T520 FHD Screen = W520 FHD Screen ?

After a very long and uneasy time contemplating, I have decided to bite the bullet and return my T420 for a refund with 15% restocking fee. I realized that I spend too much time online (about 10 hrs a day) but am not particularly happy with the screen Probably, I've been spoiled by the laptop monitors that I have previously used.

Anyways, I received my RMA and have 10 days to find a replacement. I've been looking at other options but can't find that mix of features that my Thinkpad T420 has to offer (Sandy Bridge, quietness/coolness, being customizable and easily upgradable, good build quality, and most importantly, high-resolution screen - 1366x768 is a no go for me). Unfortunately, this year, Sony decided to focus on "stylish" laptops that don't quite look professional. Another option I am considering more seriously is Asus N53 with FHD and quad-core Sandy Bridge, however, I have never owned an Asus and don't know how reliable they are and what build quality to expect from them.

Long story short, the only alternative that gets close enough to the T420 is the T520 (feature and price-wise). I have seen the FHD screen on the W520 and it is just beautiful. Does anyone know if the FHD panel on the T520 is the same as the one on the W520?

 

Why get the T520? The W520 is the same size with lots more options.

Perry

 

Thanks Perry. W520 is a bit more than I can afford. It also comes with a huge AC adapter and I don't really need the dedicated graphics card that adds heat and reduces battery life.

 

Shame to hear the T420 didn't work out for you, according to the parts information both T520 and W520 share the same FHD screen panel.

 

Thanks Hearst.

 

Re: "Why get the T520? The W520 is the same size with lots more options."

Are there any other differences besides the graphics card?

 

If you, say, wanted a quad-core processor, it bumps up the price of the T520 into the W520 range, so you'd be better off buying the workstation. Also, the W520 has 4 DIMM slots (on quad-core versions), so it's capable of using up to 32GB(!) of RAM.

I'm considering buying a W520 sometime this month. I've never seen a Thinkpad with my own eyes before (except for the Edge series, but meh). With you saying that the FHD screen was beautify, you've gotten my hopes high lol, and I want the W520 more.

Could you tell me a little more about the screen quality? While I can (and have) looked at spec sheets and benchmarks, it doesn't tell me much since I can't experience a W520 in store. What are your thoughts on the contrast, brightness, etc etc? Thank you so much in advance.

 

Hi privatejarhead. Can't tell you what the specs are for the W520 screen. So my description will be based solely on my perception. Furthermore, as far as I know there are two FRUs for the screen.

Nevertheless, the W520 FHD is bright (no surprise here - it's LED back-lit), colors are accurate (no bluishness), great contrast, and no griddiness at all. Images appear to be sharp - with the FHD resolution it's hard to distinguish individual pixels.

It is comparable to Sony F series FHD screens (if not better) but has an advantage of being matte/anti-glare. In sum, it is much much better than the screen on the T420. You have to put them side by side to see how different the screens are. I wish Lenovo chose the same manufacturer for their 14" screens.

 

The FHD screen paper specs is 500:1 contrast and 270nits of brightness. I read previously that it is the same, or as good as the XPS15" FHD which is considered one of the best laptop TN screens. Reviews of the FHD T510 get good praise, I personally believe you won't be disappointed.

We just received our XPS17 FHD at work and I can attest that that panel is quite good looking (I only looked at it for a few mins) and has pretty decent viewing angles. I don't know if the XPS17 and XPS15 share the same panel quality however, I'm just offering some subjective qualification .

Btw, as far as I can tell a similarly spec'd W520 is always cheaper than a T520, at least from the Canadian stores, YMMV. I ordered a W520 because the T520 at the specs I wanted was unaffordable for me.

 

Thank you guys, subjective opinions on the W520 screen was exactly what I was looking for . The numbers don't tell me much; I can't "imagine" what 500:1 contrast or 270nits look like to me. I tried looking up the specs on the display on my current laptop in my sig to try to get a baseline, but couldn't find any.

