Does anyone know what type of Panel the Vaio Z 1080p is?

Anyone know? TN? PVA? IPS?

 

It's a 6-bit LED backlit TN panel

 

For a 2k+ laptop, i thought it would've been a better panel.

How about the 1600x900 one? Also TN?

 

Where did you get this information? What I can see is it is using a 8-bit panel

 

How do you "see" that?

It is, unfortunately, a TN display, and all TN displays have 6 bits per colour, not 8.
Want proof that it's TN? Look at the image under my name to the left. Tilt the screen back and forth, and watch the image change colour.

Of the "smaller" Sony Vaio laptops, only the TT had a true 8-bit display.

 

http://www.sonystyle.com.hk/ss/product/vaio/z117/feature_2.jsp#feature2_1
Sorry about that the page is in Chinese. Sony Hong Kong said it is a 8-bit screen

 

Two 1900x1080 Z owners here have reported that they got a TN display, so that might mean that there are two different types of 1080 displays for the Z?

Alternatively, some Monitor manufacturers have allegedly started to call 6-bit displays equipped with an 8-bit (or 9-bit) driver "8-bit". I hope that this isn't what Sony is doing. While these displays can dither better than other 6-bit displays, the end result is still dithered (physically or temporally).

 

Some further information.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/computer/fps-issues-in-25-mans/msg2182509/
This page is the system information of a VAIO AW.
The monitor model number is same as the Z1080P which is also MS_0025
Don't know if it is also same as the 900P one

EDIT: Seems it doesn't mean anything, please ignore it.

 

FYI, it's really hard to tell a 6-bit panel from 8-bit, because 6-bit panels use dithering to fill in the missing colors.

So under most normal conditions, gradients look indistinguishable between the two. It only starts to become noticeable under special circumstances.

 

http://img153.imageshack.us/i/informationaboutmonitor.jpg/
Some additional information about the screen

 

For Photoshop work, you see banding especially in dark shades, and for certain specific colours, you may even see visible dithering.
But a bigger problem with TN displays is the vertical viewing angle -- colours will never appear the same near the top of the screen as near the bottom, unless you sit very far from the display. This can make these displays problematic for Photoshop (and Lightroom) use.
A good example - is this Ferrari red, fire truck red, purplish red, or what exact shade of red? And does it display the same hue at the top of the screen as the bottom, or if you tilt the screen a centimetre differently?

 

It's not impossible that it is a true 8-bit TN panel. Since they list 16.77 million colours rather than the typical 16.2 million figure you get with dithering, 8-bit seems likely, yet some people have gotten TN panels.

Either there's two different panels, a non-TN and a TN, or the TN is, in fact, 8-bit.

 

why the suprise over it being a TN panel? There really haven't been many non TN panels in laptops in general. It's targeted as a business laptop too.

 

From what I understood at the Sonystyle HK website the Z has a 8 bit panel...most probably TN.

 

Oh, there are quite a few. But because they cost more, they don't sell well in consumerist markets. (Much like SLC versus MLC, I might add.)

Can you buy it with XP downgrade?
Does it have a TPM module (in all areas of the world)?
Does it have a real docking station with extra IO ports (like serial and PS/2), and dual display support?
Can you buy it without a camera?
Can you get workstation graphics drivers (i.e. "Quadro" labeled graphics card instead of "Geforce")?
Can you get it with IT-department serviceable and replaceable drives and a DVD reader at the same time?

No, it's not a business laptop, in any sense. It's an enthusiast laptop.

 

What other 2k+ laptops which have been recently avaialble do you know which doesn't have a TN panel?

 

What other kinds of markets are there?

 

From what I've read, the HP EliteBook 8740w has an IPS display.
But yes, non-TN displays are becoming increasingly rare (except for on tablet PCs, where they are a must). Simply because it's cheaper.

The same thing happens over and over -- cheaper technologies win over the better ones.
Why did VHS win over Betamax? Price, plain and simple.
Where did the 15k RPM HDDs go? Only found in a few enterprise class SCSI drives.
And what happened to SLC SDDs? Again, only found in a few enterprise class drives nowadays.
And IPA displays unfortunately go that way too.
The aggregate number of Auntie Betty Sues who buy their computers at Wal-Mart by far outnumbers the number of buyers who even know what "twisted nematic" or "multi-level cell" stands for. The manufacturers would be stupid not to recognize this.

