LED vs CCFL WXGA on a T500?

Hello!
I've searched a lot for information about this. From what I've found searching this forum and on google most people think the WXGA LED illuminated LCD is worse than the WXGA CCFL illuminated LCD on the T500 (when it comes to colours, angles etc not brightness) despite that people generally seam to think that LED illumination is better. Is that correct?

Regards

 

LED illumination is better <- really? it uses less power, and can make the laptop cover (or lvd tv's) thinner, but it's not necessarily visually better

 

its brighter and lasts brighter longer. CCFL's tend to dim as time goes by

 

Find the resolution that you want first then pick LED over CCFL if both are offered for the same res.

 

He speaks the truth
In the Thinkpads, the LED screen option does not make the screen any thinner, though.

@OP: Most comparisons I've read about are between the WXGA LED and the WSXGA+ CCFL screens. Between these two, the overwhelming majority of T500 users seem to prefer the WSXGA+ CCFL screens, although there are some who enjoy their WXGA LED screens.

Personally, I find WSXGA+ on a 15" screen to be just right in terms of screen real estate, and also find that the screen is sufficiently bright for comfortable use in pretty much all situations except direct sunlight.

 

OK, well, I think I would like WXGA resolution since I think most things gets too small with WSXGA, especially web pages. So on the thinkpad T500, is the KED screen visually better or as good as the CCFL?

 

well...i've never seen a t400 with a ccfl screen (all t400 in hong kong are led backlit), but the led t400 cover looks thinner than a ccfl t61 cover

 

My T500 is a WXGA LED screen. It is noticeably brighter than my almost three-year old HP CCFL screen. As noted, the CCFL dims over the years, but the LED is not supposed to.

I find the colors on mine very good, and it's a Samsung screen, not the purportedly better LG. If you're going with WXGA, I would highly recommend the LED screen.

Bill

 

just coz it's bright doesnt mean its good. the screen on t400s is bright too, but its rubbish

 

A lot of it depends, I guess, upon what you're using your computer for. Under florescent lighting, brighter is better. If you have to work outside, or say, in an automobile (with someone else driving!), brighter is better.

On the other hand, if you need it for a multimedia experience, you may want to look elsewhere than ThinkPads entirely. All I know is that I've owned computers since the mid-1980's and am quite pleased with my ThinkPad screen.

Bill

 

what i mean is, a good screen is a lot lot lot more than just a bright screen.

 

I agree with that, within reason, of course. It would be interesting is a number of us could get together with our TP's and compare screens. What satisfies one person may not at all satisfy another. Like I said, I'm very pleased with mine, but you may see it and be thoroughly put off.

I think I love the brightness so much because of the florescent lights I have in my office and because I sometimes work outside. My HP was really poor in these conditions, though perhaps it has better color. It's hard to compare, though, because the HP has a gloss screen, and I wouldn't trade the matte of my TP for the slightly better colors of a gloss screen.

Bill

 

If I were the thread starter I would resolve this question by waiting until January when the new T series are coming out. I myself have been looking at a similar purchase and I concluded that buying now was not a good call, as the screen choices are just not compelling and an update is around the corner.

The current choice of screen will either give you a mediocre "bright" LED or a good quality CCFL that will be okay now but even more dim in a year's time.

Unless of course you plan on selling it off before a year is up. But if you want to keep this unit long term, I dont see that the current choices are worth pulling the trigger on.

 

I am waiting until January, but the current prices on Thinkpads are very tempting. They already have substantial discounting built into the pricing plus there are 15%-20% off coupons depending on the model you are interested in. So depending on how much budget is an issue for the OP, it might be wise to jump on these great deals now.

 

I agree with that, that's why I'm thinking of buying now. Configured with the instant saving and a 20 % coupon I came down to $1100 + shipping + US tax + shipping + 25 % VAT + customs (I live in Sweden) which I think is good for a thinkpad (even with a WXGA CCFL screen) and much better than the extremely high prices on thinkpads here.

But is there anything that suggests that the LED screens of the upcomming thinkpads will be better (apart from that the should)? I mean, are they worse than for example Dell Precision or Apple LED screens?

 

Will all those taxes and fees, you do need to get as good a discount as possible.

I bought my TP a few weeks ago because I didn't think the new releases were going to be phenomenally different than what is available now. Admittedly, that was just speculation on my part, but a model number increase from Tx00 to Tx10 seems like a relatively small-scale modification. I've been wrong before.

With the discounts currently available, I decided I had rather get what was available than probably pay more for a T510. Will the new LED screens be better? I have no idea. I do know that I was really prepared for a poor screen from all the posts I had read, but I am quite pleased with mine.

