nc6400, screen & hinge quality

The nc6400 is just my latest stop in the search for the perfect 14" before falling back on a 12" I'm eyeing. It already has one strike against it in being widescreen, but the matte finish balances that out.

I'm reading that the screen is very good being nice and bright with little to no light leakage. But how are the viewing angles? Maybe someone has a photo of them? And while you're at it, how about a photo of an all black but backlit screen. Or just a written description would do

How about the hinges? One of the cookie cutter reviews I read at cnet or laptop magazine or some such said the HP doesn't have the strong steel hinges of a Thinkpad. Are they bad, or just not as good?

And while we're at it, how much magnesium is there on this thing? From what I gather, pretty much the entire screen housing is magnesium alloy, as well as reinforcement along the bottom. I imagine the wrist rests are plastic since they're a special laminate. Is most of the base magnesium alloy, or is most of it plastic? Is it a nice strong plastic like a Thinkpad? Is there any flex?

I seriously need to settle on a model soon, I'm going to drive myself insane pretty soon. Thanks for the help along the way.

 

Look at the review here. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=72241. Hp's business line laptops have great build quality

 

Screen is very nice. One of the few good 14" matte screens available. It is brighter and has more accurate coloring than the Lenovo T60 or Dell D620.

 

Thanks for the link and comments, but I've read the review and searched through these forums and the web. I asked these particular questions because I can't yet answer them to my liking.

viewing angle?
hinges?
do the plastic parts feel weak, where are these parts?

 

Hi... do the whites on the screen have a red tint (cool color temperature) or blue tint (warm color temperature)?

do you have the 1280x800 screen?

 

I will try to answer everything to the best of my ability for you. The latop feels very sturdy. I know the screen is encased in magnesium alloid and from the feel and textured I would say the wrist rest might be the same. At any rate nothing feels cheap at all. I owned a sz premium carbon fiber model and it didn't feel anywhere near as sturdy as this machine.

The hinges on the nc6400 feel just as sturdy. The thing that might throw somepeople is that the metal hinges are encased in a magnesium coating. So its not like the thinkpads where you actually see the steel but it is there nonetheless. The screen definitely takes some effort to open and doesn't loose its position while you are moving around. Very sturdy and very strong.

I don't have my camera on my right now, but maybe in the next day or two I can snap a photo for you of the screen in an all black shot. I didn't notice any real light likeage on my model, maybe a couple of milimeters at the very bottom but everything looked very uniform to me. The viewing angles are also very good in my view. The screen brightness may dull somewhare when you view it from the side, but the picture clarity never does, which is the most important. You don't get that washed out look, or blurry look no matter from what angle you looked at it horizontally. Vertical angles aren't bad either but there is a certain sweet spot for that. Really as long as your not looking straight down from on top you shouldn't have any issues, and really I can't think of a time when you would be using your laptop in that manner anyway

This is the second hp business model I have owned and the fifth matte screen (nc6220, acer 8204, nc8230 and T43) and hp's to me had the best build and feel to them and this machine has by far the brightest and clearest matte screen. Good luck with your hunting. Take my opinion from a guy who has really racked his brain over what to buy I have gone through quite a few models in the last year (the four mentioned above, the nc6400, a sz premium and regular model as well as the dell xps m1210, as you can see I have a problem This is the one that I am keeping and have kept for the longest time. Its not leaving my side.

 

Thanks brotzfrog, that's exactly what I was looking for! Now I just have to decide if I want to sacrifice the 150 vertical pixels for the widescreen.

 

I have one with wxga+ resolution, and the screen is not all that, better than the horrible Latitude D620, but still with about 2 cm of bad light leakage in the bottom, that gradually fades.

White surfaces seem a bit grainy, probably due to the antiglarecoating.
I'd take a glossy inspiron 6400 screen (the one I used to have) any day

 

the WXGA screen is great.

I saw D600s and D160s today and the XGA screen on all of them looked very, very good -- surprisingly good.