Yes, the average computer buyers are exceedingly ignorant, and can't tell technologies apart. They make uninformed decisions based on what their likewise ignorant friends recommend, or compare numbers they don't understand. Surely DOCSIS 3 is better than DOCSIS 2, and i7 is worth paying a few hundred zorkmids more for than a mere i5! Who cares about "TN" and "IPS"? There are no numbers to compare!

 

(consumerist markets)

Enthusiast, high-end and special needs markets.
Which is why some people drive Spykers, use tailored clothes, buy locally grown vegetables, have handmade furniture, or machine their own tools.
And more so in cultures which don't subscribe to consumerism to the same degree as, say, USA.

 

From Wikipedia:

"Enthusiast", "high-end", "special needs", all of those markets are consumerist in the sense that they are driven by consumer choice. In fact, a market where there are only low-quality panels, i.e. with an absence of consumer choice, would be an obstruction to consumerism.

I think you're looking for a term more like "mass market".

 

That's the NeoCon definition which redefines consumerism -- it's easier to sell "choice" than "buy and toss".
Webster defines consumerism as "the theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is economically beneficial".

Consumerism, as described by Karl Marx, does indeed give the consumer s (as a mass) a choice: as long as the working class is more numerous than the elite, the outcome will be that they choose the lower price. You invariably end up with the lowest quality the market will bear at the highest price the consumer can pay, and ultimately the capitalist curse of a single product (or type of product) monopolizing the market.

Be that as it may, I'm sure that the readers understood the meaning in this context; consumers focus on price and don't particularly value qualities that few people even know about, which drives the producers to drop the high end features (while retaining the price as long as the competition is non-existent or plays ball).
It's not the best products that survive, but those that make the largest aggregate profit.

 

Hi, Folks,

Not to completely distract from this analysis of consumerism, but I believe that the new Vaio Z offers two different 1080p panels. Here in the United States, it appears that only a 6-bit, high gloss/reflectivity TN panel is available. Outside the USA - at least in much of Europe and Asia - it would seem that an 8-bit, matte finish high color accuracy IPS panel is available. Hmm, perhaps this further proves the point of the USA being a mass-market focused kind of place... which is probably why I keep heading to Akihabara to buy tech goodies.

Cheers!
Mark

 

I can confirm my fullhd Z (European) is having matte screen.

I cannot say for sure about the type, but arth1's avatar color is as stable as on my desktop S-PVA screen.

By the way, here in Europe they advertise the FullHD panel upgrade as:

96% Adobe RGB claim does suggest that the panel is not TN. It would be quite silly to advertise this and literally invite lawsuits.

 

The fact is that such competition over lower-quality products doesn't preclude the existence of niche products to satisfy those who need them. The price of the VAIO Z already singles it out as something of a niche product, yet people do buy it.

In many cases, the real world is too complicated for the single product or single type of product to win. Though non-TN panels have indeed become increasingly rare, that does not mean low price is the only way to compete in the modern market. Product differentiation is still very much possible; just ask Apple.

The term "consumerism" does not necessarily imply a focus on price alone. While choice is not the whole story, it plays a big role in getting people to buy more stuff.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDm8OeAXsJw
Notice how the sony rep mentions business...

Look at this site too
http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/subcategory/notebooks/ultra_portable/z-series
and this
http://presscentre.sony.eu/Content/detail.aspx?NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=5545

Quoted from many of the past product descriptions on Amazon
"Built tough for business, the VAIO Z notebook offers the portability of a 3 lbs (with standard capacity battery) form factor with the functionality and performance of a larger computer. "

Yes you can buy with a XP downgrabe
and yes it has a real docking station.
yes it has dual display support.
TPM module is on a random set of computers. Not all business laptops have it. But in Japan yes you can choose to have it or not.. Webcam too.

Not sure how your last question pertains to it. Was in a meeting with our Japanese clients the other day. out of the 10 i would say 7 had Vaio Z's not all the latest model though..

