Spent 2 days comparing 2378FVU (SXGA+) to 23795VU (XGA)

[aamsel]

As the title says, I just spent 2 days comparing 2378FVU (SXGA+) to 23795VU (XGA), both 14.1" models.
I compared them "right out of the box", without any modification, other than "tweaking" the font/dpi settings on the 2378FVU, and installing a program called "Liquid View" (costs about $30) which increases text size almost everywhere in Windows XP. I also installed Firefox and Opera to compare web-browsing appearances. I had TrueType turned on for both machines, although I did briefly try it off. I prefer using TrueType.

Obviously, the main difference is the screens, which is what I am commenting on here. The only other differences I know of are 1.7GHz vs 1.6GHz CPU, 256MB vs 512MB of stock RAM. They did come with CD-RW/DVD drives made by different manufacturers, and the 2378FVU is bluetooth upgradeable, but we all knew that.

Also. each model had the Samsung screen.

Anyhow, here is my take on the screens:

My eyes are not perfect, and I have told myself for 2+ years that XGA is all that will work for me. That may not be true. Here are the pros and cons, as I see them.


The 2378FVU's Samsung SXGA+ at 1400 X 1050 is really quite nice. The extra pixels make ALL TEXT much smoother and, quite obviously, less pixelated. This includes text in Wordpad and text on the web. The difference is huge. The viewing angles, as we have come to know, are not great with any Thinkpad screen other than a Flexview. The other negative of this screen would be a lack of contrast, even compared to the 23795VU XGA. I used Liquid View, as I said, to do more tweaking to the text sizes in XP, and it helps just about everywhere but in dialog boxes. I will mention web-page issues later.

The 23795VU XGA at 1024 X 768 is quite a nice model, but, with the total pixel count being so far below the SXGA+ 2378FVU, it can not produce text which looks as smooth as the SXGA+ model. If anything, it looks disappointingly blurry compared to the SXGA+ in a side-by-side comparison of the same text documents and web-pages. Also, with fewer pixels, there is a "screen door" effect looking at solid colors and images. You are basically seeing the blank area between the pixels. There is no screen door effect with the SXGA+.

DVD playback, however, seemed almost identical for both models, which was surprising.

There is also a HUGE difference in web-surfing between the two models. Since many websites still optimize their sites for 800 X 600 resolution, when you view these websites on the SXGA+ screen, everything is either shoved off to the left side, or centered. It is also being shoved to the left side with the XGA model, but it is much less noticeable. Again, the XGA's text is so much more pixelated that the tradeoff's going to SXGA+ seem pretty much worth it, but I am still deciding.

Internet Explorer offers the ability to scale website text sizes, and you can tell it (under accessibility settings) to ignore the font sizes specified by websites. This has its pros and cons (since you will then NOT see the website as it was designed to be seen).

Firefox also scales text without any modification, but, like IE, does not scale any graphics. Graphics mean anything from an image to an emoticon. Regardless of how large you make the text, the graphic keeps the same size.

Opera is the only browser that also scales the graphics, but it is buggy.

It is the optimization of websites for 800 X 600 resolution that really makes a difference between an XGA and an SGA+ screen. This is not just a few sites, this is MANY, MANY websites.
However, as I said, the smoothness of the text seems to make up for it, or at least, that is what I will be deciding in the next day or so.

Until this point, I truly thought that XGA would be the only resolution that could possibly ever work for me. When a "new Windows" comes out, I full expect that we will see true scaleability so that pixels, DPI, and fonts don't have to be tweaked.

Until then, using tweaking, and Liquid View, ALMOST everything can be made to be acceptable, but not quite. The tweaked SXGA+ screen still looks "doctored" because it is. I am quite sure that it looks better with standard settings, but I would never be able to view or work with standard settings and 1400 X 1050.

Andrew
Austin, TX

[dvorak]

Thats a nice review, I'm myself behind a SXGA+, consider it rather nice, I can read rather well, didn't tweak anything. I'm on -4 glasses, so my eyesight isn't perfect either, but I still must say that it's not too small and definitely worth the extra space.

But all you did, was compare text, perhaps you could do a small comparision of the brightness and angles?
I have a problem with my display, perhaps, it's impossible to find a viewing angle where all the colors on the screen are at the same brightness level. It's like a gradient from top to bottom, darker on the top and slowing going brighter.
Is this the case on your display also and how "strong" is the difference of the brightness levels?

[aamsel]

The brightness was just slightly higher on the SXGA+. Almost not worth mentioning. The XGA was almost as bright. Overall, in terms of Fn + keystrokes of brightness, it was way less than one keystroke of difference.

The viewing angle, as I mentioned was quite poor on the SXGA+ and also on the XGA. Very, very limited vertically and horizontally. Perhaps slightly better horizontally on the SXGA+. I wouldn't even attempt to assign degrees of viewing angle. Not really enough to score them that weigh, IMHO, although there is some measurable degree of angle.

