T400 WXGA+ LED and WXGA LED High Nit comparison with pictures

Today I got my hands on a coworkers brand new T400 with a high nit LED backlit panel who needed help doing a fresh reformat. Anyhow I decided to compare it with my own T400 with WXGA+ LED panel LG version and snap some pictures while at it (with their permission ofcourse).

Overall I am completely blown away by the quality of the high nit panel. The viewing angles are amazing, the colors just pop and contrast ratio is alot higher with blacks being alot more true even at highest setting. The white looks absolutely great on the high nit panel while on the WXGA+ the shade is slightly gray-pinkish. The WXGA+ LG looks like it has some kind of pinkish haze coating when put side by side. It is probably the first modern Thinkpad panel (the others were Flexviews) where I didnt find myself constantly adjusting looking for a sweet spot while looking at things with dark background.

All of these comparison pictures were done with both screens at max brightness, except the last two with NBR standard Ferraris where I attempted to try to get the brightness to match exactly the same. After playing with the high nit panel for a day, I just ordered a new T400 with one of these for myself. Anybody who is looking for a high quality panel and doesnt mind giving up a little resolution should look into this particular option. It is amazing compared to all other recent thinkpad screens i've seen.

LEFT - WXGA+ LED backlit LG LP141WP2
RIGHT - WXGA high nit LED backlit Samsung LTN141AT09201

 

its also more energy efficient given the same brightness level right, so at full brightness on each which one is better

 

On these pictures both are set at full brightness, except for last picture with the ferrari. The high nit is vastly superior at all possible brightness settings.

 

oh I mean in terms of energy efficiency. @ full brightness do they draw the same power I assume or ~ similar?

 

no idea, i dont have a spec sheet for either and can't directly compare via power manager because the other components on both computers are not the same.

 

WOW.

and the WXGA+ is a LG and the WXGA is a Samsung...

 

How are the vertical angles? Can you tilt the High-Nit panel down farther before the colors invert? If so, that is quite impressive in terms of brightness, angles, and overall quality. Based on the pics it looks to be not too far behind in quality and obviously superior in brightness to my x200 Tablet SuperBright LED.

 

Not bad at all, now if they had a WXGA+ version of the high-nit...

I'd assume the high-nit uses more power when both are at full brightness. After all, it's a brighter backlight, which is likely more power-hungry. The main advantage, though, is that its brightness range extends farther than the regular LED display.

Thanks for the side-by-side shots, zenit, definitely +rep.

 

vertical angles are not as good as horizontal. there are definitely shifts, but the vertical sweet spot is huge compared with the WXGA+ panel.

Overall its the weirdest laptop TN panel i've ever played with. At extreme horizontal angles (160+) instead of shifting blacks and colors it shifts whites to slight off-whites while blacks and colors somehow remain pretty true with a slight drop in brightness. Vertically, there is typical TN inversion. This panel has the best horizontal viewing angles out of all recent 14.1 inch panel's i've seen with my own eyes.

 

That is pretty impressive.

 

I have the high nit screen and I appreciate your comparison here. Did you do any color adjustments through ATI or Intel contorl panels on the high nit screen or was it just at default settings and thanks.

Gary

 

The high nit screen looks very nice, but I wouldn't get it unless I had to work in direct sunlight. Plus the price premium is scary

 

Just for reference, here are the price premiums from Lenovo's US website as of 2009-07-14:

Code:

[B]Screen         Premium[/B]
WXGA CCFL              $0
WXGA+ CCFL            $30
WXGA LED              $50
WXGA High Nit LED    $150

So: yeah, the High Nit screen premium is significant. But so is the increase in viewing angles, and brightness (and apparently contrast ratio). Is it worth $100 over the standard-nit LED screen? Guess the market will tell...

 

from playing with it for a day I found brightness to be perfect indoors at max setting. I am running it right now in my dark office at full brightness with no eye discomfort. But then again I am the guy with 2x 500nit desktop monitors on my desk always at 100% brightness. So it was actually a nice alternative to laptops which I always found to be too dim. If i have this computer for another day before i get one of my own i'll test it out outside as well.

As for price premium, screen is the one thing that I am willing to pay extra, after all it's something I will spend the most time looking at.

 

@zenit,
What color adjustments, if any, have you made in ATI and Intel settings and thanks.

Gary

 

On the pictures, the WXGA+ screen is calibrated, while I left the high nit panel on defaults. The calibration profile from the LG made the high nit one look worse. To me it didnt look like it needed adjustments, and I have to return the computer back to the owner, so I didnt have much time to mess with any settings. When my own one ships, I will try to find a calibrator again and calibrate it properly.

The best part is that i will not lose any money on the swap as I already found a buyer for my old T400!

 

@zenit,
Thanks for that. When you callibrate your new high nit, if it would be possible to post Intel and ATI profiles, I would greatly appreciate it.

On Intel now, I am running what someone had suggested for the T500 LED which is adjusting brightness for

Red -23
Blue -33
Green -16

But, I would love to hear your findings also and thanks for the pics.

Gary

 

Btw, I didn't pay much attention before, but when Lenovo announced the so-called "High-Nit" screen they claimed that it had high brightness, wide angle* and high contrast, which means that a better TN panel should be used, and it is judging from your pictures.


