T410 - Does Color Calibration Help the Screen?

Has anyone tried color calibration with dedicated hardware on the T410 screen? I have a Spyder 2 Express ($75 -- nothing fancy) and it worked wonders on my Elitebook 8730w screen. It had a washed out, cool, dull look to it and now I'm quite happy with it.

I realize that calibration can't force a screen to produce more color or contrast than it is capable of but I wonder if it would improve the situation for the T410. The complaints about the screen are probably the only thing making me think twice about purchasing this notebook.

Appreciate any responses.

 

I have a T400s calibrated with a Spyder 3 and it made a night and day difference for my screen. With the screen color calibrated, it moved from "bad-acceptable" to "good" in my book. Before that I had a Sony Z and that was a "great" screen.

 

threeFiftyLi -- Thanks for the feedback! Even if it only takes it from bad to reasonable I think I'd be happy. I think that settles it for me...

 

Maybe you could try the Window 7 color calibration option.

 

k2001 -- Certainly worth a try. Whatever the method of calibration I was just interested if it has had a redeeming effect on the some of the recent Lenovo models with poor screens. I don't need my screen to be perfect but it's nice to hear that someone has had success improving it from the stock settings.

 

Could you post your feedback after doing it?
I'm very excited to see your results.
Thanks.

 

The result will be very subjective and it depend on the brightness level.

 

Calibration is always worth doing in my opinion.

 

Of course, but it's important for me to gather some feedback before shelling extra for the expensive tool.

 

i have some of the most expensive color calibration hardware available and have worked with digital color for over 20 years (if not longer).   i can say with confidence that no amount of money spent on hardware can turn a bad output device into a good one.   if the built-in windows 7 calibration tool doesn't work for you then a dedicated colorimeter probably won't, either.

after all, colorimeters are meant for graphics, photography, scanning, and print.   they're intended to be used with good hardware from the beginning with the goal being to match color output between devices.   they were never meant to take a TN display and magically turn them into the quality of IPS.   this simply isn't possible.

my recommendation is to stick with the built-in calibration tool in win 7.   not only is it free but it works extremely well for what it's intended to do.

 

Thanks for your advice, Erik.
So what about the IPS screens, are they so much better?
And what do you think of this screen?

 

I'd be happy to post my results but I expect it will be a while before I get the chance. I'm planning to order in the next few days (72 Hour Sale in Canada? Hopefully...these coupons seem to work only randomly) so I don't expect to have the machine for about a month.

erik -- Absolutely, calibration isn't going to "fix" a bad price of hardware. But, it might take a reasonable piece of hardware that is poorly calibrated and make it look reasonable again. That's all I'm really hoping for.

 

Color calibration is a trade-off: it makes some things better and some other things worse.

• Calibration improves: color accuracy. If your display has a blue cast, for example, calibration can eliminate the color cast and make your display show pure white and gray. (It does so by telling your display to show a light yellow for white, therefore offsetting the blue cast.)
• Calibration degrades: contrast. Since the display is showing (for example) light yellow for white, the calibrated display will have a lower contrast. How much contrast you lose depends on the amount of color cast that the calibration has to compensate for.

Whether calibration is worth it or not depends on your preferences and the display. My desktop monitor have 703:1 native contrast ratio. After calibration, it drops to 586:1. If your T410 display has 150:1 contrast ratio to begin with, you might be looking at 120:1 after calibration... (shudder)

 

IPS panels produce better color and contrast than TN.   for color-critical work, IPS-based panels are all but mandatory.   for most people they aren't necessary but do make one's computing experience a lot more enjoyable.   i can say from experience that average users never notice the difference though (but most people are completely oblivious to details ).

that HP looks nice but their 30-bit color claim leaves me underwhelmed.   i haven't found a notebook panel that has exceeded 6-bits per channel (24-bit color) at the hardware level so i commend them if they actually reached 7.5-bits per channel (sarcasm ).   it's still not up to the level of a proper desktop graphics display capable of 8- or 10-bits per channel (32- or 40-bit color).   my 30" NEC MultiSync has a 10-bit LUT (look-up table) and displays colors that i simply cannot see on any notebook.

i give HP credit for developing an IPS display though.   they must have read all the complaints on the forums and blogs and decided to fill a market no one else could right now.

calibration in itself is fine and i definitely encourage it.   my point was in the limited benefits of hardware calibration for most users, not software.

 

I bet, many will follow HP quite soon, especially Lenovo (W70X) and Dell (M6500)

 

"7.5-bits per channel."

This is quite a trick.

Renee

 

that's exactly what i thought.   looking into "DreamColor" displays, HP may have meant 30-bits per channel or 120-bit color, which seems impossible right now.   they claim to achieve 100% sRGB, Adobe RGB, Rec.601, Rec.709, and 97% DCI-P3 with their 24" display.   it wouldn't take 30-bits per channel to pull this off and i'm not aware of a GPU that can drive that much color.   the best stuff out there is 10-bits per channel output.

how HP pulled this off before Eizo is beyond me.   HP have never been a big player in the graphics industry.   my shenanigans meter is high on this one.

 

do they even know what a bit is?

1bit = 0 or 1
what the heck is a 0.5 bit?

Unless I'm missing something HP's marketing department sucks at lying. Also something irrelevant but I dislike the quality of HP's products. I've opened up 2 24" HP monitors and the internals were worse than a cheap no-brand monitor I have.

With "worse" I mean they had cheap materials everywhere and my impression was that they were trying to save as much as possible on parts you can't see. There was a metal that was supposedly protecting the circuit and it was a bit thicker than a cheap aluminum sheet. Also the capacitors were like nearly the cheapest they could get...No wonder they blew off after a year or so.

 

Everyone is going cheap these days. Besides, notebook high-end screens are not to be compared to low budget external monitors. In fact there are plenty of large enterprises out there, going with HP as the only IT hardware provider.
Back @3Com we had 60% IBM(including ThinkPads), about 30% HP servers and workstations and the rest - a mix of many more.
I seriously doubt that the high-end workstation class (W70X, M6500, 8740w,etc) laptops have a huge difference in quality and workmanship.
Hp looks worst of all IMO , plus I can't stand their logo,lol.
But from a few videos of the IPS screen, I like it (the screen). Will it be enough to pull the trigger? Maybe not...