As for the "gradient issue" that you described, that has long been a peril of SXGA+ displays throughout the industry, not just IBM's. It seems to only be an SXGA+ issue. It does not occur in widescreens, such as WXGA or WSXGA+ models (which IBM does not produce, of course.)

I would be curious if you have a Samsung or an IDTech panel???? I did not really see a true gradient issue on the Samsung panel that I have on this 2378FVU here. I previously saw a 2378FVU for a few minutes that had an IDTech panel, and IT DID have the gradient issue, as well as a lot of backlight leakage. With the IDTech panel, there was a band of light at the bottom 1" or so of the display. Does yours look like that?

On the Samsung SXGA+ panel I have, the top of the display is a little darker than the bottom, but a lot of the viewing depends on the angle that the panel is tilted. I find that it looks best tilted a pinch more back down than I am used to with a notebook panel, not sure how many degrees back from verticle, but a substantial angle.

The color purity on the SXGA+ panel, as well as the XGA were not very impressive at all. Putting up "pure" screens of white, black, red, green, blue showed a lot of uneven colors. The green was the worst of all, especially on the SXGA+, and the black level was quite weak, although that is to be expected with any screen other than the Flexview. White purity was ok.

Andrew
Austin, TX

Thats a nice review, I'm myself behind a SXGA+, consider it rather nice, I can read rather well, didn't tweak anything. I'm on -4 glasses, so my eyesight isn't perfect either, but I still must say that it's not too small and definitely worth the extra space.

But all you did, was compare text, perhaps you could do a small comparision of the brightness and angles?
I have a problem with my display, perhaps, it's impossible to find a viewing angle where all the colors on the screen are at the same brightness level. It's like a gradient from top to bottom, darker on the top and slowing going brighter.
Is this the case on your display also and how "strong" is the difference of the brightness levels?

[aamsel]

It's the 2378FVU !!!!

Just MUCH better text vs the XGA model.

Done deal!!

Andrew
Austin, TX

[sugo]

Give the textzoom extension for firefox a try

[dvorak]

As for the "gradient issue" that you described, that has long been a peril of SXGA+ displays throughout the industry, not just IBM's. It seems to only be an SXGA+ issue. It does not occur in widescreens, such as WXGA or WSXGA+ models (which IBM does not produce, of course.)

I would be curious if you have a Samsung or an IDTech panel???? I did not really see a true gradient issue on the Samsung panel that I have on this 2378FVU here. I previously saw a 2378FVU for a few minutes that had an IDTech panel, and IT DID have the gradient issue, as well as a lot of backlight leakage. With the IDTech panel, there was a band of light at the bottom 1" or so of the display. Does yours look like that?

As I mentioned in my thread, I got my SXGA+ display replaced, the last one had slow red pixels in the lower side, they kept staying there for a good 10 seconds after the color switched back to black and I have to say I don't remember if my last one had the gradient issue, didn't inspect that aspect very much.

I checked the parts-list on IBM's website and also the FRU on my work-document (one gotten from IBM support noting the switching of the LCD), they are the same: 11P8348
Hence it's a Samsung-LCD.
They also changed my battery, but the new FRU isn't listed on the parts-list, so I believe it displays the default FRUs, hence my first LCD was also Samsung's.

I did a small test in Photoshop, made a black line in between the top and lower part to seperate the green color and tried to find a color combination that looks 1:1 to me, I had to lower the Opacity of the top one for about 7% for it to be the same color as the lower one (both had the same starting color, layer under them was white)

Now I have mixed emotions, should I accept the screen for now and truly consider laptops to be definitely not good for graphics-work or again try to contact IBM (and risk looking like a extremely picky and annoying customer :P) to have it replaced, that of course doesn't mean the next one will be better?

[darrenf]

FWIW, I color corrected my screen using the GretagMacbeth EyeOne and the colors are *much* more accurate.

I did the same on an XGA T42 and the difference was even more pronounced. That screen is REALLY blue out of the box.

Now I wish the profile would apply in 3-D fullscreen. Argh!

-darren

[dvorak]

Now, as far as I have researced, it seems the problem is simply on all of the displays, hence I doubt demanding a replacement would just "do it". I do have a Samsung LCD.

I would be glad if other forum-readers could also report their display's color-uniformity.
I haven't had the possibility yet to check other SXGA+ screens on other laptops, although my other HP-Laptop XGA-LCD had this problem. (athough the laptop is more than 4-5 years old :))

Currently I'm thinking that I'll wait, perhaps in a couple of months/year there's a 14.1" Flexview screen and then get mine replaced. I'm not so interested in getting a 15" notebook, it'll take more power anyways due to the bigger screen and has extra weight.