Reasons why the 14" screen got terrible options.

[NonesensE]

Yep quite a few of us have been crying about what was lost there for a decade now...

Hey, we all got the LTN141U. Does that count for anything even though its ultra-rare?

If it was available, maybe it would count. I'm still searching for one

I had a 14.1" UXGA panel on my T42 for a while. Good resolution, but terrible contrast. It's among the most washed-out LCD panels I have ever seen.

Do you by chance still have it? And would you sell it?

[Thinkpad4by3]

If it was available, maybe it would count. I'm still searching for one

As you wish: http://www.ebay.com/itm/14-1-LCD-Screen ... 0782909139

With 13K stars and 98.1% good feedback, I doubt its a scam.

[RealBlackStuff]

About 9 years(!) ago I helped forum member xyz to get a (Sharp) 14" QXGA for his T60: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=69978
He might still have it!

[NonesensE]

If it was available, maybe it would count. I'm still searching for one

As you wish: http://www.ebay.com/itm/14-1-LCD-Screen ... 0782909139

With 13K stars and 98.1% good feedback, I doubt its a scam.

Thank you, but I think, it's an outdated offer that is just visible due to an error. You can't find it in either ebay's search or in the list of the seller's offerings. I bought a screen there a few months ago, but it was never delivered. It's not a scam though, after asking for a status when the delivery was overdue I got my money back without any comment.

About 9 years(!) ago I helped forum member xyz to get a (Sharp) 14" UXGA for his T60: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=69978
He might still have it!

Thanks, I'll ask him if pianowizard can't help me.

[ajkula66]

I've been wondering about the same thing for years now...

Even though people have been explaining for years why they want high res? Here's my most recent answer, just three posts above yours: "some of us want high resolutions because we want the screen to display more information, even if things look smaller."

Oh I got that.

My thing being, I need to be able to comprehend what is actually being displayed, and very high resolutions don't meet that requirement. Granted, my eyes are bad but even with a very good set of bifocals it remains a problem.

So the 3K IPS that was originally offered on W540 may be an excellent panel in its own right, but it's useless *to me*. As is FHD on a 12". Etc. etc...

[kfzhu1229]

so is <5.3 inch display featuring more than 1080p and phablet featuring more than 2k. the current iPhones resolutions don't satisfy me (their screens are complete crap compared to even galaxy s4), while the 4k Sony phones are a overkill for me.

[Thinkpad4by3]

so is <5.3 inch display featuring more than 1080p and phablet featuring more than 2k. the current iPhones resolutions don't satisfy me (their screens are complete crap compared to even galaxy s4), while the 4k Sony phones are a overkill for me.

Have you discovered phonearena.com Phone Finder?

[pianowizard]

I use my phone to read text on webpages, like Wikipedia or this forum. I don't use my phone very often to stream video, or other internet intensive tasks. I rather just keep scrolling with the text blown up than have lots of small text on a page.

If a web site has a good mobile version, I don't mind making the text huge and scrolling more. But many mobile sites are awful, so I switch to their regular desktop versions which are best viewed if zoomed all the way out so I can see the big picture.

Have you checked your 4.7" phone's resolution? If it is 540x960 as I suspected, the pixel density is too low to let you zoom out much on a web page. If I ever had a phone like yours, I too would be stuck with mobile sites. My Samsung Mega's 6.3" 720x1280 isn't much either, and so I do settle for mobile sites more often than on my Huawei Honor X2's 7.0" 1200x1920.

Do you by chance still have it? And would you sell it?

Sold it nearly seven years ago, when its GPU died. That T42 was my second-to-last Thinkpad. Afterward, I had an X31 for a while, which was my very last Thinkpad. The three computers in my signature are all that I have now, although I am shopping for one more detachable.

[Thinkpad4by3]

Nope, its actually 1280x720 @ 4.7". I can read small text fine, I just don't like it very much.

[TPFanatic]

My phone is LG F6 4.5" 960x540 and web browsing is just painful with it and anything else by Android / Google. Phones should be for talking to people, not making ad money! Touchscreen devices are also proven unergonomic. I admit they can be useful, however.