* "WIDE" for a TN-based display usually means very good to excellent horizontal and good vertical viewing angles while "STANDARD" mediocre to horrible in both aspect. And of course, these terms were made up by some clever marketing department who also renamed IPS displays to "ULTRA WIDE".

 

What the? I thought the price premium was like $600 more than standard the last time I looked. Maybe I got confused ?

$150 more isn't too bad, a little pricey but not too bad and a nice option.

 

nice... if only the LED WXGA+ was still offered on the T400

 

Maybe Lenovo is selling more of the High Nit screens than they anticipated? And economy of scale is bringing the price down? Hey, I can hope!

I'll bet they sell a few more thanks to zenit's comparisons in this thread!

 

The WXGA+ LED is the one I am comparing the high nit one to. I've had both LG (on pictures here) and Samsung versions and found them both to be of very poor quality (i am rather picky when it comes to screens). The only reason to pick that option in the first place is if you absolutely can't live without high resolution.

 

Zenit,
could you compare the high nit panel to the 15" classic macbook pro matte screen, esp. in terms of vertical viewing angle? It's also the same one that people had on Dell Latitude E6500 laptops, and I think that screen is fantastic.

 

Have you ever seen the Sony VAIO Z series 13.1" matte screen?
It is AMAZING!
I wonder how it would compare with the T400's LED high-nit display.
Has anyone compared the screens of both of these notebooks yet?

Also, this just proves that Lenovo is capable of making good displays. They should offer a display similar to the one on the W700.

 

The Sony Z screen is indeed very good as well. I have given up on comparing to flexview screens b/c they are so rare. Lenovo doesn't make the screens; it just means that they are willing to source quality screens. This has really been the only reason I couldn't get a Lenovo--b/c of the screen quality. Not sure how I feel about the CPU whine, b/c their laptops do have it moreso than other brands. My macbook pro has zero. Dell, nearly zero. Sony, nearly zero. Lenovo--very obvious. How much it bothers you probably depends on on how much a mosquito buzzing in your ear while you sleep bothers you. That drives me nuts.

 

I don't have a classic matte Macbook Pro or a Unibody 13" macbook on hand to compare right now (they are my wife's and currently all the way across the country). If I have the computer again today which is likely, I will shoot some comparisons next to an S-IPS desktop monitor to have a reference point next to a nice screen.

The sony z screens are fantastic and I really wish I could afford one. I would say that this panel is brighter but the sony has much more saturated colors.

As for CPU whine, it is absent on both of the T400 specimens I have on hand. Slight noises can be heard if i put my ear directly to the top left corner where CPU is located, but it is impossible to hear anything at normal working distance. We did have one at work that sounded exactly like an annoying mosquito though, so the CPU whine is probably a bit of a hit and miss. Biggest difference in noise levels between the two computers is the hard drive. Mine has 5400rpm Fujitsu and the other has 5400rpm Western Digital. Western Digital is noticibly louder and makes the palm rest hotter.

 

Can you answer me this, then:
When you watch a dark scene, like "Lost" or "Heroes", will the colors invert and will it just look gross and hideous?
I define hideous and gross to be the wxga+ LED panel in the T400. It was mainly in those situations that I found the vertical viewing angle and contrast ratio to be unacceptable, with no sweet spot at all.

 

If the high nit option included 1440x900 resolution, I definitely would have paid the exorbitant price of that upgrade.

 

Okay, so after comparing the high nit screen with the crappy panel, lets compare it with a fantastic one. Here I have an NEC with S-IPS panel, 450 nits, true 8 bit colors. The IPS panel has extremely warm and vibrant colors, and native color balance is shifted towards strong yellows and reds. The viewing angles are like on any good IPS panels, this by far is my favorite desktop monitor to watch movies/play games on and for other leisure activities. As expected the IPS panel has better color reproduction and contrast. The horizontal viewing angles are surprisingly close. See for yourselves:

 

Holy...now I cant wait to get my hands on one of this...thanks a lot zenit

 

Nice pictures. It seems that the colors on the T400 high-nit display are cooler (leaning more towards blue) than the desktop IPS monitor. Still, it is a reasonably good display. If only they offered one with a 1400x900 resolution.

 

The Sony Z series has a stunning display. The colors are more saturated and it has better contrast. However, it suffers from some heating issues making the T400 a better choice in terms of long-term reliability. The T400 has better build quality too.

Lenovo should work on getting a display that is similar to the 400-nit one on the W700 workstation. Or maybe an OLED display in the near future.

 

i tried video on it today and it is much superior to wxga+ led which suffers from the problems you described. It is, however, worse than the IPS desktop with glossy panel.

 

Great, thanks zenit! I think that this panel may be good enough for my needs. I really like the Lenovos except for their terrible screens. We may have a winner here. It's a shame about the resolution, though. It's too low.

 

zenit,
Just checking to see if you had time to make any adjustments to the high nit screen for ATI and Intel settings. Thanks again for starting this thread and your input is appreciated.

Gary

 

I wish I could see the pics, I am really interested in this model now and would love to see the different pics of the two models side by side.