Sony Vaio VPCF137GH/BI Led Screen?

Hi everyone,
I'm in the process of choosing a new laptop after my Toshiba X200-15k died out ( The Nvidia 8700m GPU overheated). I'm actually trying to choose between two VERY different laptops. The Mac Book Pro MC373LL and the Sony Vaio VPCF137GH/BI. I'm actually biased towards the Vaio laptop since it offers many more features ( Blu-Ray reader, USB 3.0 support, a better CPU, comes equipped with more RAM ). What I'm really not sure about, is whether the screen is a LED backlit, or if it uses the almost standard CCFL. On the following link VPCF137HG : F Series : VAIO Notebook : Sony Asia Pacific , they only said that it's a TFT screen. On some Indian website, I saw this same laptop, and they mentioned that it's a TFT LED screen.

Could anyone please tell me whether the above mentioned Sony comes equipped with a LED screen or not?

Thanks so much in advance.

 

All modern laptops feature LED screens )

 

Hey Gracy, thanks for the quick reply.
If that's the case, then why do they sometimes mention it in the specs, and sometimes they omit it! it's a poor marketing practice to just omit something like that don't you think?

 

They "omit" that the power button is LED backlid as well and doesn't have a bulb inside... but that's kind of given in 21st century

LED screens are standard nowadays I doubt you will find any modern laptop (unless built for the 3rd world) that doesn't have LED screen

Nevertheless I don't know anything about that specific model as it is not offered in europe.

 

But the Vaio F12 had CCFL, I think that F13 also has it but not the new F21 3D

 

That's not true. There are MANY modern laptops that are CCFL backlit, not LED, including the F series made for US and Canada. So, it should not be assumed if it is something that is important to someone.

@raxiology There was quite a bit of debate in several of the F series threads about whether the European/Asian F's were LED or dual CCFL. Either way, the model you mentioned is "VAIO Display Premium, Adobe RGB 100% coverage" which is a very good matte display, much better than the glossy US versions, and the vast majority of people are happy with the matte Premium display on the F.

 

Well sad but true, but apparently my country is considered being a 3rd world country ( Lebanon, middle-east). The laptop is around $2500! It only lasts for 1 hour on battery ( Quad Core I7 consumes a lot of power), but the other reason for such a low battery life might be 'cause it's using CCFL! This is a valid assumption I guess.

BTW, even on the US website, when you try to customize an F series laptop, they give you this option ( 16.4" VAIO Full HD Premium Display (1920x1080) ). This SHOULD be a LED backlit screen, no?

 

No, the US Premium screen is different from Europe and Asia and is definitely CCFL. It is also glossy, while the Europe/Asia Premium screens are matte.

Edit: You can see in my signature, that I have a customized US F13 with Premium screen, so I do know this for certain.

 

Thanks for the help everyone I really appreciate it.

JPride, thanks a lot for the clarification.
I'm a software developer, and I seriously need a comforting screen to look at, and a screen that would give me crisp details. I'm VERY satisfied with all the other specs of the laptop (Except for the battery life which is VERY lacking).
Where can I see the reviews of a similar screen?

 

You can look at reviews (ignore any US/Canadian model reviews) linked in this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/5992644-post554.html

Those would be for the original F11 models. You can search for more recent reviews of F12/F13 models. I have to go now so can't look them up but I know there are more recent reviews that have been posted.

 

I'll check them out right away. Thanks a lot for the help everyone. And JPride, thanks a lot for the help as well =)

 

The 1 hour is because they are testing battery life using the JEITA standard, which is MPEG video playback. On machines with a dedicated GPU it gives you a very pessimistic result.

I get about 2.5 hours on my F doing web surfing over wi-fi at 50% screen brightness in power saver mode. For productivity apps like MS Office, it's about 3 hours. The CCFL doesn't help the battery life, but the main issues are i7, nVidia GPU, and simply having a large screen.

Why should it? The main reasons to use LED instead of CCFL are a thinner display, less power consumption, and no mercury do dispose of. On a notebook like the F, a thin display and low power consumption are not high priorities. This isn't an ultraportable.