I do not know how the ThinkPad LED screen compares with Dell Precision or Apple screens, but one has to compare the matte TP screens with matte Precision and matte Apple screens, not Dell and Apple gloss screens.

Bill

 

I see lots of different notebook screens at university every day during the lessons. and while i think my IPS panel on my t42p could be brighter sometimes, there is just nothing besides birghtness - 0, nada - that others could even in theory complain about.

when comparing crappy screens, it's like asking people for their favorite color. one might like "warm reddish colors" like some of the lg ccfl panels have, another one may prefer "cold blueish colors" of samsung screens.

 

Dude you could buy it ship to to someone in the US, fly over there to pick it up and still come out ahead of importing it. Why import?

 

OKOK, so as a conclusion, LED illuminated screens on a T500 are not worse than CCFL T500 screens in terms of colour/contrast and better when it comes to brightness?

 

I've not seen a CCFL T500 to compare my with, so I'm afraid I'm no good for you. The CCFL will dim after a couple of years, and I don't think it's as bright as an LED to begin with. Again, I'm talking about brightness.

I will say that I was pleasantly surprised with the color and contrast of my LED screen after all the bad posts I've read. Perhaps I just got a good screen or else I'm so blind it doesn't matter! FWIW, my sister this morning saw my T500 for the first time (she has a 17" HP Pavilion notebook) and was impressed with the color of the desktop background.

Bill

 

I haven't really checked the T500 models,

do they offer WXGA+ LED?

 

That's what I would have preferred, but unfortunately only WXGA.

 

is there a technique problem on WXGA+ LED

 

WXGA on a 15' makes the text really too big from my POV. I wish I went with a higher resolution.

 

Thanks for your replies!! Any other thoughts about LED vs CCFL in general or on T500 WXGA screens?

 

If stuck with WXGA, def. get LED.

I would get a higher resolution screen if I were you for the increased productivity.

 

Aside from the CCFL vs LED, have you checked the Lenovo Outlet? You can find some nice deals on T500's. Personally, for that price you quoted (US $1100) I'd look for a W500, not just for the graphic card that can came handy with CAD, but for the WUXGA resolution. You don't want WXGA on a 15.4" laptop, trust me.

 

A FireGL card may even perform worse than a Radeon card in games, as they are optimized for CAD applications, not gaming. So unless you know you are using the card for CAD-type work, there's no need to go for that.

Also, seeing as the OP already has qualms about going to WSXGA+ on a 15.4" screen, going to WUXGA hardly seems like a good idea.

I do agree, however, that WXGA on a 15.4" screen is pretty limiting.

I would highly recommend the WSXGA+ CCFL screen. I advise you to go to your local electronics store and seek out a 15" notebook with a WSXGA+ screen, or if there are none, look for 12" WXGA (slightly lower pixel density), 14" WXGA+ (a fair bit lower pixel density), or 17" WUXGA (a fair bit higher pixel density) screens - they will give you a rough approximation of what to expect in terms of pixel density. If these screens look good to you, I would advise you to go with the WSXGA+ CCFL.

 

No, no no.

If you look at the detailed in-house reviews on notebookcheck and notebookjournal that 1680 x 150 CCFL screen on the T500 is far superior in contrast, colour and black levels to any other screen available for the T500, whether LED or CCFL. In fact that specific CCFL screen posts numbers approaching what you get from a Macbook Pro.

So if screen quality is a question, that is the one to get on the T500.

But personally I would wait: the CCFL is top quality but by the nature of the beast it will dim quickly after a year or so. And with a refreshed model just 4 weeks away - there is a good chance that the new model has an LED of both hi res and good quality to replace the CCFL.

You're not gonna get the T500 that fast even if you order today - they usually take at least 10 business days if configured to order. With Xmas rush you can add some more delay time realistically. So personally I wouldnt pull the trigger at this point.

 

I wish I had known that the hi-res CCFL was the one to get when I ordered my LED late last year. It is an AWFUL screen for any kind of multimedia work (I edit photos at times). It is truly bright, which is great for outdoors, but photos are a mess on this screen. It is so bad that a photo from the top of the screen to the bottom looks very different! Black level, contrast, etc. It has the worst viewing angle issues I have ever seen on a laptop.

I find the T500 to be very poor in the area of speakers and the LED screen. In many other ways, I like it a lot. I was forced to this laptop because Vista was so awful, my choices were limited to get one to run XP. Now that reviews are good on Windows 7, I may be ready to look again and only have to struggle to get a matte screen instead of that and an old OS....

