T400/T500 high quality display shootout

The giant PDF training document for ThinkPad's here provides a lot more specs than have been previously available including contrast ratios:
http://www.pc.ibm.com/pcinstitute/mxw10.html

Going on contrast ratios and nit ratings, it appears to be a shootout between the:

• WSXGA+ screen on the T500 with CCFL backlight (200 nits, 500:1 contrast ratio)
• WXGA+ screen on the T400 with LED backlight (250 nits, 300:1 contrast ratio)

Does anyone know if either of these screens have "production quality" viewing angles? Ie. would be of sufficient quality to do PhotoShop work in. Note that even the high-end Apple laptops don't meet this requirement. A really good desktop LCD will have 170-178 deg. viewing angles.

Long story short, I want to drop the lion's share of my money on a high quality screen. I can't stand laptop screens that are glossy. And I especially hate laptop screens that distort colors when the ***hole in front of you on a plane reclines his seat and you suddenly have to work with your laptop screen oriented vertically.

I want a ThinkPad because they are all (except for the R61i) anti-glare and I've heard nothing but good things about them.

So, now I'm looking for the viewing angle information. In theory, the high-end laptop screens should be made in the same panel factories. Ie. every WXGA "consumer grade" screen used in laptops these days appear to have identical characteristics: you look at them at any angle other than direct-on and the colors are distorted. From looking at the current crop of Lenovo's at some local big-box stores, the Lenovo's are no exception: the Lenovo WXGA screens are terrible about viewing angles.

But maybe the WXGA+ and WSXGA+ screens are better?

 

Here's some proof of how terrible this problem is on laptop screens:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/viewing_angle.php

Go to that page and scroll down 'till the grey area fills the screen. Then, tilt your laptop display towards and away from you and watch the amazing distortion.

 

If you want a high quality screen, pick up a used 15" T60 with a SXGA+ or UXGA screen. Then just upgrade it to a T7400/T7600 CPU. You'd be limited to 3GB of memory, but they are the best screen for what you do and the performance difference will be very small. The IPS screens offer phenomenal viewing angles. It basically looks the same no matter which angle you look at if from. I've seen no other notebook screen that comes close. The MacBook Pro was one of the better ones I've lately, but it's not as good. The X61t has IPS screens for the moment as well as to some Fujitsu tablets though I don't know if you want a Tablet or to go that small.

 

It appears that the IPS displays are just not being made for laptops anymore. Have TN reached the point that they *can* give the same viewing angles? I find the fact that no one gives their viewing angles in specs. very suspicious.

And, I'd like a relatively new laptop as far as technology goes. The T60 seems like a huge drop in battery life.

 

TN displays still cannot reach IPS displays in viewing angles or colour reproduction.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think you can really substitute a laptop's screen for a real graphics monitor.

 

Color reproduction in laptop screens is not good enough for photo work, so the viewing angle issue is moot...

As for in-flight use, I'd suggest either a first-class ticket or an anger management class ;-)

 

My purchase decision comes down to the choice between these two screens. It is a shame Lenovo isn't offering a 15" LED screen like on the Macbook Pro.

The 15" CCFL screen at 200 nits is somewhat dim - problematic in a sunlit room. I have heard higher contrast ratio is important for pictures and video, but not so much for text. The 15" screen on my T61 suffers from a very narrow vertical angle of viewing - the backlight dims abruptly when you tilt the screen just a little bit. I don't know if this would be any better with LED's.

I need a new laptop now, so I think I will go with the 14" LED. It has a slightly lower DPI, which works better with the fact almost all software (and the web) assumes you are still using a SVGA monitor with 72DPI!

 

A few random points:

LED will have no effect on viewing angle as its just the source of light in the backlight.

The Macbook Pro uses a 6 bit display so its not that good at color reproduction and its the same TN display as everything else.

TN screens do suck at color quality and angle viewing but they do use much less power then IPS screens (i.e. the IPS screen version of the T60 has much worse battery power then the TN based T60)

 

Yea that's kinda the way I'm leaning too. It just sucks that you can't buy something that meets your requirements anymore.

 

Is viewing angle entirely due to the LCD and not the backlight? On my T61, the brightness of the screen is extremely sensitive to vertical angle. In fact, if you get too close to the screen, it is not uniformly lit at any angle. This seems to be a different phenomenon from the much wider viewing angle of the LCD itself.

 

Yes, it is.

 

Laptop screens don't cut it on just about every key aspect of what is needed to accurately perform image editing. Color accuracy, color depth, contrast, lightness, and uniform viewing angles are all inadequate. This is really unacceptable and manufactures should be required to publish full and accurate specs regarding the screens used. It would be nice if Consumer Reports or some other independent body could do for consumers regarding laptop screens what Wilhelm Imaging is doing regarding light fastness of ink and paper combinations.

Here are some articles that discuss the variables that produce different levels of screen quality.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/6bit_8bit.htm

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/panel_technologies.htm

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/colourdepth.htm

http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=2994

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/professional-monitors.html

 

The macbook pro screen is the best that you're going to get right now. And you need to get an LG screen to see what I'm talking about (and it's blind luck whether you get an LG screen).

It's definitely brighter, I heard on the order of 300 nits, and it's just fine in my opinion. However, with the macbook pro, you have to use the mac os. I thought this new generation of thinkpads would trim down even more. Even at 15.4", the macbook pro is still only 5.3 pounds with much better battery life, and it's 1" thick in all directions, with a backlit keyboard and dvi.

I'm still tempted to get the thinkpad b/c I don't like Apple's mind control and the way they like to lock you into things, but truth be told, the macbook pro hits everything that I want: lightest or near lightest for the screen size, a bright screen, backlit keyboard (very handy and one of those things you never knew you needed), long battery life (easily better than the thinkpads, I've had them both, and the battery doesn't protrude, and thin and with DVI/HDMI/or display port...It also has a kickin' graphics card.

I'll be curious to see how the new T400 and T500 stack up b/c they still seem chunky compared to the macbook pros. I may pick up a T400 anyway as a second computer b/c I do believe the T400 is the best of the windows world.