LG A540 (i7 + 555M + FHD IPS Screen)

Hey,

check this out, LG has released the LG A540 officialy now in South Korea..

The glasses free 3D and the 3D model are okay, but what really interests me is the LG A540 with the IPS display ! Its very seldom for a notebook to have a high quality screen and this one atleast has a 555m.. which isnt enough though for FHD Gaming

The price for the IPS Model is about 1300 Euro

Would be interesting to see the quality of the IPS screen! There are only like 5 Notebooks currentlyon the market with an IPS screen (LG P220 (only s.korea), Envy 15 (orange tint screen), lenovo X220) Well, thats all of the notebooks I know, so maybe its just three with IPS?

 

well apparnetly there a sony vaio with the same model of the envy 15. I want the 3d one when do u guys think (if ever) it will be released here? and how much?

 

You guys need not worry too much.

Soon I will have one of these things to test, namely the A540-PE50K with the 15.6" AH-IPS panel. I'll report back. In the meantime, if anyone knows about the quality of the IPS panel in the A540-PE50K then please do tell us, we all want to know! I should have an answer within a week or so.

 

Hey thats fantastic news! I hope its a different panel than in the envy 15/vaio se, which lacks the color red

Can you tell me how you got it? Are you from korea or did you import it? If yes to which country and how much extra did you have to pay? You can also write me a pn if you wish

 

I've just received it. Its not bad but isnt my cup of tea. The viewing angles are far and away better than any laptop screen I've ever used.

It's good for most uses, just isn't the most suitable machine for my needs

 

So did you import it ? Where are you from? Im maybe interested it ^^

Why isnt it your cup of tea? Does it disappoint you somehow?

 

I imported from Korea. I'm in Australia.

Everything about this machine is good, plenty of CPU power and great graphics power with 2GB 555M card, except the screen isn't as good as I had anticipated. It's the LP156WF4-SLB2 panel and frankly the colours don't impress me, certainly not nearly as much as the AUO B156HW01 V4 or V7. Even though the LP156WF4-SLB2 is an IPS panel it is a 6-bit panel, which is disappointing for an IPS panel. All IPS panels should be 8-bit.

That said, it's a damn sight better than the vast majority of laptop screens I have ever seen, and being IPS the viewing angles are phenomenal, and text is super crisp and easy on the eyes, so that panel is nothing to sneeze at.

It's fine for most users, most people wouldn't have a problem with it, and would still enjoy it fine, but it's not my cup of tea. I'm going to return it. The colours on this IPS panel are disappointing to me, but one of my friends saw it and said he'd prefer the screen to the one on his Acer laptop, so it is better than your ordinary screens for sure, but not as good as the AUO B156HW01 V4 or V7 screens...and strangely enough the AUO screens are TN panels

 

I have decided to return it, as I don't like the colour gamut as compared to my 2209WA desktop IPS monitor, colours look washed out in comparison and I wanted this notebook for doing serious colour work, and I can't really use it for that.

i guess I got sucked in by the fact that it used an "AH-IPS" technology panel and the press coverage where the AH-IPS panels used in the smartphones were being compared to OLED screens with favorable reviews. Lets just say I'll never buy another LG notebook or indeed another LG product ever again. I paid the princely sum of just over $2000 for this thing hoping the colors would be super rich but alas they were not. What a shame!!!

 

Good news

 

I can understand your concerns very good if you wanted to do color work! I was also very curious about the a540, and that only because of the IPS display..

I would say its false marketing, it may have an IPS display, but if it fails to meet a quality standard, it doesnt justify having an IPS display.. I wish you good luck trying to sell it

If you werent that far away from Germany I wouldve maybe bought it off you, but unfortunately you are outside of the european union, which would make importing (even used laptops) very expensive due to import taxes and consumer taxes (over 20 percent !!! )

I can maybe hook you up with someones whos selling an envy 14 with the radiance screen, maybe that would be good for color work?

Im sorry to hear your disappointed, I own the LG Xnote p330, and while it is the best notebook I ever owned, the display is rather average (but its very bright atleast) It was originally announced as an IPS display but it seems LG isnt always that correct about their specs But the xnote p330 meets all my other criterias so its very good for my needs ! But the rest of the notebook is stunning, it has one of the quietest coolers, the build quality is very very good, no comparison to the vaio z or sa (meaning that they have a worse build quality) and alot more of other factors

could you post a GPU Z picture of the 555m by the way??

