HP DV1331SE Vertical Viewing Angel. Not Impressed

Hi. I just purchased a HP DV1331SE. It was between this guy and the Toshiba M50-YK4. Toshiba just felt a little cheap.

Anywho Im considering retunring it and getting the Toshiba. This is my first laptop but I've used many, owned CRTs, LCDs etc.

The Vertical Viewing angle on this thing just doesnt feel right. I really have to tilt it back and if Im slightly above it looks very washed out. The vertical viewing angle just seems very poor. Ive never noticed this kind of thing with my mates S150 Vaio.

Horizontal however is fine. The one angle that is less important, go figure.

Just wondering if anyone has heard of this before with this notebook for starters. Second of all if the Toshiba will suffer like this. And third if this is common?

Im not expecting laptop screens to be as good as my 20" desktop CRT, but having to have the screen so tilted and the slightest movement throws off all the colors isnt too great.

Thanks guys.

 

Several people have been really annoyed by that problem in the DV1000s. I can say its in my brother's portable dvd player and in my DV4000 and doesn't bother me a single bit.

 

After reading your post I checked the angle and I see what your talking about. I had not noticed it because I am usually sitting eye level. I can understand your frustration and It would bother me.

 

I think its a subjective issue, some people probably won't notice it, I don't. Yet I can understand your frustration and wonder why they'd make displays with such a poor vertical viewing angle.

 

That's becuase HP doesn't use the best displays available on the market right now. For them, cost is more important than viewing angles.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Im still trying to decide if it bothers me or not. I really like the laptop this is my only issue (apart from QuickPlay freezing but Im sure I can fix that)

I can sit there and it wont bother me then ill change position or something and notice it. Its really a horrible angle isnt it.

Ill give it a few days and see if I can live with it. If not it'll go back and I might go the Sony as they seem to have nice screens, (although i dont like the tiny keyobard too much).

Its nice to know im not crazy though and that others can notice it.

Cheers

P.S Does anyone use Firefox on this thing? For some reason the right side of my touchpad wont scroll in Firefox yet works in IE. Stil trying to work this one out.

 

Download the latest drivers from Synaptics website. It was an issue with all Synaptics touchpads with older drivers...

http://www.synaptics.com/support/drive.cfm

 

try a different angle...

 

Sonys and Fujitsus tend to have some amazing screens. Like yahooR52 said, try adjusting the angle of the screen a bit. I only get the color inversion if I tilt the screen very far back or forwards and then I can hardly see it. The viewing angle is just fine when I directly look at the screen.

 

Thanks guys. And thanks for the tip on the new Drivers for Firefox fix.

Ive noticed that no matter what angle or how I look at the screen that its like a screendoor (best word I could think of).

Either the top of the screen is showing the correct color and the further to the bottom is overly bright of its the other way with the top being overly bright.

Im starting to think perhaps my screen is just a little worse than normal. I might try get back to the store and see if the demo looks the same and exchange it, cause apart from this issue I do like the notebook.

 

I can tell you that not all DV1000's have the same screen. I saw two side by side once at a computer store. One was significantly brighter and vibrant than the other, and both were on max brightness. I swear in another store, looking at two DV1000's, one's screen was slighter wider than the other.

 

HP has two main suppliers for its LCDs: Hitachi and LG/Philips. Hitachi makes the lower quality LCDs while LG/Philips tends to make better LCDs. The ones you saw at the store were probably a LG/Philips and Hitachi LCD on the notebooks. Thankfully, HP has announced that they have awarded a larger supplier contract to LG/Philips, so hopefully this type of issue won't occur again in the future.

 

How do you know which type of screen you have? Is there a serial number or something?

 

This is a good question. Can I work out what I currently have at all?