T61p LCD causes eye strain

I was wondering if someone can explain to me that while I can look at my T40p and T42p LCD screens (regular not Flexview/IPS) all day comfortably but using my T61p for only 10 to 15 minutes starts to give me eyestrain and an uncomfortable feeling that I find hard to explain. The T61p LCD seems bright with clear lettering and images but there is something weird about it that has kept me from using it. The T61p has basically just sat on the shelf because of this problem. It would be interesting if someone here has an explanation. I do not experience the problem looking at any desktop monitors or any of my older laptops. Thanks in advance. ...Bill

 

what's the resolution?

 

1280 by 1024 is what I usually use on all my laptops but the same "eyestrain" occurs at any resolution on the T61p from 800 by 600 to to 1360 by 760 and 1400 by 1050. I have tried them all.

It is something about the type of screen on these newer Thinkpads that causes eyestrain. I borrowed a friends X301 for a half day to see if that would be better on my eyes but it was just as bad. Again there is something different about the newer Thinkpad screens compared to the T4x series which I often use for literally six hours at a time comfortably. There is no way I could do that with the newer Thinkpad screens. The strange part about it is that the screen initially looks fine on them but there is something subtle that is different like a refresh rate or fast switching that must be doing it which is not present on the T4x laptops that I have.

 

Are you talking about LED backlight? Some people seem to have this issue with LEDs... seems to be a genetic elevated sensitivity/susceptability to LED flickering (your eyes are too good lol).

 

He said t61p though...

 

Usually if you run your LCD at a non-native resolution, it'll be blurry. If you're running Vista maybe you should run at the screens native resolution, then bump up the DPI if need be.

 

some panels just dont work with certain sets of eyes. I had an eye strain issue on a T400 with LG LED panel. Curiously enough, i dont have this problem on the Samsung one. Resolutions are the same, color balance is a bit different though.

I had same issue with different desktop monitors as well.

 

The T61p is a widescreen panel - you will have to select a widescreen ratio, or it will look terrible. Try the native resolution. If it is WSXGA+, that would be 1680 X 1050 ( I am assuming that is what you have, since you listed the 4:3 res of 1400 X 1050, which would look really bad on a T61P....). Next down would be WSXGA, which is 1440 X 900.

 

Maybe it's because of ClearType and an uncalibrated display. If the display is uncalibrated, some colors may be oversaturated or unbalanced, so that text may not look colored but is hard to look at. The difference is hard to spot but easy to notice: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=1833

That's just an idea, though. Maybe disabling ClearType helps, but I'm not sure at all.

 

The mind receives messages from sensory cells. The mind can focus on sensory signals from the eye. Eyes that have become strained do not always deliver a clear signal. Inattention to eyestrain symptoms deprives the brain of meaningful signals.