Looking for opinions on the X201t capacitive multitouch screen

I'm a graphic designer who travels a lot, so I don't always have the luxury of having a good IPS desktop monitor near me. I'm currently using a 3-year-old Vaio SZ notebook, but the blue cast from the LED backlight and the horrible TN viewing angles (not to mention the 6-bit dithering) are all serious impediments to doing my job when I'm out of my office.

I also have a much older Toshiba Portege tablet (from the early 2000s wave of tablets) and, while that screen doesn't exhibit the TN color shift, the digitizing layer on the screen washes out the color and makes everything look a little bit fuzzy.

I'm seriously considering purchasing the X201t with the capacitive multitouch screen because it is advertised as having an IPS color screen. Right now, I feel like I have nowhere else to turn in order to find a notebook that produces color I can trust. I will probably be buying this sight-unseen, so I'm looking for the opinions of people who currently own this model.

By the way, I'm looking for the capacitive multitouch because I suspect that a capacitive layer will have less of an effect on the screen colors than a resistive layer. This is only an assumption, so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks for any opinions on the X201t screen that you can give!
- Cliff

Postscript:
I've waited until now to post this up because of the iPad, of all things... When Apple released the iPad with an IPS screen, I suspected that their Macbook Pro refresh may have at least one model with an IPS screen. My answer came yesterday -- sadly, no.

It's very frustrating that I can get a tablet that's a half-inch thick, has an 8-hour battery life and has an IPS screen for only $500. Yet, regardless of price, I can't get this screen in any notebook, PC or Mac (X201t excepted). As a design professional, I don't need 100% of AdobeRGB gamut; I don't need a built-in color calibrator; I need a notebook with colors that I can trust, that don't dither and don't shift when I move my head.

I don't think I'm alone in this -- there are plenty of people who would refer to themselves pro or semi-pro designers or photographers -- but there isn't a single notebook manufacturer making a screen that seriously caters to this market. Even the X201t with the capacitive screen (if it is, indeed, the quality that I'm hoping) isn't really targeting people like me -- it's more of a happy coincidence.

 

I don't have any opinions on the X201t LCD as I haven't seen one, but I think you're glancing over some gaping holes an iPad would present in terms of productivity and utility if you wanted to go that way. The fact remains no one, not even Apple, is offering these screens.

Just from my observations as an outsider I think the problem is two fold - one is cost. Price is the most important thing for most buyers these days. While there certainly are people like you and I who care about image quality, the vast majority don't. Offering better screens is more costly for any manufacturer, which means less sales in this price conscious market.

The second issue is supply. If you're going to offer these on mainstream notebooks, you better have a steady supply of screens lined up. Lenovo was in fact the last manufacturer to offer IPS screens on a mainstream notebook, the T60. This was on the 15" model, which doesn't sell nearly as well. They often went out of stock as Lenovo couldn't seemingly get a reliable source of screens. Everyone here gets bent out of shape if their order is delayed two or three weeks, let alone two or three months. Look at the X201s as an example as Lenovo is having trouble sourcing i7 CPUs.

Probably your best options if you want a IPS like screen are the tablet. The T60 with the IPS screen is another option. That means a 15" model with SXGA+ or UXGA LCD. The T60 is still a very capable machine, but it's older, which will present some issue. If you don't mind getting your hands dirty, the X200 AFFS swap is another way and probably the best option in terms of mobility, performance and screen quality. I did a small write up here, which you may wish to look at to see what's involved if you're interested. Good Luck.

 

Thanks for the reply ZaZ! As I'm sure you can imagine, I have a great deal of respect for your X200 AFFS screen replacement, but I don't think that's the right solution for me -- especially not with a newly-purchased company notebook!

I should mention here that I use the term "IPS" as a stand-in for any non-TN display technology that produces stable viewing angles (AFFS, PVA, etc.)

Believe me, I'm not considering an iPad as a production tool. I simply wanted to use it as an example of nearly-notebook-sized computing device that is able to make use of an IPS screen. This in spite of the reasons usually cited for why IPS isn't practical: price, size, battery consumption, display sourcing, and end-user indifference. Granted, Apple *only* offers the iPad with an IPS screen, so you can't exactly say that people care about the IPS screen. Maybe if they offered a TN model that cost $200 less and got an extra 4 hours of battery life, that would fly off the shelf instead...

I agree that the market for a notebook with an IPS screen is niche and small, but it baffles me that not a single notebook manufacturer caters to it. Lenovo even makes a very niche computer specifically for this market: the W700 series. If people care enough to consider this $3000+ barely-luggable beast of a notebook, and care enough to have the Wacom tablet and color calibrator built in, they will also care enough to *not* buy it as soon as they discover that it has a 6-bit TN screen. (Take a look in the comments from a Lenovo blog post about using the W700 for photo editing: http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=175)

Right now I'm currently waiting on the i7 CPU sourcing issue to be cleared up in order to propose the purchase of an X201t to my company, so it's fitting that ZaZ should mention that as Lenovo's reason to drop the Flexview. Me, I'm part of that niche market that needs color stability in a notebook display. We're willing to wait for it and we're willing pay extra for it.

While I wait, I'd still love to hear any comments about the X201t capacitive display.