x301 screen quality

Hi,
Coming from a macbook pro, will I be completely disappointed with the screen quality of the x301?

I would like to watch videos on the x301, and I'm worried that the vertical viewing angle and contrast ratio will be horrible. It's only rated at 250:1, but what about the viewing angles? I used a T400 LED that was very bad with the vertical viewing angles. No sweet spot at all.

 

If you want a good screen, get the tablet. I saw a X300 at work. I know some have complained the X300's screen is bad, but it seemed OK to me. The X301 is supposed to be better, but I've not seen it myself. Most screens are crap nowadays. That's the reality of buying a notebook in 2009. Probably the best ThinkPad screen that I've seen, other than the tablets, is probably the WSXGA+ on the T and R series, but it's no IPS.

 

Agree. X200t offers the best screen quality currently in the thinkpad line.

Too bad their is no choice for us to spend another $200 upgrade option for an idea screen.

Sign.

 

Hmm...reviewers say that the screen is quite good with lines like "vibrant colors" and "wide viewing angles", etc. But it seems like folks here say it's bad. I'm preparing for the worst.

 

"Vibrant" and "Wide" are extremely subjective terms.

I much prefer terms like 178 degrees with a 20% loss in contrast, and white temperature/black temperature. However, these terms are almost never used because most reviewers are unable to measure them.

 

my personal opinion is that coming from a mac, your screen'll most definitely be a downgrade, especially if you're talking about movies.

my x301's viewing angles are pretty restrained, but imo, are you really looking for a superb video experience on a laptop like this?

 

Now this isn't the first thread about screen quality you make, so you know that there are two sites that provide objective measurements rather than the useless opinions/feelings of the people and their dogs...

To put it bluntly, the display on the X301 is beyond rubbish and it doesn't even deserve to be called "display", but unfortunately that's the reality of buying a "premium" notebook from Lenovo in 2009. To stress again, this isn't a problem of the TN technology, it's Lenovo's choice to use cheap, horrible quality displays in most of their notebooks.

Otherwise, there are enough notebooks with far better TN displays as you know (MBA, Sony Z, SR etc.), and if you get one of them you will see the other side of the same reality, which is good enough for most people. I posted enough about those issues anyway...


Now back to the X301, which I usually avoid talking about due to the display quality. Yes, you will be more than "completely disappointed".

To sum it up:
- Contrast ratio: 100:1...erm.. yeah.
In today's reality, there are TN-based notebook displays with up to 1000:1 contrast ratio, yet Lenovo offers one with 100:1. What can I say? Contrasts!

- Black color: Really?
Come on now, black isn't even a color, so why on Earth would they "include" it to that display? You've got enough black with the exterior already, don't be greedy.

- Viewing angles: Wait..wut..where?
Hey man, that's a feature, you have an almost total privacy protection here. No one will ever see what you're doing, hopefully at least you will.

That's the right attitude, now imagine that something could actually be worst than the worst, and do take some drugs to reduce the pain before you turn it on. I'm only half-joking here.

Now the small notebooks aren't exactly my cup of tea but I somehow liked the idea of a thin/light and durable notebook that I can carry in my bag without even noticing it's there. However, the last time I used that notebook, I had the urge to throw it out of the window, so that I don't need to see that horrible display again as it was hurting my eyes.

Now if there are people who can live with such displays, that's fine with me, just don't expect that everyone should, not to mention that it's not acceptable at that price.

 

ThinkPad's selling point's not screen, in fact it's always been it's weakness, and I believe it's been some hot discussion about at the least 8 years, and it's purpose it's for bussiness only that's why I believe Yamato never intend to put good AFFS and IPS on non tablet ThinkPads.

 

IBM/Lenovo used to offer IPS displays on the 15" workstation models, which were their main selling point for some people, in fact the last notebook with IPS display options was the ThinkPad T60p (the second one on the pictures you posted), and there was even a FFS wider gamut option, which, however, never got to mass production.

Now if you want to live with the stereotype that businessmen are typists who only work with word and excel and really want to have horrible quality displays, that's your choice. In my opinion, when you're paying more than 2K for whatever notebook, you should get at least a half-decent display rather than a complete rubbish as on the X301, which is inferior even to the displays used in the cheap gadgets that people call netbooks.

Otherwise, ThinkPad isn't for "business only", there are workstation models, as I said above, which are advertised for 3D modeling, CAD, DDC etc. and Lenovo has been recently killing even them with average displays. Other manufacturers like Dell, on the other hand, who also offer comparable workstation notebooks, are willing to offer better quality TN panels (the same used on MBP and even 8-bit wide gamut ones), Lenovo simply isn't, that's been discussed many times, read up.

The display on the X300 actually looks worse than the one on the years old 600X on those pictures, which is actually what that article says.

http://www.51nb.com/viewnews-39412-page-19.html

 

Thanks for those numbers. That's what I needed. Resolved: never buy another Lenovo notebook unless it's either cheaper than a netbook, or they get their screen act together (x200t excluded). My thing is that I have a notebook with a good screen. If my secondary computer won't have a good screen, I'll keep comparing the two and just eventually end up not using the inferior machine b/c of its horrible display quality.

Edit: how on earth can the brigthness only be 188 cd/m2? The thing says it's 300 nits on the spec sheet, and 188 cd/m2 would be low by any standards.

 

By the way i went to J&R in new york where they have all Lenovo models on display and from what i've seen, Lenovo seems to use better panels on their IdeaPad line of notebooks which are much cheaper. This fact alone kind of baffled me - why use crappy panels on their top of the line models and good ones on low end?

Maybe it has something to do with availability of matte screens. Everybody seems to be going glossy or semi-glossy nowadays, so I bet thats what manufacturers are producing mostly. Althogh then again the LED panels on Dells E6500 are very very nice, and they are not glossy.

 

They measured that on battery when ThinkPads don't run at full brightness by default, you can change that in the BIOS or through ThinkVantage. Otherwise, the maximum average brightness is about 240 cd/m^2 as both sites measured on the X300, which is what should be expected, the brightness isn't an issues with this display, pretty much anything else, however, is.

http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/lenovo-x300-520/2
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Lenovo-Thinkpad-X300-Notebook.9852.0.html

Availability is whatever you pay it to be, but if you need some sort of explanation... let's say that Lenovo has enough corporate clients that don't want to pay for screen quality and buy ThinkPads with whatever displays for their workers to get their office job done... it's a matter of supply and demand. If they sell enough ThinkPads with this level of displays, which they have been doing for years, then why change anything?

As I posted before they may even offer IPS displays again if there is enough demand from their corporate market, but there isn't probably any nor they is for quality screens according to Lenovo. That's about it.

Dell and HP do the same with most of their 12-14" business notebooks as well, so it's not only Lenovo, but Dell at least offers better TN displays for the 15.4" models now, which is something.

The matte WXGA+ LED backlight display on the E6500, which you mentioned, are the same that Apple used in the previous MBP, and are very good for the notebook standarts, most people will be more than happy with them.

 

I wouldn't say the screen is rubbish, unless i'm from a competitor . I guess its just something that u don't understand why Yamato designed TP that way. I always think they could throw better screen into TP but why they wouldn't?

 

looking at those pictures the screen does look like total rubbish