T61P: terrible colors, blurry resolution

So after the tough decision to choose the right laptop and the wait for delivery, I've been using my new T61P for 2 days. While I like it a lot overall, it has a major issue: the graphics/display.

Problem #1: colors are washed out to the point it's almost black & white. I took a picture of my nearly 4 year old Dell 600m and the T61P at max brightness. Ironically the Nvidia panel has the color vibrance disabled. It's been like this from initial bloated image to clean install with freshest driver from Lenovo.com. See the attachment. The vibrance and resolution of my Dell has always been on par with every other notebook I've ever used. I've never seen something as bad as this T61P.

Problem #2: graininess and slightly blurry resolution. While it's not too bad it is definitely strenuous to the eyes when doing this like Outlook email and reading small fonts. The characters bleed lightly. This unfortunately happens both on the laptop monitor and my external 22 inch LCD, both over VGA and DVI. I bought this model for the graphics, goodness! In comparison my Dell displays perfectly on my external monitor over VGA. Go figure.

Have you guys seen this? Based on lookup this a LG screen, so it should be good, yet isn't at all. The rest of the computer is great, good performance, solid build. But I can't live with these display issues and am wondering if a replacement will fix the problem?? The other disturbing thing is that the Nvidia panel has vibrance and sharpness disabled... which could fix my problems if they were enabled?

 

Problem 2 isn't anything to do with Lenovo. Either software or hardware problems.

Problem 1, might try color calibrating software.

 

Sorry to hear you're having problems with your new laptop; but lets see if we can possibly diagnose or do something about it.

First, are you running the current Lenovo released drivers for the videocard? That would be the first thing I would check, however from what you're describing it sounds like it might be a hardware problem. If it is, it could be something as simple as a loose LCD cable or there could be a problem with the motherboard if it's actually having trouble over external outputs.

You said you tried it on DVI as well, right? I'm assuming it was through one of the docks that has DVI, so that might point more to a hardware issue.

All in all, I would check you graphics drivers first and make sure you're using Lenovo's current release and then go from there.

 

Thanks guys. It's indeed the freshest Lenovo drivers.

 

Ok, the comparison shot helps a lot with seeing what the difference is that you're talking about.

The next two things that I would try/do would be to reset any color correction settings in the nVidia control panel back to defaults if they're not already. Next, do you have the LCD driver installed? I'm not sure if this would affect the color, but it might be worth a try if you don't already have it installed (it's listed in Lenovo's download section). Also, you're running at native resolution on the T61P, right?

From the picture, it actually looks like the color saturation on the T61P is just a lot lower than the Dell. I would expect to see noticeable differences between different notebook displays, but from the comparison pic it looks like it might be a bit more than that. Either that or the particular LCD you have might just need a bit of calibration as very few LCD's come balanced very well if at all out of the box.

 

I agree, at least judging by your description and the pic that it may very well be a calibration issue.

 

pro101, is that the Samsung or the LG screen on your T61p?

Edit: sorry I just saw that it's the LG screen.

 

It could well be a software / calibration issue, but I have no idea why I needed no extra software on any of my old laptops for them to work out of the box. They had color on the display and I never had to debate installing extra software on top of my video card (or onboard video). Here I have one of the best graphics cards for any notebook on the market and I can't even adjust the options in the panel. Both vibrance and sharpening are disabled and cannot be adjusted. See the attached Nvidia panel screen shot. I tried re-installing the driver several times, for the card and for the monitor (and another 20+ hours of re-imaging, chasing MSFT's patches and updating BIOS at the request of Lenovo support). It should not be this hard to get color and sharpness on a display.

 

Maybe there is something wrong with the display itself. Have you tried contacting Lenovo. Seeing as others have not had similar problems with this exact LCD, there is obviously something that is not right. Try giving them a call and see what they can do for you.

 

Maybe it's the camera or view angle? I get the feeling that the T61p has a much better screen than the Dell just by looking at the picture.

 

dickeywang: on your t61p I assume you have the Nvidia 570m? Is your Nvidia control panel like mine, with vibrance and sharpening options disabled? (see my screen shot on page 1)

 

my nVidia 140M is like that..

 

Are you sure the blurriness isn't due to ClearType?

 

Lenovo and Nvidia are looking into a driver issue with the FX570M. I disabled clear type, issue remains. It's when you get a new system that doesn't work well that you realize how blessed you've been to work with a laptop that does work.

 

Ever since I did a fresh install of Windows XP and switched to the laptopvideo2go.com driver, I couldn't find the vibrating option. I remember it was there in the pre-installed Vista. Personally I don't like the function. It makes my eyes tired.

 

From that screenshot it seems the LG's screen is better but not calibrated properly. The Dell looks washed out.
Almost every new lcd I came across I had to do some kind of calibration on it to get it looking properly.

 

morphy, have you successfully color calibrated your T61p. How is it? Is there anyway you can share the color profile?

 

yeah but I tend to like more cooler colors on my monitor rather than warm so it might not be suitable for everyone.
If you want a quick easy way to calibrate try Adobe Gamma (if you have photoshop).

 

CS3 doesn't come with Adobe Gamma anymore .

 

alpha, try this calibration tool in my sig

 

I've posted a ICC for the WXGA+, it may help : )

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=174408

For blurriness, I'd check to make sure you are running the computer at the native resolution.

 

Yea I've tried that one, made everything way to saturated.

 

So the problem is fixed. After all this trouble with IBM I got an onsite technician to come and change the display and the inverter. Magic!

The LG Phillips screen was responsible for the poor colors. Now I have a Samsung with great colors, like a notebook should have. Green is green, blue is blue. What a statement!

 

So, the lack of red doesn't bother you then?

 

The more I look at the new screen the more I like it Thanks Samsung! (and Lenovo for eventually sending a replacement to the washed out LG)

 

Glad to hear that things worked out for you!