IFL/IFTx panel quality

Hi2all

I'm looking at several of Compal's Notebooks, namely the following models, as described by reseller Marasst's website:

IFL90(MA)..... 15.4" 1280x800 glare panel, w/standard shortcut buttons, etc.

IFL90..... 15.4" 1280x800 glare -or- 1680x1050 non-glare panel, w/touch-sensitive shortcut buttons, black-gloss cover, etc.

IFT00(MA)..... 14.1" 1280x800 glare panel, B&W case, etc.

Panel quality* is among the most important criteria I am using to choose my Notebook and I've been trying to determine which panels are used with the above three Notebooks.
*Technology, viewing angles, brightness, contrast, response times,...

I noted in Sir DoomsDay's excellent translation of a Polish review of the IFL90 (w/1280x800 glare panel) that the panel in use was an LG-Philips, and I assume it must be their LP154WX4 model.

I also noted that Compal has a subsidiary working with Philips that develops LCD panels of 14.1" form factor and smaller. I'm not certain, but maybe they use their own 14.1" panel for the IFT00(MA)... just don't know what "Transmissive" is for a panel technology and maybe that applies to smaller devices only (eg. PDAs, etc). Maybe Compal uses LG-Philips panels through out their entire product line.

As for the last-but-certainly-not-least 1680x1050 non-glare panel, I have yet to find any info on that. Maybe again, it's LG-Philip's LP154WE2 (which, btw, has much better viewing angles) but CMO also offers a similarly spec'ed panel, their N154Z1 (who's viewing angles are less impressive). AUO doesn't offer any 15.4" 1680x1050 panles, and Samsung is not a likely candidate although they do produce such a panel...

Any ideas?

edit: IFT00, not IFT01 (although the panels are bound to be the same...).

 

It might be worth to actually visit the original page of that translation,

http://www.notebookcheck.pl/Recenzja-Compal-FL90.4123.0.html

There's a small youtube film there showing the screen and viewing angles, and lots of useful funky pictures, so if you haven't yet done so, I'd suggest to go and look there

To sum up, just like with my EL80, the WXGA 1280x800 glare has reasonably good horizontal viewing angles but suffers design flaws while tilted along the vertical axis ("up"/"down").

The thing you don't see much on that video is brightness, I usually use max setting 2-3, but mostly stay on setting 0 (lowest) and it's pretty good for me I work indoors tho - outside or in bright sunlight the higher settings are more easy on the eyes to work with.

There's some light leakage from the bottom up, but that varies from model to model what I can tell from my experience.

Also, most of my personal opinion above is regarding EL80, but afaik it's the same on the FL90, so I'd suggest asking the H/EL80/1 owners about theirs, especially since the H/EL80, being a previous generation model, is naturally more tested and I guess still more common up till today than the FL90 (what seems to be changing rapidly tho).

Cheers

 

...doh!
Looks like they were thorough with their analysis of the panel and it's (mostly) bad news...
The panel uniformity is terrible, ranging from 175 to 217 cd/m²! The black, measured at 0.9 cd/m² is not the worst I've seen however it's not grand, either. I can't tell if they calibrated the panel prior to taking measurements, but perhaps that's a bit overkill for Notebooks... . Angles look like 1st-gen TN panels, but maybe once again I'm expecting a little too much from a Notebook (although there are Notebooks using IPS panels, believe it or not).

In any event, I couldn't "see" the youtube link, but this may be due to my office's proxy and I will have a look @home in a bit.

Thanks again for the feedback and the tip