T540p / 3K Panel Pros and Cons

Finally I got a rise from someone with some forum senority that agrees with me and is only mildly offended by my mildly questioning the credibility of senior reps and I admire that you are not thin-skinned, as I am also not thin-skinned. But, in this day and time, based on experience (follow the money) corporations sponser the majority of information that the masses get their hands on. I just find that it seems that the senior Reps in many cases just gloss over the hard questions in order keep sales flowing, answer the easy ones and sometimes but much rarer they take a stance against the particular product but only after there is abundant facts to substantiate such a position. I appreciate your cander and will tone it down as the project of picking the right system is getting old. I know my choices and I really don't like any of them, yet Lenovo's better than other Mfg's. I can be tenacious when I'm doing reseach and direct but I don't resort to name calling or profanity.

You are absolutely right if they have a contract to buy or have already bought a large quantity of panels they will certainly use them up.

Moving on, it is bad form for Lenovo to inaccurately describe what customer are buying on the final checkout page. My past experiences have taught me that if it's not listed at checkout then it's not there and if it is listed it is usually there and if not it will be corrected quickly. However, I'm an old timer and the world is changing and I guess integrity is not as important for even the major players these days. I can only imagine that Lenovo has someone (s) monitoring the major blogs. My advice is for Lenovo to correct their website description errors and call it a day.

I believe I will wait and check prices just before and after Christmas and go for a January delivery. I would rather wait for more reviews and pay $200 more rather than make a mistake. Just to be clear, I will stop questioning the credibility of other forum members.

Also, my bolding certain sentences is really just to make a point for the many who are looking for answers to questions although there are some instances of a dual agenda's.

Lastly, back to the panel issue, it's my general understanding that higher quality panel's are not in great abundance and inventory is tight or kept at real time. Also, it was just 10 days ago that I spoke to Tech Support out of Atlanta, Ga and he said that Lenovo had already stopped using the INNOLUX N156HGE-EA1 on the T540p FHD TN panel and had switched to one made by AUO B156HW01 version 3 with the same TN specs. So, based on the above, this kind shoots your theory down and I'm just stating the facts so don't get upset.

 

You've got to have *some* pull if the above information holds true since the said rep could lose their job for discussing that type of info with you without an open case.

The IPS horse has been beaten to death at this point in the game in my opinion.

If you feel like proceeding with writing about that aspect of new 15.6" ThinkPads, by all means do so.

I just don't believe that I can add any meaningful input to that discussion right now.

 

Lenovo had stop putting auo panels some time around end of the cycle in t530 iirc. Though w530 guaranteed to have one?
Though i doubt the us rep really have any real info regard to how china factory works.

 

My understanding is that they were still installing AUO LCDs, but V.1 instead of V.4 so no 95% gamut etc...

See here:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T530-FHD-is-disappointing/td-p/1222895

 

i have spoken to Lenovo Australia manager handling the eCommerce site, they will make changes to the eCommerce portal description for the LCD. Oh the T540p FHD is not IPS.

 

Well I'm impressed to hear it from the Big Dog on the block. As a consumer that tries to make sense of the facts that are presented to me(on websites in print) I appreciate the seriousness of your effort to contact the Ausie's and the conviction that is present in your statement. I will be interested in their follow through as well as the final panel options on the W540 although I don't want to spend that much money.

 

Techs can only order what shows up under the IBM part #. On some parts such as panel they can usually on a certain screen get the panel mfg and the model #. I'm just persistent and he gave me the info. On some screens you can look up when the previous model was superceded. I know this stuff. He wasn't forcoming but I was persistent. So what can I say except that in the old days info like that was always easy to get if you knew how to pick up a telephone.

 

That's an entirely different recollection of "the old days" from my own, but then again, I am a serious candidate for Mad Cow's Disease...

The important part is that now we finally know where we stand when it comes to FHD panels on the latest generation of 15.6" ThinkPads...

 

Forgetting all this, let's assume it's just a gorgeous display. Can you just run it in 1080P resolution without much pixelation or struggles and get 1080P resolution on a good quality panel?

 

I would really hope that scaling down the resolution would one day be a viable option, but in EVERY single computer display I've used (both laptops and desktop monitors) changing the resolution to anything other than native res has resulted in a totally unacceptable output - blurred text, etc.

I simply cannot fathom buying a display and planning to use it at anything but native res, and I cannot understand others who say they are able to use their computers on a daily basis at non-native res. It's a crazy idea to me, but YMMV.

 

I have seen people who do it for years and just have a huge tolerance for crappy looks.

However I was just at best buy where they had a 13" or 14" Yoga (can't remember) with what was a high resolution display of an unknown variety. I dropped it down to 1080P in the control panel and it was hard to tell that it was non-native. I don't know if 1080P was a "direct scale" (IE: 1:2) or not, but it didn't look bad.

It's an offshoot vs dealing with crappy windows apps that just don't handle DPI scaling well enough today.

 

In all honesty, if it doesn't explicitly say IPS, then why complain. It's much more resolution then your standard 1920x1080, more pixels offered by any 4:3 UXGA//SXGA+ ThinkPad. It's better than the plethora of bad screens that has plagued T5xx series for a long time.

 

I wonder whether there is an exception to this rule: What about screen resolution 1440x810? I'd expect almost perfect sharpness due to just pixel doubling in vertical and horizontal expansion (make exactly 4 pixel out of 1). Is that confirmed? I never read about it so far. And maybe first at all: Is that resolution available?

 

Yes. That's the real benefit of it.

I would be that If you saw the 3k panel at FHD resolution for the first time you'd think it was running at native resolution. I understand you've never seen it happen before, and neither have I, until I saw this particular panel. I ran it at FHD almost exclusively and the thought that it wasn't running at native resolution never even crossed my mind. I would've noticed any aliasing or blurriness, but never did. But again, that's just my opinion. YMMV.

 

Yes, I'm certainly willing to admit that the possibility exists that non-native resolution looks just fine on this 3K panel, since I've never seen it before. I might find out how it looks on a first-hand basis someday, and will reserve comment till then.