 

You are right about the build quality. Just phenomenal. Like a MacBook Pro in terms of overall feel, very slick design, and I can't see why I couldn't sell it 2nd hand. But I'd rather return it and handle it that way.
I wish LG would specify exactly what panel was done.

Good news

 

finally someone got it.

benjamind2012, pls post photos from the botton, i going crazy trying to get the manual of it in the korean lg website or photos somewhere else...

i got a LG A510 and the cooling was dissapointing, even more the ones i did not buy, A520 and A530 due to the difficult access to the fan...

i trying to decide if i import an A540 with IPS or not...

thx in adv.

 

Are you wanting this just for the IPS screen? If so, please be sure to understand this is a 6-bit standard gamut IPS panel. Fine for gaming and entertainment and the text was so incredibly sharp and crisp so perfect for business purposes!. But I am graphics editor professional and it was not suitable for that purpose as I require wide gamut and true color depth for my projects.

But, it's perfect in every other way and is sure to be better than a MacBook Pro and better value for money. It also has amazing CPU and graphics power for its weight, it was fairly light and I could have carried it anywhere without getting sore fingers

 

the IPS, not mainly, its just a little plus... im at cgi too but never got something better than just a standard lcd display (after the crt era).

im worried about cooling, if it has sufficient cooling vents and if it has easy access to fan for cleaning... where i live i have to clean it every four months...

if it would not be much trouble a or a few photos from the bottom... the rest i already seen.

 

can you also post a GPU Z of the nvidia 555m?

Im very curious which 555m the lg a540p has

 

The ASIC quality of the GPU would also be of interest.

 

2GB of VRAM for the A540 that I had for a very short time. It had amazing graphics performance for a laptop of this weight, the 555M is a great GPU and the CPU power is also amazing.

Dont be discouraged from checking one out they are a lot better than most laptops and the one I tried out was much better than a MacBook Pro I demoed a month or so ago. If you dont mind a subpar IPS display then by all means go for it. But if you want to do serious color work - unless its actually possible to request the -WF3-SLB3 type AH-IPS panel that can display 1.07 billion colours and cover 100%+ NTSC gamut - then forget it because the -WF4-SLB2 type panel will not give you anywhere near the color saturation or depth for that matter that you would require.

I hope this clears it all up. Forget the -WF4-SLB2 panel, its useless for color work, yes its an IPS but lets be serious its the worst IPS panel I think I have ever seen and I must have seen at least a dozen, in various qualities and pricing points. Please do yourself a favour and INSIST on the -WF3-SLB3 panel if you want the A540 just for the IPS panel, maybe the engineer can do a special order or something.

 

this a540 has the same ips panel monted on dell m4600 ?

 

No way, that Dell to my knowledge uses the LP156WF3 RGBLED 10-bit 100%+ gamut panel which has a MUCH better colour reproduction than the LP156WF4 WLED 6-bit 60% gamut. In fact, to be honest you can't even compare the two, its like comparing a pushbike to a motorbike. The difference is utterly utterly mindblowing.

It is insulting to compare a 10-bit RGBLED IPS panel to an ordinary 6-bit panel! To be frank I would ask LG to pull this out of their A540-PE50K and just use an AUO B156HW01 v4 panel - I can assure you they would have few complaints compared to that POS IPS panel they specified. What a joke!

 

@ benjamind2012

would you happen to know the contrast and black levels of the screen?
also, would you know the max. screen brightness?

there isnt much out there for internal specs on this screen that I can find
thanks a bunch!!

 

@benjamind2012

seems you understand a lot about screens.
truth is, i do not, and i have a hard time finding the technical information on them, so, i would like your input.

my current LG A510 has a LP156WF2-TLA1 (it has polarized 3D)

what are the specs on it, how do they compare (bits, gamut...), how would it feels (entertainment and also CGI) for me going from an A510 to an A540 with stock IPS ?

where do you get detailed technical specs on those screens?

thx in adv.

 

laptop IPS is of a lower standard than desktop IPS i have read recently some giving only 40-60% colour gamut.

ok the viewing angles are great but there is also a bit more trail / smear using these too. So for still images they probably look decent but for any gaming or fast motion sports footage id avoid unless your sure that the specs are decent

 

Low color gamut isn't as much of an issue as color shift, which many cheaper laptop IPS screens suffer from.