 

A 270nits screen should be bright enough and more for all indoors situations (screens designed for outdoors use are typically 500+nits....). It is an above-average screen. In subdued indoors light, you will probably want to reduce the brightness down from 270nits. In comparison, my W500 screen has only around 170nits max, and I find that enough in daytime indoors conditions. I turn it down a notch or two in the evening...

 

Again, brightness is not an issue with the T420 or any other last-gen ThinkPads with LED-backlit screens. I have mine set at 8/15 indoors and that's plenty for me.

 

I just ordred the hi-resolution TS-520 and the 520 is packed. On the other hand, this thread I should have ordered the WS-520. I made the choice because of weight.

Should I get the T-520 or the WS-520?

Renee

 

IF you were considering a fully-loaded T520, you'd probably be better off with the W520 instead, which could come up cheaper than the T520 depending on your configuration. They are both almost the same size and weight. Only difference between the two that I know of are the better screen options and the nVidia Quadro GPU.

 

In case you're wondering, I believe the screen used is the same (highly praised) B+RG LED screen used on the Dell XPS 15. Not exactly a RGBLED screen, but still a huge improvement over normal WLED screens (esp most Thinkpad screens).

 

I am wondering about now. The WS came out the same with the same options and I didn't see any different visual system than the t-520 had.

Renee

 

W series comes with two usb3, which could be very useful - usb3 really should be standard on all thinkpads. Next year's cpu upgrade will make it standard...

 

...plus, thanks to the cheap upgrade to quad-core (compared to a quad-core T520), the W520 can handle up to 32GB of speedy RAM.

Is the W series the only laptop witht he mSATA option, or does the T series have that too, just wondering?

 

I also returned my T420 because of its low quality screen.
FHD screen on T520 is very good, but not well suited for standard usage because of its professional wide gamut (95%). You need a color profile and calibrations to have it look normal (no over-saturated colors) for movies and web browsing. The HD+ on T520 is better for the money. It also has better contrast, a little. Consumes less power too. The resolution is not too high for default Win7 DPI settings.

 

Actually, they did (for the most part).

There are currently two screens Lenovo gives you for the 1600x900 panel in the T420, one is made by AUO and one is made by LG. The LG panel is supposedly better than the AUO, but oddly enough, AUO is the manufacturer of the B156HW01 V.4 display panel which is the matte 95% gamut FHD screen used in the T520 and W520.

 

Marian,

Do we need to purchase extra software for color calibration? I am thinking of getting the T520 with with FHD screen. How is the FHD not suitable for standard usage?

 

When you calibrate a screen to be color accurate (like the 95% Adobe colors), the goal is to produce colors that are accurate to what they would look like once printed onto paper ( hugely important to graphic artists, et al., who depend on that sort of accurate calibration to put food on the table). Compared to a normal, less accurate screen, the colors look duller and don't "pop" as much, but a professional user has different requirements from a casual user. The FHD display used on these sorts of laptops are perfectly acceptable, and in fact better than the glossy 1366*768 panels one would (sadly...) typically see on the shelves in BestBuy.

Why would 1600*900 be better than a 1920*1080 display marian.zetu? My opinion is that one sould buy the highest resloution screen they can afford, and if text or applications appear too small, simply scale down; if you buy a 1600*900 screen and want more detail, you're SOL since scaling doesn't work in reverse like that. If all you do with a notebook is watching movies, you're better off with a glossy 1080p screen (so that you can watch the movie in full detail).

 

You need calibration if you want to match a specific color printer. I don't have experience with photo editing. My observation was based on the following link. See how adjusting the color space can reduce the number of actual colors because the LCD panel has only 6 bits per color.
A Guide to Wide-Gamut Displays (v1.2) - Overclockers Australia Forums

For my use cases (software programming, web and movies) I don't need full HD or wide gamut. If the T520 would have a blue-ray option maybe I would consider.
I know people who lower their resolution because the FHD resolution on 15.6 inch is too dense. It doesn't look as good as the native resolution.
The other solution, changing the text size in Win7 works almost right. But some buttons and window bars remain at same size. So not everything is scaled evenly.

See how FHD is. If you like it and the text is not too small, then go for it. It could be a good long term investment.