[Thinkpad4by3]

Same with my phone, but its mostly a pain because I have an imported Galaxy A3 2017, and T-Mobile decided to drop UTMS service. My phone ONLY uses UTMS and I can't stand it. Oh well, back to 2004 I go with Edge & GPRS service.....

[TPFanatic]

I have a T410s up and running. I can share images of it compared to the normal T410 if anyone wants.

This model is infamous for the Toshiba displays developing vertical lines / bands due to defects in the screens.

The one I'm looking at works, but first thing noticed is its heavy blue/green color tint. After using Intel graphics control to follow the little tweaks in this thread, the panel looks pretty good. Viewing angle wise it's around as bad as the T420 panels.

Also 1440x900 is useless. Well, I can appreciate the 100 extra vertical pixels over 1280x800, so there's that. However you don't gain enough horizontal width to really stack two standard-width XGA windows side by side. Not even WUXGA is enough. The putting two windows side by side is a lie!!!!!!!

[Thinkpad4by3]

1: WSXGA is useless on so many levels.

2: Do you have the touchscreen model T410s? Mine is and in 2009, it was so cool for about 2 hours. I go into a BestBuy now where there advertising touchscreens on laptops and I think its so 2009 .

[TPFanatic]

No, only the standard screen. I agree, touchscreen is redundant when you already have 3 better navigation interfaces: keyboard, touchpad, and trackpoint that are way better.

[ajkula66]

1: WSXGA is useless on so many levels.

What is WSXGA? That would amount to 1680x1024.

I believe that the term that you're looking for is WXGA+ which is 1440x900.

[Thinkpad4by3]

Touchscreens are only good for machines like the X230T where a stylus can be used for graphics arts situations and the screen can be folded flat on a table without the keyboard in the way. Otherwise, pointless.

And for ajkula66, its been a few years since I studied my resolution to acronym tables .

EDIT: ajkula66, were both right according to wikipedia.

[ajkula66]

Touchscreens are only good for machines like the X230T where a stylus can be used for graphics arts situations and the screen can be folded flat on a table without the keyboard in the way. Otherwise, pointless.

+ 1

EDIT: ajkula66, were both right according to wikipedia.

Interesting...

[pianowizard]

I can read small text fine, I just don't like it very much.

Reading small text is painful to all of us. Nonetheless, some of us still want to view small text on high-DPI screens because we find excessive scrolling or the inability to view multiple windows even more painful than reading small text.

With this explanation, I hope that ajkula66 can stop wondering why some folks like high-DPI screens!

Same with my phone, but its mostly a pain because I have an imported Galaxy A3 2017, and T-Mobile decided to drop UTMS service. My phone ONLY uses UTMS and I can't stand it. Oh well, back to 2004 I go with Edge & GPRS service.....

I looked up specs of the A3 (2017) and saw that it has band 2, which is one of T-Mobile's LTE bands. So I didn't understand why you aren't getting LTE and did more search. It turns out that T-Mobile uses band 2 only in areas without band 4. I guess your area has band 4, and so you can't get LTE via your phone's band 2. My Huawei and Xiaomi lack any of T-Mobile's LTE bands, but luckily T-Mobile still offers 3G where I live.

However you don't gain enough horizontal width to really stack two standard-width XGA windows side by side. Not even WUXGA is enough. The putting two windows side by side is a lie!!!!!!!

On WUXGA you can have two partially overlapping windows. It's also possible to scale down the text in a browser or Office document, and tile the windows without any overlap. But indeed, QHD (2560x1440) is much better for putting two windows side by side.

2: Do you have the touchscreen model T410s? Mine is and in 2009, it was so cool for about 2 hours. I go into a BestBuy now where there advertising touchscreens on laptops and I think its so 2009 ...Touchscreens are only good for machines like the X230T where a stylus can be used for graphics arts situations and the screen can be folded flat on a table without the keyboard in the way. Otherwise, pointless.

So, after all these years you still haven't figured out how to take advantage of touchscreen to increase productivity and avoid repetitive strain injury? Maybe too old to learn?

I agree, touchscreen is redundant when you already have 3 better navigation interfaces: keyboard, touchpad, and trackpoint that are way better.

Also too old to learn?

+ 1

And you too?

[Thinkpad4by3]

1: I knew the bands for tge A3 sucked before I bought it. It is an excellent little phone and I got it because of its compact size, not bands. Ill deal, not that big of a problem.

