T400 - Choosing Screen

Hi guys, I'm just trying to figure out which would be the best screen for a T400, and have a couple of questions. My options are:

14.1 WXGA TFT w/LED BL
14.1" WXGA TFT [add $275.00]
14.1" WXGA+ TFT [add AU$313.50]

Just wondering which of these would be the best for me.

My understanding is that the main difference between WXGA and WXGA+ is resolution. Does this make too much of a difference for everyday use? At the moment I'm running a desktop with 1024x768 on a 17" screen and it's fine for me, but would it be worse with a smaller screen size? Also, if I connected the laptop to an external monitor, would I be able to increase the resolution beyond what is offered by the screen?

The second main option is whether to get a LED backlit screen or a non-LED backlit screen. I'm under the impression that LED backlit screens are superior in quality to CCFL screens, but they're also more expensive. In this case, shouldn't the backlit screen be more expensive than the non backlit screen with the same resolution, or is there some other form of lighting I'm not aware of... That said, would it be better to get the WXGA backlit or the WXGA+?

Also, I've heard that there have been many problems with Samsung screens as opposed to LG screens. Is this the case, and if so how can I avoid getting a Samsung screen?

Many thanks

 

That would be incorrect in my opinion. LED are brighter and do offer better battery life. In that sense they are better than CFFL screens, but they do not enhance image quality or viewing angles. The regular screens are plenty bright I think for most users. I'd say if you like XGA on a 17", the WXGA screen will probably the best fit. If you can look at some screen to see what you like better, that's always the best route.

 

The prices on the first two look odd. Based on the charges, the second one looks like the WXGA/LED/High NIT panel, although in most markets it is significantly more expensive than the CCFL WXGA+ screen. You should double check which one is really what.

Also, as ZaZ said, if you're happy with XGA on a 17", note that a 15" WXGA (which is a similar resolution in a wide format) obviously looks a bit smaller. 15" WXGA+ will look significantly smaller (lots of people, including myself, like it, but if you're not used to this dpi, it can look really tiny at first).

I posted this last week in response to the same question:

There is no WSXGA available for the T400. Depending on availability, you have the following options:

1. WXGA (1280x800) CCFL
2. WXGA (1280x800) LED
3. WXGA (1280x800) LED HIGH-NIT
4. WXGA+ (1440x900) CCFL

(1) is your run-of-the-mill base screen. As the lowest-resolution option available, 1280x800 is what you want if you generally like text and icons to be of a similar physical size to a "normal" desktop display. You don't get as much desktop, but everything is a bit bigger.

(2) Same resolution, but with an LED instead of CCFL backlight. It's brighter (noticeably but not significantly) and uses newer technology. It also costs about the same as (1) so this is the one you want if you prefer the above resolution.

(3) Again, same resolution, but about twice as bright as #2. It's really, really bright. Blinding indoors. You will run it at less than 50% for use inside. If you really want a screen this bright (i.e. you spend a lot of time computing in the park or on a patio), get this. If not, it's much more expensive than #2 and you will never need it.

(4) This is the only T400 screen currently available at WXGA+ (1440x900). It has a higher pixel density, so everything appears smaller than on a regular desktop display, or on any of the above. I have this on my T61 and prefer it, as icons/text are not ridiculously small, and the extra real estate is useful. Unfortunately, it only comes in CCFL at the moment (there are LED WXGA panels - Dell currently has them - but not Lenovo. Too bad). On the other hand, it's still plenty bright for indoor use, and ThinkPads are comparatively good with battery life in general, so there's very little real-word difference between an LED or CCFL in that regard (I've seen numbers like 10 minutes or so out of 4 hours thrown about).

In general, all of the T400 screens are of a similar quality other than the above differences. Which is to say, they are pretty much at the market average for contrast ratio, color correctness, backlight evenness, lack of leakage, viewing angles etc. So what you should get depends on what you prefer in terms of 1-4 above.

I just spent a month exhaustively researching the state of notebook panels currently on the market, so I hope this helps.

 

Anybody running it with Omega drivers? Those are available for ATI Mobility video cards. I have it on both T42/T60 and, if not mistaken, remember being able to run at higher resolution than standard max while setting DPI to 120 to boost the icon/font size.

 

Either way, you can't exceed the maximum resolution of the monitor - that's limited by the physical number of pixels on the screen.

 

Its beyond me, but on my T60 with 15" FlexView I can set max resolution to 2560x1600 with Omega drivers. My setting now is 1400x1050 w/120DPI - Omega Drivers