The nc6400 grows on you

Just a few days ago I got my first real portable laptop. My last laptop was a Qosimo g25.

The only real gripe on nc6400 is the screen. Coming from a dual lamp Tosh that's really no surprise. Light leakage is significant in my mind. I used a Huey Pro calibration tool to set contrast and color. The contrast ratio seems low on this screen by comparison. Viewing angles seem fine.

Photos of the laptop don't do it justice. It's all business and all the time. Wireless work VERY well and seems to have tremendous range from my home router. BT works good but may not have a lot of range. It pairs fine.

While the built in pointer is pretty useless, I find the touch pad more accurate than most I have tried. I still use a mouse but "could" get through some minor work in a pinch. Keyboard is good on this unit and feels much like my logitech DiNovo on my desktop. I'm not crazy about the font they used but I can deal with it. Key layout is not standard but I'm a hunt and pecker anyway.

Sound is ok for a laptop I guess. You hear it and it can play surprisingly loud but those tiny little drivers are not what I call audiophile quality. Sounds better on headphones, which is no surprise there. DVD quality is good but windvd crushes the whites. That could be the codec too.

Personally I could use a little more resolution but it's adequate. One thing that is clear, it's meant to be a tool not a toy. No glitz, no glamor here, it is what it is.

Not a ton of bloatware on this machine. But the lack of a dvd burner is another downside for me. The OS is on the HD in another partition. Cd recovery takes 9 cd's to back it up which is a bit much in my estimation.

I bought this thinking that I would give it a try, if it didn;t make the cut, I'd send it off to fleabay. I'm super picky and build my desktops from the case on up. (x overclocker here) and while I know a bit about desktops I know very little about notebooks so consider what I say here and opinion not fact.

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised, it's staying and plan a few upgrades. More ram, another internal drive, travel battery and I'll be pretty well set. It becomes a presentation laptop, a gps in the car and a bedroom notebook when I'm too exhausted to get to my desktop. It doesn't hurt it's small, light and thin either. It's meant to be mobile, look all business and I can vouch at least from my perspective that it's both. Not perfect, but what notebook is?

No DVD burner and my Screen issues and I give it an 8.

 

Glad you like it. Are you using the WXGA+ (1440x900) screen by any chance? That's the screen I have and it really is nothing to shout about. I have heard that the WXGA is much better, at the expense of lower resolution.

I wonder if there's any decent 14" WXGA+ screens out there?

 

I have the 1280x800. If yours is worse than this, I feel for you. I wonder if that can be upgraded to another brand?

 

I think the issue is a lack of contrast, the ratios look low to me. I can't seem to get a bright white while getting a deep black.

 

I'm actually curious to know if the 6910p will exhibit the same issue with its WXGA+ screens. Currently, none of them are shipping with this resolution yet, so I'm hoping it's being fixed (not banking on it), so we could possibly get the screens replaced too (the current batch of screens are still not good enough).

Will need to get a D630 and T61 side by side for comparison. I haven't been able to find any units with a WXGA+ resolution in this side of the world, so if anyone has all 3 screens to compare, it'd be great.

I noticed the WXGA+ screens for the D630 are mostly AUO (not sure what the T61's ones are). My WXGA+ on the nc6400 is an AUO screen. It is very bright, but color reproduction isn't very good (I don't have one of those fancy calibrators). There's also this slight graininess to it on closer inspection, which seems to be an inherrent problem with most matte WXGA+ screens on the market (also depending on the user as nobody I've asked so far have seen this problem on my screen except myself, but I'm very particular over minor details).

I have personally seen a glossy AUO WXGA+ from an Asus A8J and it does not exhibit this graininess problem, which means it is the matte coating that makes it so.

 

You'll probably want to adjust the saturation...most laptop screens are horribly washed out from the factory. I got rid of mine merely because I couldn't stand the 1280x800 resolution, otherwise it was a fantastic computer. Super light, good battery life, very sturdy.

nc6400 = good little notebook, far better than the D620 and D630.

 

i'm also waiting for the 6910p with wxga+. i wonder when they will start shipping...

one thing i worry about is if everything will be too small on the wxga+. i no longer have a 20/20 vision although my eyes are still good enough not to require glasses. my reason for wanting the wxga+ is so that i can have two windows open side by side, much like on my desktop - i am a web developer and it would be nice to have the ide and browser open side by side when working on my laptop.

 

Believe me, the 1440x900 is still very readable. My father's D620 has that screen and I have never had to squint.

 

I talked to an HP Sales Rep. yesterday and he quoted mid-august. But that is here in Czech Republic, elsewhere it might be different.

 

SHould be next month in the US

 

1440x900 would have been better for me. I run 1900x1200 x 24" now on my desktop. My biggest gripe is the low nits of this screen. Not sure what the contrast ratio is but I don't find it that great. I find myself adjusting the screen angle often. Seems like a good amount of light leakage at the bottom.

I ordered the travel battery for it yesterday and bought Iguidance for my GPS solution. I would not have done that if I wasn't planning on keeping it. The screen to me is just average on an above average notebook.

If they made another screen that would fit, I'd be all over it.