X201 tablet vs X200 tablet - outdoor painting

heya.

i'm about to order either a new x201 tablet from lenovo or a refurbished x200 tablet from ebay/where-ever. it will be used in bright public spaces regularly, generally for digital plein air painting. in that regard, getting my hands on a panel equal to the original x200 is paramount. i definitely want to get the non-multitouch version reviewed in the original x200 article over at notebookreview: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=5287 that screen on the left is perfect, exactly what i need.

does anyone have real world experience comparing the x201 panel against the x200 panel? supposing the x201 panel is indeed less robust, is there any way to be sure the x200 i get is the proper version? users simply throwing "superbright outdoors" or "high nit" in the ebay listing doesn't really give me the kind of security i would like ;]

sorting this out is driving me (and my girlfriend) nuts. thanks!

 

I am not sure what do you want. I have the "SuperBright Outdoor viewable LCD" on my X200t so I can take some shots tomorrow (because today it will be dark by the time I leave) on the bright snowy outdoors. Or whenever the next time we get sun here.

The only slightly bad thing about this screen is the darkening that shows up when you change the vertical viewing angle - I can try to take some pictures to show what I mean. Otherwise the screen is really good.

 

i have heard from just about everyone that the x200 screen is just great. thats the kind of performance i'm looking for, for sure. what i'm wondering is- does the current generation x tablet (x201) share that same great panel performance with the original x200?

oh, and if taking pictures is not inconvenient, i'd love to see them. don't go out of your way into the freezing wilderness or anything, though

 

OK, well I don't know about the screens on X201. Here's some shots of the X200t - Samsung (or Toshiba?) PVA, SuperBright Outdoor Viewable LCD - screen. Click on the pic to see a higher-res version. I didn't go to the wilderness, but I went to the Agriculture Quadrangle on campus (close enough? ).

This is how it would typically look under very bright conditions (pic on the right is how the environment looks like where I took the pics) and this is what one could expect from this screen when used under normally less extreme conditions (any consumer glossy laptop would get owned at this light):



The left pic is how it looks on the max brightness. Next, I can show you it fails to perform when pointed at the white sky and looked from angles a bit further away than 90 deg. Again, you probably won't ever be using it like this, but just to illustrate where the limit of the screen is.




This is the comparison of indoor reflectivity vs the RGB LED glossy screen on the Alienware. I retouched the thinkpad pic in the photoshop to make it look as closest as I can to the real (it's hard to capture it on the photo). Just focus on the fully black parts of the screen - the reflectivity will there be the highest. On a tablet screen the reflected light undergoes multiple reflections and I found it impossible to focus on that "imaginary" image like I did on an RGB LED glossy.



The only thing that's a little nuisance to me is not the glossiness but this artifact of the screen when looked at slightly-off the perfect 90 degree vertical angle (it's 80 deg or so I guess):



It's very noticable on the completely white screen but when I am reading something of the screen it typically does have white background and it takes me some time to find the good angle - in the tablet mode that becomes the horizontal angle. The right pic should help you with what the angle is. Basically it's a sudden reduction in brightness. A "feature" of this type of PVA screen perhaps? A "fix" is to tilt the screen at the right (90 deg) angle.

P.S. I have some more indoor pics on my Flickr account - I am unsure whether some are appropriate for this forum (just some woman in the bikini-style outfit so nothing "controversial"), so I am posting only a link: Flickr pics

 

that post helped out a lot. i knew the tablet could probably handle what i needed, but those snow pictures sealed the deal. i looked at an x201 hands on in a situation just about like what you posted, and performance just can't compare.

just dug around on ebay and various other sites for a few hours and managed to track down an in-box, under warranty x200 with the superbright outdoor wideview IPS. snatched that right up for only $625.

thanks !

 

You welcome!

Keep in mind tho, my screen has a PVA matrix vs the IPS (I'm not even sure whether there exists IPS outdoor viewable screen?) but my understanding is that IPS screen on X200 is a little better quality (and less bright? dont know the specs) but not glossy. There's a longer discussion about different screens and codes here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/542734-thinkpad-x200-tablet-650-new-lenovo-outlet.html

so you might want to check that out too. Typically IPS screens are the best quality (iphone4, iPad, iMac use them as well as very expensive professional displays). In any case you can always check the screen model when you get it if you want to compare. The link I posted on page 8 in that thread lists some of the known screens that you can get on the tablet.

In any case, grats! I love this thing - it's SO silent!

 

ah, all good info. i think any display will be worlds better than the hp dv9700 ultra glossy beast that i'm currently stuck with. combine that display with a 1 hour battery and a 12x18 intuos and you have a pretty lackluster live painting setup heh. this lenovo should be a real life saver.

anyway. thanks for your help!