2: Ive only ever used a Yoga as a "daily" machine and when I did, it only got some web browsing use. I used the touchscreen when it came in handy but otherwise, not too much. Now, I use NO machines daily with a touchscreen and frankly, I dont need it. Could I bemefit from one, yes. I don't do much that really requires one or benefits significantly enough to invest in one.

Now I have a Wacom Tablet Pad(basically an external version of the one on the W700) and its great. Its much better since I can interface directly with my 24" LCDs and it is only 70$ not 1700$.

If you think touchscreens are great, how do you use them because I'hm genuinely curious how you benefit from them?

[ajkula66]

+ 1

And you too?

Indeed.

First of all, I always found the idea of touching the screen with one's fingers repulsive. Pen is a whole different matter, but its usability is quite limited in my own usage scenario.

My BlackBerry has a touchscreen which I find to be its most annoying feature since it can't be turned off. I hate my work-issued Samsung tablet with an undying passion, and there are not too many objects that I hate to begin with.

So, in closing, no touchscreens for me. They do absolutely nothing to advance my purposes.

[TPFanatic]

So, after all these years you still haven't figured out how to take advantage of touchscreen to increase productivity and avoid repetitive strain injury? Maybe too old to learn?

I agree, touchscreen is redundant when you already have 3 better navigation interfaces: keyboard, touchpad, and trackpoint that are way better.

Also too old to learn?

I just like myself a physical keyboard, haptic feedback doesn't cut it for me. Also I'm only 3 years older than my first love, the A31p. Touchscreens are redundant on computers because there are already superior pointing devices in the laptop. The same argument is used against needing touchpads on Thinkpads since they already have Trackpoints. However a lot of people are more comfortable with touchpads so there's that reason to keep them.

I also don't like touching the screen of the laptop, it's big and can break and leaves smudges all over it.

[Thinkpad4by3]

My prediction on your Samsung tablet .

http://i.imgur.com/G5eRtXI.jpg

Replace the Samsung with an iPad and I'd do the same thing.

[ajkula66]

My prediction on your Samsung tablet .

http://i.imgur.com/G5eRtXI.jpg

Replace the Samsung with an iPad and I'd do the same thing.

LOL.

If that piece of garbage were mine to begin with, it would've ended up in the trash can years ago.

Thanks for making me laugh on a very stressful and miserable morning. Highly appreciated.

[Thinkpad4by3]

If you want to know work-given garbage, you have to see the junk that IBM gives their employees. Its this piece of junk: Toshiba Tecra Z40.

How to sum it up...... ok. Get your self the cheapest piece of garbage you can get yourself at BestBuy, how about an i5, 8gb RAM. Sounds good. Nope.

The LCD screen makes the STN Monochrome screens of 1992 look like Flexview. The blacks are light gray. The whites are light gray. All the colors are slightly off of light gray. Its washed out, NO proper viewing angles, and its 1600x900. Awful LCD.

Keyboard is worse than on the Macbook (new one) and more mushy than a rubber flexy keyboard. Try typing on the Atari 400 keyboard and it feels about that bad. Incase you don't know, the Atari 400 keyboard is made out of the same stuff that the buttons on a Microwave are made of. Terrible.

It has a Trackpoint, but its one lame excuse of one. It has cats tongue head, which actually works quite well....for sanding wood (I actually tried). Trackpoint is to a Boeing 787 as this piece of junk is to a paper airplane made by a 5 y/o. It just about makes the cut over a trackpad, but not by much.

Ok, now for the really annoying part about it that really is a problem. The specs feel about as slow as an A31p trying to run SolidWorks 2016 on max settings. The HDD is setup like this, and its a 500GB 5400RPM drive. First, a Supervisor password. Then Symantec Security. Symantec on the fly decryption. Anything Symantec is going to slow down performance, anything that is on the fly encryption is slow performance down, now combine the two, yea that's slow. OK, not just that, but the machine can't dock to two monitors properly and messes up every 30 minutes.
Now for the final Straw. Blue Screens of Death for doing just about anything, and unlike Windows 95, you can't just press escape to continue.

