New and improved panels (display) for the Tx20 and Wx20 series or just the X220 series?

Lenovo surly impressed us with the specifications with their new Lenovo ThinkPad X220-series notebook, not only does it feature great performance and battery life but suddenly they've gone away from the rather sluggish TN-panels they've been using for the past few years and given us a high-quality IPS option for those whom care about display quality.

Now the million dollar question is whether they'll do something about the display panel quality on their other ThinkPad line-ups or is just something happening on the X220 series? Personally the ThinkPad T420s is more appealing than the ThinkPad X220 simply because of the size being somewhat too small for my use, id like to opt for the T420s instead because that assures me more space for my hands to rest, a not too small screen along with a few other things.

I wasn't really planning on going ThinkPad this year because the display quality of my ThinkPad T400s and ThinkPad W510 has been a complete joke. Whereas the 1920x1080 panel on the W510 is doing okay it's still a rather low-contrast panel without barley anything impressive about it and when it comes to the display quality of the T400s it's downright disappointing with it's low-contrast, limited viewing angle screen.


So when I had finally decided to look elsewhere Lenovo drops the X220 with good hardware, battery life and most importantly a IPS panel option I was happily surprised and considering I love everything about the ThinkPad series besides the sluggish speakers and display quality I'm ready too pick up yet another ThinkPad series notebook if Lenovo finally offers some improved quality on their display offerings.



But would it be too much to hope for seeing improvements in regards of the display on the T and W series as well or do you think this is a X220 series only thing? And I guess we wont see anything higher resolution than 1366x768 which even though it's IPS quality is somewhat low resolution when I'm used to 1920x1080 on my W510 for instance.

 

For now, yes. Perhaps down the road it may be an option. The T and W have been announced and unless I missed it, there was no mention of IPS or the like. If you want IPS on a larger notebook I'd suggest EliteBooks with the DreamColor 2, but be prepared to pay dearly for it.

 

The specs for the T420/T520 are already published in the datasheet at Lenovo - Laptops - ThinkPad - T Series - T420 and T520

No mention of IPS on either of those models. That's probably bad news.

Regarding your comment on the W510 screen, are you talking about the high gamut FHD screen?

 

Whether it's high gamut or not I'm not really sure, here in Norway we are so unfortunate that we aren't able to customize the ThinkPads ourselves so we are forced to go with whatever pre-customized models Lenovo Norway decides to import.

But I'm talking about the display on this particular model:
Norek.no - Lenovo ThinkPad W510 15.6" Full HD

 

I think a lot of people would disagree the the W510 15.6" (396mm) FHD (1920x1080) color, anti-glare, LED backlit, 270 nits, 16:9 aspect ratio, 500:1 contrast ratio, 95% Gamut screen is " a complete joke".

Either that or you are very particular.

 

The screen on the t510 hd+ was pretty good too, in term of contrast ratio.

 

As was said, the specs are already out for the other Thinkpads (the W and T series), so I would say with almost 100% certainty that there will be NO IPS display for the T or W series this time around.

Next year when they introduce the new T530/W530 we might very well see it, but not now

 

I think part of the issue is finding a manufacturer who can produce the panels affordably. The smaller form-factors are doable, since Lenovo doesn't have to worry about volume as much (since tablets -- both theirs and other manufacturers' -- can/will use the same panel). The larger laptops pose a problem, since IPS/AFFS/MVA/PVA panels seem to be quite rare in the 14/15" sizes. There have been a few exceptions, but they've either been short-lived (HP's forays into the IPS space) or exorbitantly expensive even when partially-subsidized/run by the laptop manufacturer themselves (IDTech.)

I suspect it's simply a numbers thing: the T-series/W-series machines are targeted at enterprises for large fleet deployments (think: several hundred laptops at a time.) No business that size wants to pay the not-insignificant cost premium for a couple hundred laptops with an IPS/AFFS panel when a cheaper TN panel will work just as well. As a result, there simply isn't enough volume for Lenovo to justify sourcing them and since the other manufacturers are in the same boat, it's not like they can just pick up a few thousand from a run done for somebody else.

Could Lenovo get wide-angle panels for all its models? Sure. I'm sure that Hydis, CMO, Samsung, LG, or any other manufacturer would be more than happy to fill a couple orders of several thousand high-end panels... for the right price. But the potential market for it is fairly small and fairly inconsistent (I suspect it's mainly hobbyists/folks like us), and considering that they [Lenovo] would be paying through the nose for a small run of panels using a fairly expensive tech, it's probably more of a financial and logistical headache than they want to take on.