SZ Non-Premium Screen Issues?

I was just down at CompUSA, to check out the new SZ430. They also had an SZ460 there.

Not surprisingly, the SZ460 screen looked great.

What did surprise me was the SZ430 screen by comparison. Not only did it seem noticeably darker, it also seemed to have a bit of a yellowish tint to it. In all honestly, the SZ430 screen was one of the worst in the store; it looked even worse to me than the $699 Sony N220, which at least was brighter and didn't have a tint to it.

Is it possible this was just a bad model or something? I did check to make sure it was at full brightness, normal gamma and contrast, etc., but I couldn't do anything else with it to make it look much better.

I'm not expecting the SZ430 screen to look as good as the SZ460, but I would expect it to at least be on par with Sony's N and FE models which cost a lot less.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

What screens did these have on them. I am guessing the nice one was premium. They are backlit. I would have expected the non premium one though to AT LEAST be on a par with comparable non Sony Models. Did the models have a P/B, P/N, P/X, or P/C identifier?

 

Perahps non-Premium one was set to different level of brightness or something.

Go again and make sure both screens are set to identical wallpapers, brightness settings, etc. and then you'll see true differences.

 

The lower end model at least was the SZ430N/B. Didn't quite catch what the exact designation was of the SZ460.

No, the non-premium one wasn't set to a different level of brightness (I checked that and the gamma and contrast settings).

They had identical wallpapers, etc. I also brought up Word 2007 on both to see what they looked like with the white background, etc.

Again, I'm not surprised that the "lower end" SZ430 didn't look as good as the LED backlit SZ460. What surprised me is that the screen was still darker and had a yellowish tint that even the Sony Vaio N220 and N250, and FE880 and FE890 did not have.

I think that is just the thing that surprised me..... that the screen on a $699 Vaio N220 looked brighter and cleaner than a $2149 (or $1999 after $150 discount) SZ model.

That's part of why I wanted to post here though, to see if this was just an abberation or what. It had me thinking almost that Sony might want the non-premium SZ430 screen to not look as good to help justify the higher cost of the premium SZ460.

 

i bought my dad an N220 and my lower end sz has the better screen. i'd have to agree with matta about the settings. also, the screen could be reflecting one of the store's large flourescent lights. another thing i'd like to add is the viewing angle. the viewing angles should be the same when making comparisons. i'm not saying the lower end sz is on par with the premium model but it can't be that bad.

 

I don't think it's a viewing angle or lighting issue..... the SZ430 and SZ460 were right next to each other, and were receiving the same type and amount of light from overhead.

The viewing angles were the same.

I don't get it either; I'm going to go to the SonyStyle store next weekend to look at them there. I have to assume there's just something wrong with the floor model of the SZ430 they had at CompUSA (as I said above, I can understand it doesn't look as good as the SZ460, but it's silly that it looked darker and yellower than the under $1000 budget laptops they had there).

 

It could all be down to the make of the screen.

The LCD manufacturer Sony uses for the SZ series:

Premium (LED): Toshiba-Matsushita
Regular (Backlight): AUO or Samsung (depends on inventory at assembly)

 

something was probably wrong with it. i saw a non premium sz at the store and the screen was way darker than mine.

 

It could also be the batch of LCDs that were used. There are bound to be some problems with the mass production of stuff...