 

Any heard of a way to swap out the LED screen to go back to the hi-res CCFL? If it wasn't too much, I'd consider buying a replacement....

 

Think a few people were interested but it wasn't an easy swap out replacement since the inverter or connector was different. Sorry don't remember the exact wording, try searching for it

 

I have been using a WXGA (TFT) screen for a few years and have no problems with it, but find it difficult to use outdoors. How does the T500 WXGA+ perform outdoors? I assume the LED backlit would be preferrable.

 

The LED is awesome for working outdoors. I couldn't use a CCFL screen in a car during the day, but the LED is workable. On a cloudy date it is a piece of cake. If all you do is spreadsheets, word processing, etc. it is great screen. But if you are editing photos you simply can't judge the right level of exposure, etc. While the colors seem true (after calibration) the viewing angle issues are so severe that you can't trust it.

I sure wish the manufacturers offered laptops with IPS screens... like the old Thinkpads I've heard so much about.

 

There is a review on notebookcheck.com or notebookjournal.de where they report specifically on this. If I recall correctly their results showed this screen had 225 nits real life brightness, which they said was more than good enough indoors and was passable but not great outdoors. I would guess that over 2-3 year lifespan the CCFL would dim to acceptable indoors and useless outdoors.

 

Doesn't Apple offer them in their new macbooks or is that just in the imac series?

 

I'm looking at T500 as a possible buy but cannot choose a screen WSXGA+ CCFL or WXGA LED. Many people tell WSXGA+ looks better but I afraid the text will be too small. Most usage will be Internet, then Word, gaming and sometimes (quite rarely) picture scanning and editing.

I'd like to know how much worse T500's WSXGA+ becomes in lower resolutions (1280x800 and 1440x900) which are not native resolutions for this screen but can provide larger text.

Can anybody with T500 WSXGA+ check and compare the quality (or better take and post quality pictures) of Intenet pages (for example notebookreview) in native resolution 1680x1050 and in lower non-native resolution? I cannot find T500 in stores near my home to check myself, I can buy it from internet shops only.

 

I tried lowering the resolution when I bought mine with WSXGA+ a year ago. My recollection was that the running anything other than the native resolution of the screen resulted in lots of visibly rough edges on text and icons. Try lowering the display resolution on your current machine and you'll see how poor it looks.

I just use the medium 125% setting in Windows Display settings. Much better results. This combined with the fact that IE, Office (MS and Open), and Firefox have built in ability to scale pages as well makes me very glad I bought the higher resolution screen especially if I am watching a high def clip.

On other applications I use the largest font setting that the application allows for (e.g. in iTunes I have source and list text set to large).

You can also use the magnifier in Windows to enlarge the whole screen as desired.

One way to test whether or not a WSXGA+ will work for you is to find any brand machine with a 15" WSXGA+ display and try change the Windows Display settings and scaling pages in IE, Firefox, etc.

Lastly no matter which you purchase, don't forget to turn on ClearType. It does make a noticeable improvement.

 

There is always a lot of great advice here and if you really need the latest and greatest to make your computing experience tolerable then more power to you. This has been my experience with the T500 and T400 with LED, CCFL and WXGA, WXGA+... For what it's worth...

I bought a T500 with WXGA and LED last year. I wish I would have gone with a higher resolution CCFL screen. It is okay for word processing and programming, things that are text based but there is not much real estate on a 15 inch screen so having the larger icons etc... is a hinderance if you want to open a couple windows. Picture viewing and editing is out of the question as well as any web site you want to have crisp resolution. Bottom line, IMO, the LED is not worth the resolution sacrifice. I actually gave mine to my son since he only uses it for word, it's fine.

As a side note, I contacted a Lenovo repair center near me and asked about changing the screen to a higher resolution. They told me it would be between $600 to $800 dollars. Not worth it in my opinion.

Currently, I'm using a T400 with WXGA+ and LED running windows 7 and a T400 with WXGA+ with CCFL running ubuntu 9.04. Yes, the LED is brighter but so what, how bright do you need it to be? Yes it is great for outside and in glare situations so if you work outside, go for it. The CCFL is perfectly fine and after using both, I think has more pleasing colors. And the brightness is fine.

LED is okay, CCFL is fine too. They both have their place but if you only use your laptop indoors go with the higher resolution CCFL. it will serve you well and might save you a couple bucks. If you need to be able to say it has LED backlight, then go for it but realize if you get WXGA the resolution will be a disappointment for some things. Just my experience with it....