 

But even apple uses TN panels in it's most expensive laptop.

I would argue that the niche that the Vaio Z covers is more business than enthusiast. For business uses an ips would be nice but not needed. a lot of enthusiast users don't know that most mid to high end laptops have TN screens.

Heck even a lot of graphic pro people didn't know that all of Apple's laptops had only TN screens. At this point they are about 70~ % of NTSC but before they were hovering around 50~

 

BTW Can anyone confirm that the non-US versions have a better screen? I'm heading to asia in a few weeks . I'd rather go there and pay more for the better screen if that's the case.

 

Indeed, I did know that Apple uses TN panels, but the point is that there's more to the lack of TN panels than just "rampant consumerism" and price competition.

The main problem lies in people being uninformed about non-TN panels, and in the panel manufacturers/marketers being unable to adequately make and sell non-TN panels to the few people that would buy them.

 

I thought the reason all laptops use TN panels is because all other types have much higher power requirements, making them unusable.

I dunno if that's true.

 

Hi, ShurcooL!

No, IPS panels normally have lower power consumption, given a specific level of technology. This is due to a lower degree of "hand-holding" (induced charge level across the liquid crystal goop) that's necessary in the truly planar (flat) arrangement used by IPS, as compared to trying to get these long-chain organic molecules to "hold hands" all the way through the cell gap, as conventional TN panels do. The difference is that TN panels are generally cheaper to make, due to what are nominally higher yield rates.

Cheers!
Mark

 

Hi, ShurcooL!

I should add that a big piece of the cost picture is actually patents. IPS came along much later in LCD history, and it's been a cause of many lawsuits. That's why I emphasized "given a specific level of technology". Many panel manufacturers don't bother treading this minefield, since it can get quite expensive, regardless of the yield situation (I have actually been personally called in a major lawsuit between two LCD manufacturers, fortunately in the "good guy" role [i.e. emphasizing that one manufacturer should not have to pay a patent troll for something the troll didn't invent]).

Have Fun!
Mark

 

That's exactly what Sony is doing with the Z FullHD panel.

Mine is an european model, and somewhere says it's an 8-bit panel, but it's a normal TN panel. Colours invert when viewed from below, when viewed from above white turns darker than grey and the viewing angle test in lagom.nl shows the green/pink effect clearly.
Dithering will be hard to see given the high DPI, and there is also a very small amount of visible banding.

 

Hi, Endeavour1934,

That is, I believe, the very first time this information has been posted on this forum, even after all this time. Thank you very much for taking the time to carefully observe the panel, and to post your results!

Best Wishes!
Mark

 

No, it isn't. Earlier IPS needed more backlight, due to a larger area of the screen being covered by transistors, which I believe is what's behind this misunderstanding. For newer IPS screens, this is not the case.

But even so, 6-bit TN displays have four times as large "steps" between each colour shade, which allows pumping up the voltage much higher without hitting the wrong colours, which again leads to lower response times. And higher power usage.

 

I wonder if the following article would help re 6-bit vs 8-bit TN panel.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/6bit_8bit.htm

FYI my Aussie Z shows no stepping on the color gradient test.

Add photo

 

No stepping? My Swedish Z certainly does, see pic



Edit: The pic above was an image of the web page on www.tftcentral.co.uk, which is obviously already mangled. It won't look good on *any* panel. If I use Colour_Gradients.exe, it looks like ozbimmer's above.

(You can also see the dithering in that pic.) Edit: Because the source pic has been dithered already.

Also, the redish effect I mentioned (in the other screen thread) is probably caused by the TN display's RGB pattern. When the edge of a character is exactly on a R pixel, the screen has no choice but to light it up.

 

Here is a photo from mine (German, FullHD)

http://img694.imageshack.us/i/banding.jpg/

 

psyq321: What page did you view to see that banding? It seems longer horizontally than the one I used.

 

I used the first picture that Colour_Gradients.exe displays?

Strange, I see no significant stepping either compared to my S-PVA panel.

But then again, maybe Samsung started using FRC+6bit on that, too... My home monitor is Samsung SyncMaster 275T

 

Sorry guys and gals, my mistake. I used the picture on the HTML page ( www.tftcentral.co.uk), not the pic from he exe. When I use the exe, my screen looks like yours. The other picture is still valid though, and you can actually see the RGB pattern used by TN panels.