I got it upgraded to 16GB RAM and a 840 PRO SSD, still is lacking in everything severely. Instead of a A31p, how about a base model T61 instead.. Better, but still pretty bad. Once, Toshiba had to come in and replace the motherboard after about 3 weeks when the power delivery circuit blew up when it got plugged into its GENUINE charger. Fail.

My dad is getting it replaced soon and hope that it is at least a slight bit better.

And remember, this is an IBM issued laptop.
Feel like your Samsung Tablet is such a big piece of junk now?

[ajkula66]

And remember, this is an IBM issued laptop.
Feel like your Samsung Tablet is such a big piece of junk now?

I could tell a story or five about IBM - a company that I've never worked for - that left me with an incredibly sour taste in my mouth from about 15 years ago, when they were still in charge of Think Products. Stories about people who spent their entire decades-long careers working for IBM and were pushed out into the wilderness of a completely different industry - based on an ancient agreement between two corporate giants of yesteryear - in order to retire with *somewhat* of a dignity. My heart broke for these oldtimers when I worked with them, every single day, and the most cynical part of the story is that they were considered to be the lucky ones at the time. Not everyone was given the option of taking the aforementioned path of sheer absurdity.

By no means am I surprised that by A.D. 2017 they have reached a point of no return when it comes to overall treatment of their staff.

[Ibthink]

Why did 14" models get worse screen? I think the answer is pretty simple: It wasn´t seen as necessary. 12" systems were also available as convertibles, which required better screens (especially when it comes to viewing angles), so better 12" screens had to be produced. For 15" on the other hand, the workstation market comes into play: Workstations are mostly 15" or 17" and in this segment, a good screen is seen as a benefit, especially when working with colors.

14" however was the standard size for the corporate models that were sold in mass. Office workers don´t need IPS, good colors or high brightness. They may want it, but they don´t really need it. So 14" got the worst screens by default.

[Thinkpad4by3]

Why did 14" models get worse screen? I think the answer is pretty simple: It wasn´t seen as necessary. 12" systems were also available as convertibles, which required better screens (especially when it comes to viewing angles), so better 12" screens had to be produced. For 15" on the other hand, the workstation market comes into play: Workstations are mostly 15" or 17" and in this segment, a good screen is seen as a benefit, especially when working with colors.

14" however was the standard size for the corporate models that were sold in mass. Office workers don´t need IPS, good colors or high brightness. They may want it, but they don´t really need it. So 14" got the worst screens by default.

(I b think)ing about what you said.

I think thats the best answer so far

[pianowizard]

If you think touchscreens are great, how do you use them because I'hm genuinely curious how you benefit from them?

See my third comment below.

I just like myself a physical keyboard, haptic feedback doesn't cut it for me.

OMG, I hate touchscreen keyboards more than anything else. I have been talking about using the touchscreen as a pointing device, not as a keyboard.

Also I'm only 3 years older than my first love, the A31p. .

Some people are still excellent learners in their 80s, while others are already too old to learn in their early 20s.

Touchscreens are redundant on computers because there are already superior pointing devices in the laptop. The same argument is used against needing touchpads on Thinkpads since they already have Trackpoints. However a lot of people are more comfortable with touchpads so there's that reason to keep them.

I disagree with your (and most other users') approach of picking the best overall pointing device and sticking with it in all usage scenarios. I have trained myself to be equally adept at using desktop mice, trackpoints, touchpads, touchscreens, and keyboard shortcuts (no voice commands for me yet), because not a single input interface is better than all the other interfaces in all scenarios. The most productive users know when to use which input method for each click/scroll/swipe. It does require one to be constantly thinking, so if you don't like to think then this approach isn't for you. You may object: Wouldn't all this thinking slow one down? Yes, initially, but with practice it becomes second nature.

Let me illustrate with a scenario everyone is familiar with: copying-and-pasting. You can do it by moving the mouse pointer to the menu and clicking "Copy" and "Paste", but you usually do Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V instead. Why? Because it takes longer to move the mouse pointer than to hit Ctrl+C. So, you do alternate between the trackpoint and keyboard shortcuts depending on the situation, to boost productivity. What I am saying is that if one alternates among five input methods, productivity increases even further.

