IBM Thinkpad T43 1875 9DU Display Screen Question?

[Jonathan]

I purchased a new IBM Thinkpad T43 1875 9DU Notebook Computer on eBay for $ 1050.

The Computer has a 1.73 Centrino CPU, 40 Gigabyte 5400 RPM IDE Disk Drive, 256 MB of RAM, 15 Inch Display Screen Resolution at 1024 x 768, and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator.

I notice that the 15 Inch Screen can only display at the 60 HZ Refresh Rate at the maximum display resolution at 1024 x 768.

When I scroll through the text messages on this and many other forums, I notice that the display screen text seems to flicker with some minor ghosting effects.

Also the screen's viewing angles and the clarity of the text fonts are not as good as my old IBM T22 Computer's Display Screen.

Is this due to the Display Screen's 60 HZ Refresh Rate, and its native screen resolution being at only 1024 x768?

Do the SXGA+ Screens at 1400 x 1020 and the ones at even the higher screen resolutions have a faster screen refresh rate, better screen viewing angles, and display sharper screen text fonts?

Thank You.

Jonathan

[brainpicker]

Jonathan,

You bought a nice laptop. It may be that the integrated graphics is the issue on your large screen, not the refresh rate. To my knowledge LCD screens use 60HZ as a standard and refresh rate isn't an issue like on CRT screens. The viewing angle & brightness can be an issue for some folks on the larger screens that are not of the Flexview variety, especially vertical angle. Double check your Display Properties to make sure all is correct. Try lowering the Color Quality to 16-bit as you probably won't notice a difference in the colors but it puts less stress on your graphics subsystem.

Good Luck!

Yak

[hakan]

Jonathan,

I am so happy someone else notices the "flickering problem" as I thought I was the only person in the world annoyed by it! I have sensitive eyes, and what really causes problems for me is scrolling, playing, or anything that involves movement on the display. It is exactly this "flickering" which drives me crazy! That's why I am trying to find out what laptop screen would be right for me. XGA or SXGA? 12, 14 or 15"? Flexview or not?
I don't think the flickering has anything to do with the graphics subsystem, nor with the refresh rate. To me it seems it is just a matter of the display quality. I have tried many different laptops, and some flicker more and some less. I have also made the observation that, for some reason, old laptops seem to flicker less.
Well, unfortunately I cannot offer a solution, but I, too, would be extremely grateful if people would write of their experiences.

Thanks!
Kai

PS: Clarity should not be an issue on TFT screens. What you describe is, to my mind, just the experience that on bigger displays with smaller resolutions, items and text are displayed bigger and therefore may look less "clear". Your old T22 had a 14" XGA screen, I assume, and therefore items were displayed smaller than on the new laptop which creates the impression of higher clarity compared to the T43.

[GomJabbar]

I'm guessing a little bit here, but I know that older LCD displays had a slower pixel refresh rate. Because they retained the image longer, there would be almost no flicker, as the screen was being refreshed before the image died out. This was not good for action video and gaming however, as the image would ghost or streak during high motion scenes. CRT's were preferred by video and gaming enthusiasts because they had a faster pixel refresh rate than LCD's. This is changing however, as LCD's are now begining to have a high pixel refresh rate. I would suspect what might be happening now, is that the horizontal refresh rate of 60 Hz that was just fine with older LCD displays, may be becoming a problem with the newer high speed LCD displays. I copied the following from this link:

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_content.asp?id=vp912b

It's now generally accepted throughout the gaming/enthusiast communities that LCD monitors with pixel refresh rates under 16ms are "gaming ready". This basically means that the monitor will not show "ghosting" or "streaking" when playing fast motion games or DVD movies like first and second generation LCD monitors did. While there are many, many other factors which determine the overall quality of an LCD monitor, pixel refresh rate is the defining factor to many gamers, and if this number is above 16ms, they won't even give the monitor second look.

Over the past year, we've seen some very impressive innovation on the LCD monitor front. Many 15" and 17" LCD monitors have been able to boast 16ms and 12ms refresh rates, and we've also seen many larger 20" and 21" screens also get the 16ms refresh rate treatment. Somewhere lost in the middle have been 19" LCD screens, which for reasons which I can't explain, have been stuck with 25ms being the fastest available screen option until now. 19" monitors are quite popular with gamers and workstation users, as they provide enough visual real estate to satisfy most, support high resolutions, but yet are priced quite a bit less compared to larger 20 and 21" screens.