 

Now let's see the test pics of our US counterparts

 

Hmm where did you find those pictures? I can only see the link to the EXE file and two photos from some (supposedly TN?) monitor?

 

How about Macbooks?

Update: Oh, I guess those are TN panels too. News to me

 

Can you buy it with XP downgrade? Yes
Does it have a TPM module (in all areas of the world)? An option in Japan, I believe standard in US.
Does it have a real docking station with extra IO ports (like serial and PS/2), and dual display support? It does have a docking port, right?
Can you buy it without a camera? Yes in Japan.
Can you get workstation graphics drivers (i.e. "Quadro" labeled graphics card instead of "Geforce")? You probably could, though not officially.
Can you get it with IT-department serviceable and replaceable drives and a DVD reader at the same time? Many business laptops don't have optical drives.

 

No, only the old Z models come with an option of XP, according to http://b2b.sony.com
The 1080p models (see title) can not be had with XP.

US models completely lack the TPM module, it's really missing (see the thread here about that).

A port, yes, but a business class docking station, no.
The only thing it buys you is a DVI output (which can't be used at the same time as the VGA), otherwise, it's just a port extender.
Dual monitors while docked has become a common requirement for businesses, and quite a few require access to older technologies like serial and PS/2 too.
Compared to your average half-the-price docking station from Dell, the Z's port extender is a joke.

American and European businesses don't buy their machines in Japan, though?

In other words, no. Serious businesses don't run hacked drivers they're not licensed to run.
Yet your average Dell business laptop comes with Quadro certified drivers.

In other words, only if you're in Japan or China, where you can buy it with a HDD instead of a DVD. Here in the US, you can only get the Z with proprietary SDDs, which can't be serviced by an IT department.

So really, the Z is definitely not a business class machine -- at least not here in the US. If a business buys one, it will be as a novelty for a CEO. It sure won't be for anyone who actually will use it, and where the IT department has to support it.

 

Oh gosh you are still on this? The laptop is made for "executives on the run" it is a business machine regardless of your own definition of a business laptop. Lots of business laptops have intel integrated graphics too so that really makes no difference at all. HP's Probook line which is their lower tier business laptop has the regular mobility radeon. Dell's Vostro line has the regular Geforce. Sony had business users first when they made this laptop and that is more than obvious from reading MOST of it's marketing mentions business one way or another.

Your quote being "No, it's not a business laptop, in any sense. It's an enthusiast laptop."

BTW i'm not sure about you but at the 2 IT companies i've worked at executives could choose any laptop they wanted. There were even ones that had macs in the office. These both were Fortune 500 companies with over 20k employees and were VERY secure considering the sensitive data passing through our systems.

The only thing it lost was the TPM while important there are other ways to encrypt data on your computer without it. Also there are many smaller companies that are a few or even just 1 person in them that also need a laptop that they can travel with and have good power. Not everyone has IT departments. They also included the TPM in older Zs. So as it's marketed as a business laptop (both here and abroad), used as a business laptop in some parts of the world heavily, had the TPM module in an older model... It's not like you take out a TPM module and WALLAH! not a business laptop anymore! just an enthusiast!

 

So, if I'm reading correct, according to the tftcentral article there may be such a thing as an 8-bit TN-panel? What's your take on this, arth1?

I'm pretty sure my European Z FullHD display is not IPS or VA, because of the relatively poor vertical viewing angles. However, I'm more than satisfied (for photoshop/lightroom work) with the colour accuracy and colour stability across (reasonable range of) vertical viewing angles. For example, if I have the display correctly oriented (looking straight ahead at the display), the viewing angle test on lagom.nl shows quite good colours, with the "Ferrari red" and even the purple one being almost the same shade on the bottom and the top of the display.

 

Just to clarify, in the UK, the new Sony Z does come with an XP downgrade - certainly mine did! And the XP drivers are available on the Sony Support website.

 

My Z117GG from Hong Kong also comes with an XP downgrade disc.

 

I just wish the US Z had a CTO 1920 option