Ultimately, two factors determine which input method is the best: 1) the distance between the mouse pointer and the target; and 2) how many times the task is repeated. For instance, if the mouse pointer happens to be right next to the target, the trackpoint is the best. If the pointer is far from the target, the touchpad may be better than the trackpoint. If the pointer is very far from the target or if you can't quickly find where the pointer is (which can happen a lot when you are using a huge, high-res screen), touching the target is the fastest. Zooming tends to be faster though pinching on the touchscreen or touchpad gestures or Ctrl + scroll than the trackpoint. If the task is repeated many times and if there are keyboard shortcuts for the task, then keyboard shortcuts beat all the other methods. These are just several easy-to-explain examples, picked from countless scenarios. The trackpoint may be the best input 55% of the time, but certainly not all the time. For me, I would estimate that the touchscreen is the best method about 5 - 10% of the time, averaged across all the things that I do on my computers.

EDIT: I failed to mention that the touchpad is never the best input method if pointer speed is too low. I nearly always set the pointer speed to the fastest. For me, the touchpad at maximum pointer speed works better than the other input methods roughly 30% of the time.

Why did 14" models get worse screen? I think the answer is pretty simple: It wasn´t seen as necessary. 12" systems were also available as convertibles...For 15" on the other hand, the workstation market comes into play...14" however was the standard size for the corporate models that were sold in mass.

You are thinking only in terms of Thinkpads. The situation was exactly the same for consumer-grade laptops made by Sony, Dell, Toshiba etc. for home users. Though their 15" panels weren't necessarily IPS, those panels were consistently better than the 14" panels used by these manufacturers.

[Ibthink]

You are thinking only in terms of Thinkpads. The situation was exactly the same for consumer-grade laptops made by Sony, Dell, Toshiba etc. for home users. Though their 15" panels weren't necessarily IPS, those panels were consistently better than the 14" panels used by these manufacturers.

Its not necessarily about ThinkPads only, its really about all business/office notebooks. 14" has developed into a size thats traditionally mostly popular in business, while 15" was most popular in the consumer space. Especially here in Europe. Thats why I think that the few 14" consumer notebooks just got the same panels that the business lines got.

One ThinkPad example: The L520 was available with some pretty decent HD+ displays. These were worlds better than the displays in the 14" models, despite being much cheaper in price than the T420. The same panels were used in the W520, so it was lucky for the L520 that Lenovo used the economics of scale to its advantage. They could have bought cheaper, worse quality HD+ panels specifically for the budget model L520. But they didn´t because buying more of the higher quality panels made these panels cheaper for them. This can be applied to the Consumer market too, for expensive 15" multi-media Notebooks a better display was a selling point.

The same is true for the 14" models, just in the opposite direction. Even though the T420 was more expensive, it still was an office model, so Lenovo had no incentive to purchase more expensive displays.

[SaskFellow]

Ehhh... I think my 14.1" widescreen T61 is fine, the original panel was pretty crap though, and until you put it next to my T420s, then it looks brutal. I used that T61 for years as my university machine, so I did lots of reports on it and other heavy reading, data processing stuff on it. Honestly the display, looks better than many newer machines. Hell I'm typing this right now on the 'useless' 1440x900 screen. The other half's Sony has a 11.6" 1366x766 display... That's a pain in the butt display(There's a possible upgrade panel but the connector is different, so it's a risky one). I have an SZ with a 13" 1600x900 display, yuck. I have a T420s with the FHD mod, it's beautiful. I have a Qosmio with a 1920x1200 screen, and it's beautiful.

Give me a 14" OLED that doesn't make me cry at the price, and I'll be happy.

I do wish 16:10 wasn't killed off for 16:9. I really do like my HP tablet and it's 3:2 display, even though it's an odd 1920x1280 resolution. lol

I still have and use my LCD monitors which are 4:3, so I do live and use it. My preferred ratios are: 8:5, 3:2, and 4:3. The whole two pages one display thing, really comes into play with those 7:3(21:9) and 2:1 displays, as 16:9 just isn't wide enough and it's too darn narrow.

I really need to buy a good colorimeter, and actually tune these displays. The T420s has an IPS screen from a newer Thinkpad, but it's sad that it's still only a 6bit+FRC display, as the modded bios does support full 8bit colour(which is set but the panel still throws away the extra 2 bits), but compared to the originals 6bit only, there's a lot more colour available.

14" is the perfect size for me.