Toshiba Satelitte P500-0TE screen quality poor. Brightness uniformity poor.

Quality with the Toshiba's 18.4" screen is a big disappointment. The viewing angle is poor, practically non-existent in some cases, screen illumination is un-even, contrast is bad and black levels are high.

The viewing angle for 16:9 material like DVD's and Blu-Ray discs is lousy, and particularly bad up close. If you are close enough to the laptop to type and use the mouse, the viewing angle is virtually zero. That's right, zero. There is no place you can place your eyes that will provide you with a uniform view of the screen, particularly in darker areas of the picture. The best picture can be achieved by sitting back to view movies. Ok, fair enough, you don't necessarily need to sit right in front of the screen to view movies, but what about when you're looking at websites, streaming video on the web, looking at and editting photo's and HD video? Even when you sit back, you can see that the bottom of the screen is brighter than the top. It's a gradual fade from bottom to top. When watching widescreen scope 2.35:1 movies it's particularly noticeable as the black bar along the bottom is brighter than the top. No matter how high or low you put your eyes, the differences is the same. If you move your head so that the bottom is darker, the top of the screen is so dark, there are colour issues and black crush, to put it mildly. If you move your head high enough to make the top as bright as the bottom, the top gets brighter, but never equals the bottom until the viewing angle is extreme and black levels are so high it looks terrible. In darker scenes you get white crush and even further it goes back to dark.

This is pretty disappointing compared to my 7 year old Samsung 17" 4:3 lcd screen. Viewing angle is so much better on it than the laptop. I mean, it's hugely better. I suspect that some of the issues are that the laptop screen is possibly lit more from the bottom? Not sure.

While researching and shopping for a laptop, I have unfortunately become slowly aware of the short-comings of these laptop screens, but this is a bigger disappointment than I was expecting. I'm having trouble justifying the cost of this laptop when much of the cost is due to the larger screen. Playback of dvd's and BD is ok, but even there I see some stuttering etc.

Should I try and take a look at some other Toshiba laptops like this to see if I can at least find one that has better brightness uniformity, or is this just the way it goes for this technology?

P.S. Is there any hope that widescreen laptop lcd screens will improve? Is there a laptop out there that uses better technology than this TN panel tech?

 

Yes, HP Elitebook 8540, 8740 - only modern laptops with IPS screen tech (same as on standalone monitors).

 

*Disclaimer - $2000-3,000 more than your Toshiba.

 

Oh yeah, and the screen I had was 18.4" diagonal. That's one of the issues. I figured it should be good, or why would I get something this size, or spend the extra money. Also, Toshiba states the resolution as 1920 x 1080 on the website and yet it is 1680 x 945.

Is there a hope in H E double hockey sticks that I could replace/upgrade the screen that came with my laptop?

So are the only laptop screens with wide viewing angles the one's made using IPS tech? I assume this is LED LCD and only the stand-alone desktop monitors are using LCD TFT with CFL that have wide viewing angles.

What laptops have an 18.4" screen with a wider viewing angle? If not 18.4" then I suppose 17.3"?