone complains about low resolution

 

Why doesn't HP offer a WXGA+ LED display on the 6930p? All of its competitors have them.

I also think the whole concept of a widescreen business notebook is stupid (I have a Dell Latitude D630 at work and every time I use MS Word I wish that it had a 4:3 display), but that's not something that's going to change....

 

CAn anyone tell me the part # of the 6930p wxga+ lcd. Not the HP part number but the actually manufacturer. Or even better provide a screen shot of the label.

Thanks

 

HP EliteBook 6930p matrix Samsung 141AT02-301 14.1 "1280 x 800 CCFL. Prompt, whether it is possible to replace the matrix CCFL to LED?