Can the backlight be turned off?

Is there a way to turn off the backlight of x200s? It is not even. (also would it save power if it's turned off?)

 

If it could be turned off without turning off the actual screen, it definitely would save power. Unfortunately, that is not possible.

 

You can turn it pretty far down (hold Fn+End), but not completely off.

The difference on a 12.1" LED panel between the dimmest and brightest setting is about 3-4 watts. The difference is even larger on systems with large and/or CCFL screens.

 

But that makes the overall screen dark. I was wondering if there is a way to make the screen just like a normal screen without backlight, still bright but without that apparent light source from the top of the screen.

 

Umm... turning off the screen backlight would make the screen very dark, and largely unusable.

Macbooks automatically turn off their screen backlights after 30 seconds or so on idle to conserve battery, but when there is activity, the backlight turns on again so you can use the screen.

 

Are you talking about Backlight BLEED?

 

That sounds like the issue to me. Unfortunately, that tends to have no easy fix (short of replacing the panel with a new one and getting lucky).

 

If it's still under warranty, send it back, and keep sending it back until you're satisfied. Backlight bleed is unacceptable in any case. It's due to poor quality control.

I have exchanged numerous LCD displays and notebooks due to this. I have never been questioned if it were truly an obvious backlight bleed issue.

 

Not to mention making the Mac's screen unusable outside of a completely dark room, and even then its still pretty unusable.

 

I'm not sure if this is bleed or is normal for a backlit screen: when looking at the top of the screen, especially if I lower my head to look up there, the whole top edge of the screen appears like a light source, brightly lighted unlike the rest of the screen. It is less so if you face the screen directly, eyes on the same horizon as the center of the screen. Is this light source the so-called "backlight"? If so, I can't understand why it is an advantage over the regular screens

 

Every screen needs a lighting source behind it basically...so all screens have backlights.

You're talking about BLEED. Where it looks like there is bright spots towards the edges of the screen. There is also screens that have uneven lighting, etc...

If you turned off the screen's back light you wouldn't see anything (essentially).

 

Yes, you are seeing the backlight, but that is not supposed to happen. That issue is a defect, not an advantage, called backlight bleed. Only way to get it fixed is to replace the screen.

 

Thanks. So if you have a non-defective perfect backlit screen, would you not see any light source like that even when you lower your head and look up at the top edge of the screen?

 

Theoretically. But screens are not perfect. Depends if the maker QCed all of the screens and refused to sell the ones with bleed. On cheap LCDs (or even some pretty nice ones) you will usually get SOME bleed (or I mean it isn't that rare).

 

Yes, that should be the case. My screen doesn't have bleed on any of the sides.

 

Thanks. I wonder how many people are as lucky as you are

 

I wated to address jaredies comment above about backlighting. I'm sorry, Jaredy, you are correct 99.9 percent of the time but you missed it this time. Machines do not need backlights. I had a t61p and I've been althrough the top of it, and it has no screen light other than the familiar thinklight at the top which is turn-on and off. An LED source is a source period.
-Renee

 

All conventional laptop displays have a backlight, whether CCFL or LED-lit, including your T61p's.

 

Really? Where is it?
-Renee

 

So why it's been made such a big deal to advertise that the x200s is backlit? Is my T61 also supposed to be backlit?

 

The x200s has an LED back light. Conversely, the T61 (like almost all laptops made between 1994 and 2008) is a CCFL back light. LED is newer, more energy efficient, brighter, and gets bright faster (CCFL has a warm up time). They are both LCDs with a Twisted Nemantic technology (like almost all laptops).

It is behind the LCD. Hence why it is called a back light.

In short, ALL laptops have backlights.

The only alternative would be to have a transreflective screen with no backlight. This requires an external light source and is the approach used by products such as the Amazon Kindle or the original Game Boy. These are sometimes called front-lit if you have an attachment to use the screen in dark environments (e.g. the light add-on for the original game boy).

 

It was advertised as being LED-backlit, contrary to CCFL-backlit. LED backlights have, in general, a more even lighting, brighter lighting, and less power usage. All modern laptop LCD displays are backlit in some form - only the old, old, old "laptops" had monochrome reflective displays (think those cheap calculator displays), which do not have a backlight.

For a quick read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_display

In your screen assembly layers; again, look at the above link's first picture for a general idea (although that shows a reflective monochrome LCD display). Also, if you look at some maintence manuals of the Thinkpads, you can see that it is possible to open up the screen assembly and replace the backlight if it dies in your screen (which would render the screen unusable).

EDIT: jonlumpkin beat me to it

 

Immediately after I wrote about how all the notebooks have backlights...I thought, someone is going to point out the exception, heh.

 

Oh now I see--thanks a bunch to you knowledgeable guys. So the "light source" that I see in my screen has nothing to do with "backlight". It is just bleed and could bleed from any side of the screen.

Does the bleed become worse as time goes on, or it remains the same? (won't get better, though?) How long would it take if I send it in for fixing/replacement?

 

It'll be about the same. It certainly won't fix itself.

I'd estimate around a week or a bit more, provided that none of the parts are on backorder.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

It has to do with the backlight...the back light is what is bleeding through.

 

What I meant to say was, being backlit does not mean it should have that bleeding.

 

In a perfect world no. However, bleed is a fairly common problem (although the degree varies considerably).