Saw a R61 in person. Have a question.

Well, basically as many of you know it can be hard to find a Thinkpad in the market that you can get your hands on to play with. All Best Buy and Circuit City(CC) have is the consumer line stuff. I was at CC the other day and they had a glass case at the bottom of the displayed notebooks, housing used notebooks for sale. Among the used ones for sale was an R61 14" regular aspect notebook. I asked to play with the R61 and they let me. I liked the look, feel and construction of it but the screen looked like crap, very dim and hard to read. The battery had been unhooked from the unit for some time and the sales man plugged the battery in and plugged the unit in to charge the completely discharged battery. I left the store kind of unhappy thinking that I would not get the Thinkpad due to the poor display. I never checked the manufacturer of the screen through the OS. A few days later I went to the same store and saw the same laptop plugged in and on in the same used section. The screen looked good. I played with it again and I could actually bring the brightness down 2 notches from the top and view the screen comfortably. This time I looked up the screen manufacturer and I found it to be "LEN4031". Who is this manufacturer? Is it a common manufacturer of Thinkpad LCDs? Do you think that they replaced the screen or is it that the battery just needed to charge up to full? Once you plug it in doesn't rely just on the AC or is the battery still involved? I am curious.

 

I think "LEN4031" may be a battery number by googling.

R61 in regular aspect? That's interesting. They don't even sell the standard aspect on the Lenovo site.

Once you plug it into AC it relies on AC, the battery is there charging or stopped at a threshold.

By default, AC will have more brightness than on battery, but this can be changed in BIOS.

 

I might have answered part of my own question. This screen looks like an LG. Found this link. Not sure why I didn't see it before. Looks like an LG screen right?

Do you think they swapped out the screen? Nothing else on the thing was touched and it had only been a weeks time since my first visit. Also, during the first visit he did have it plugged in and it was still dim as hell.

 

Could of just been that the brightness was turned all the way down regardless of being on batter ory AC.

 

No I don't think so. That was the first thing I saw. I upped the brightness to max and it still looked like crap.

 

Hmm, that LEN4031 has a Brilliant View tab on it, I think that may indicate a glossy screen.

The R61 is the only ThinkPad capable of a glossy screen. They may have replaced the original R61 you saw the first time.

 

Hmm, that LEN4031 has a Brilliant View tab on it, I think that may indicate a glossy screen.

The R61 is the only ThinkPad capable of a glossy screen. They may have replaced the original R61 you saw the first time.

 

No, both times the screen was matte.

 

It's possible they replaced the screen, or even replaced the R61 all together.

 

If you're definite it was a matte screen, then the manufacturers would be either Samsung or LG. TP displays are commonly ridiculed for their low brightness, so it's best to keep them plugged in to have near-maximum brightness enabled.

Based on your situation I would say it was just a case of needing to be charged up.