Regarding image quality, LED is generally not an advantage. There are exceptions, such as RGB LED lighting used in high end pro monitors, and matrix LED backlights with local dimming used in a few TVs. But these are rare. Notebooks use "white" LEDs in an edge-lit configuration which is no better and often worse than CCFL. The 100% Adobe RGB premium display for the F mentioned above is one of the best if not the best laptop displays on the market today. It uses dual CCFL backlights. And among LCD TVs, the CCFL models still have better picture quality than the edge LED models in the same range.

 

Thanks for the reply dmk2.
So the display that's in the aforementioned Sony Vaio is really good!
I read it somewhere that LED displays have a far better contrast ratio, and that they "age" much slower than CCFLs. Would that be of any concern to me?

 

The far better contrast ratio for LED backlighting is specific to matrix backlighting with local dimming. Here's how that works: Think of having a whole matrix of little LEDs spanning the entire area behind your TV screen. Then, you can control the lighting in different regions of the screen: the LEDs are at maximum behind bright parts of the image and dimmed behind dark parts of the image. Theoretically, you can achieve very high contrast ratios this way. A few downsides, including cost, blockiness, and screen thickness have prevented this kind of LED backlight from catching on so far. But it has made it into a handful of high end TVs.

Notebook computer LCDs are edge-lit. That is, the light source is placed along the edge of the screen and a light diffuser spreads the light across the screen. The light source may be a bar of LEDs, or a long, thin CCFL tube. Regardless of LED or CCFL, the contrast ratio they can attain is a function of their output. The 100% Adobe RGB premium matte screen uses two CCFLs on opposing edges of the screen to provide more even light dispersion and greater output than a single CCFL or LED bar can provide.

One other important point:

In notebook screens, contrast ratio and energy efficiency are related. You can achieve a better contrast ratio by darkening the blacks, brightening the whites, or a combination of both. You can darken it using a dimmer light or darker filter, and brighten it using a weaker filter or brighter light. The brighter the light source, the more energy is consumed. Determining how to light a notebook LCD display reflects a compromise between several things, including:

1. Black level, for better contrast and dark scenes in movies & games.
2. Max brightness, for use in bright ambient light conditions (e.g. outdoors).
3. Energy efficiency.

Uniformity of lighting is a big deal too, but let's set that aside for now.

The discontinued X-BRITE screens that Sony used to offer had a darker anti-glare filter which provided deeper black levels and less light bleed. But the darker the filter, the more backlight output required to achieve the same brightness. Without doing a model by model comparison, I think that the X-BRITE displays had similar maximum brightness on average compared to the current displays. So they likely achieved a better contrast ratio at the expense of more energy consumption for the same brightness.

Aside from the backlight and anti-glare filter, the other important factor is the quality of the LCD panel. While Sony has been moving up in terms of panel resolution, they have been simultaneously moving down in quality. Other manufacturers have been doing the same. The market seems to be splitting, with just a handful of premium priced notebooks offering high quality displays while the vast majority are just going for decent brightness and resolution with little regard to blacks, light bleed, viewing angles, and color reproduction.

 

I'm pretty sure the EU full HD display for the F series is dual CCFL. Its also a very nice display. CCFL aging shouldn't be an issue during the useful lifespan of the computer. Even if you experiencing dimming after many years, it is possible to change out the lamps anyway.

 

Dmk2, thanks a lot for all the explanations that you have included in your reply. You have helped me understand a lot of things that I had no idea about before.=)
Hayte, thanks for he info about the ability to change CCFLs. I seriously didn't know that=)

 

Hi again everyone,
I just wanted to update you guys on this: I bought the VPCF137HG/BI, and it came with the best display screen that I've ever seen! The colors are too vivid, and the sharpness of the details are just great. I seriously didn't expect it to be that good. Again, thanks a lot everyone for the help =)

 

i have the latest official VAIO catalogue here, F135/136/137 are all CCFL backlit, F137 has VAIO Display Premium, the rest are VAIO Display. F217 uses LED backlight and it's VAIO Display Premium (3D).