 

Nice pics. Is that taken @ a uni the 2nd pic

 

Thanks.

Haha... it's not my apartment, btw, so it looks pretty generic. My two laptops spice it up though. But yeah, first four pics are at the university. I put the laptop and bag next to the building on the left - so that I don't have to hold it while I'm taking pics.

Displays are somewhat subjective. I heard everyone here complained about stock X200 screen (matte). I am aware it has subpar contrast, color reproduction viewing angles, etc, but I just love it. There are no reflections ... ever? I didn't like the AFFS mod on the other hand. But I'd take that stock screen any day over pretty much any consumer glossy. It just works great for actually doing something when there's lots of light and I don't have to be finding the "sweet spot".

 

i think people are unhappy with normal x200 and x201 screens, not the x200t or x201t screens. the tablet screens i think are generally agreed upon to be quite good which seems to be the one you have? unless you mean youve seen the stock x201's

which uni is that. reminds me of canadian unis around about this time of the year lol

 

Looks like you got a fantastic screen. It's bright and according to notebookcheck, has a contrast ratio of 744:1!

 

its my hope that people who are unhappy with their panel are those who got a standard, stock screen, which isn't particularly mind blowing when set up right beside a glossy LCD in general room light. i can't imagine anyone would boot up the superbright outdoor wideview panel and cringe, though i suppose its entirely possible

 

Btw, it looks like the X200 and X201 tablets share some or all of the led screens. You can find out by looking up machine types listed for each panel.

Lenovo Support - 12.1 inch WXGA (1280x800) LCD service parts - ThinkPad X200 Tablet, X201 Tablet

 

How many bits is the X20x screens? Is like most notebooks or it like a 6 or 8bit screen?

 

99.9% of notebook panels manufactured in the last decade are 6-bit, including PVA, IPS, and AFFS panels.   only a handful of notebooks have true 8-bit panels as claimed by the manufacturer.   however, having never seen the actual datasheets of these panels myself, i can't say whether they're truly 8-bit or only claimed as such.

 

Sony is claiming the Vaio TT has an 8-bit screen. So, now the question arises will one notice a difference in that regards?

 

Not sure about the exact specs of the laptop and I am not sure if its really 400 nit screen (it looks pretty bright to me ). The screen didn't look that good out of the box: yellow tone all the way, washed out colors etc. (pretty crappy imo) but I was able to tune it actually quite nicely. The model number:
Model# LT121EE08000 and the part number was 13N7272 . It looks pretty good now except for the sudden brightness spot when you're not at a good angle.

If you get a yellow screen, try this: In Intel Graphic Media Control Panel (right click on Desktop then Graphic properties), first for All Colors, I changed Gamma to 0.7 (0.8 is a tad bit too much for me), then for Blue only I increased the contrast from 50 to 51. It made a nice difference for me.

 

that might be what they claim but i seriously doubt they're offering true 8-bit hardware.   the proof would be in the display manufacturer's datasheet, not the manufacturer's claim.

 

Where could one find that info? I guess I need to take my vaio to the store that carries the X201 tablet and compare them(the outdoor model pref).

 

download AIDA64 (it used to be everest) here and it should tell you the manufacturer's part number for your display.   search google for the number and the word "datasheet" and you might find it.

definitely post the model number here as i'd like to know what sony is putting in their systems.   if IDTech, LG, and BOE Hydis can't exceed 6-bit in their IPS/AFFS/AFFS+ panels then i highly doubt sony is sourcing 8-bit TN panels.   but, we'll see.

 

IDTech is owned by Sony.

Currently the Sony VPCZ128GG/XQ is claim to have a 13.1 inch LCD with 96% gamut and 8 bit.

 

we've established sony's claims.   let's see a panel part number and datasheet to back up those claims.

 

Yeah they told me similar things with my Vaio TT. I really(!) want to move to tablet, either the X201(maybe X220) or HP 2740, but the screen on my Sony has almost ruined other screens for me some how. It like I go to brick and mortar stores and look at the screen of many of the business models and those seem they can't really compare. So, not sure if tablets would be up to snuff for my taste.

I tried that software, but all it gives me is monitor ID saying it is a generic monitor, but did give me a monitor ID. Googleing the ID brought a thread up on this site saying its a LG display. Not really clear. http://forum.notebookreview.com/5495382-post1087.html

I did a search for 8-bit and TT, and oddly enough a NBR threads came up. This one discuss the screen and has a link to a Sony's site claiming it is 8-bit, but nothing is really clear.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sony/528949-sony-tt-8-bit-ips-display.html