Thinkpads Forum

Hi guys,

I bought a T41p about a year ago, and apart from showing a bit of wear these days and not having a particularly bright screen it's a great machine.

I'll be going off to university next year and wanted an upgrade, I love the form factor 14.1'' 1400x1050. My question is, since my model have screens in general got better? In particular the 14x10 14.1'' panel on the T60, as the screen brightness on it's minimum level is just [censored] unreadable and it can't be said to be bright at full either.

I use T60 widescreen, it is very good, bright and clear for displaying. You don't need wory about the quality. BTW, I got it one week ago from buy.com. The price is aslo awesome.

Just had a look at t41p today and was actually comparing the screen to my t60p, I guess it is about the same.

To be honest, the display is really bothering me lately. I might have been spoiled by 15" display I had before or maybe everyone around now has a nice display on their laptop, but the viewing angle (Or luck of it) is terrible. In general, "about the same" is a bad concept, if it doesn't get better with time, then it gets worse, which is the case here.

Also, Luck of "Windows" key makes t41p keyboard ALOT more usable in my opinion. If Lenovo will keep adding these things I's have to snipe their management team down.

Thanks for that, I saw a review of the 15'' T60 screen and they said it was brighter and had better viewing angles than most other laptop screens. I think it was notebookreview.com

Looks like 14.1'' form factor just isn't treated as well as it's bigger brother. Are there places where you can try out a particular thinkpad model before you buy it?

Thanks for your help guys.

EDIT: I agree about the windows key, it's unnecessary when you can map it to Alt Gr, what worries me is the half height return key I've seen on some models, that looks tremendously bad.

Dead1nside wrote:Thanks for that, I saw a review of the 15'' T60 screen and they said it was brighter and had better viewing angles than most other laptop screens. I think it was notebookreview.com

Looks like 14.1'' form factor just isn't treated as well as it's bigger brother. Are there places where you can try out a particular thinkpad model before you buy it?

Thanks for your help guys.

EDIT: I agree about the windows key, it's unnecessary when you can map it to Alt Gr, what worries me is the half height return key I've seen on some models, that looks tremendously bad.

I remember before on IBM there was a list of dealers in UK you can go to. Lenovo probably has it too. Half height enter key is on US keyboards, I myself bought a US keyboards to swap the UK one (which has large enter key) because I'm just very used to it.

Screen is not extremely bright. My main PC was a 15" t43p before this one and the thinklight was something I'd use to find a cup of coffee on a table. Now thinklight is a way of life.

Simple answer: No. The quality of notebook displays is going down every year (with the exception of IPS panels called "FlexView" which are becoming rather rare )

But I don't get it, why would quality go down? I thought technological progress brings quality up.

Probably to maximize the potential number of customers. If thinkpads were made for people who actually value them, we wouldn't have track pads, no option for high resolution screens, flexing plastic, inconsistent quality, windows key etc. But then the price would be higher and the number of units sold much lower.

runixd wrote:Probably to maximize the potential number of customers. If thinkpads were made for people who actually value them, we wouldn't have track pads, no option for high resolution screens, flexing plastic, inconsistent quality, windows key etc. But then the price would be higher and the number of units sold much lower.

Sorry but you do not know what you are talking about!

Greg Gebhardt wrote:

runixd wrote:Probably to maximize the potential number of customers. If thinkpads were made for people who actually value them, we wouldn't have track pads, no option for high resolution screens, flexing plastic, inconsistent quality, windows key etc. But then the price would be higher and the number of units sold much lower.

Sorry but you do not know what you are talking about!

Well, maybe you can add your own comment, I'd be interested to learn from someone who knows.

I'd also be interested in hearing your reasons for such a quick and unsupported put down.

Looking on Lenovo's UK site it doesn't seem like there are any 1600x1200 15'' models, after a brief look... that's disappointing as I don't see the point in moving to a larger form factor for the same resolution.

Widescreen has it's benefits, and they're cheaper, as they're much in demand at least in the consumer market. However, 15.4'' widescreen just takes away all portability whatsoever. I've only experienced it first hand on an Acer (5022Wlmi) but it's huge. What does a person have to do to get a brighter screen, with the same or better resolution at the same form factor? Looks impossible.

I think I'll wait and see what T61(p) brings.

Thanks for all the responses.

Dead1nside wrote:I think I'll wait and see what T61(p) brings.

I fear that IPS (FlexView) panels will be discontinued even for SXGA+ resolution. No decent display -> no ThinkPad

Dead1nside wrote:Widescreen has it's benefits, and they're cheaper, as they're much in demand at least in the consumer market. However, 15.4'' widescreen just takes away all portability whatsoever. I've only experienced it first hand on an Acer (5022Wlmi) but it's huge.

It's really not that big a difference. A 15" conventional (4:3) display measures 12.0 x 9.0 inches, while a widescreen (8:5) one measures 12.7 x 7.9 inches. 0.7 inches taller but over an inch lower -- overall size is roughly the same.

Note that the T60 widescreen is 0.25" narrower and 0.8" lower -- and nearly a pound lighter -- than the Acer.

tomh009 wrote:It's really not that big a difference. A 15" conventional (4:3) display measures 12.0 x 9.0 inches, while a widescreen (8:5) one measures 12.7 x 7.9 inches. 0.7 inches taller but over an inch lower -- overall size is roughly the same.

Thanks for clarifying this rather common misconception. In fact, if you compare the surface areas, a 15.4" screen is actually smaller than a 15" screen, 100.33 sq in versus 108.00 sq in. However, the extra width of 15.4" laptops does pose a problem for many laptop bags. Two of my laptop bags are just wide enough for 15" laptops but just too narrow for 15.4" ones, so I can't fit my 15.4" Inspiron 6000 into them.

Puppy wrote:I fear that IPS (FlexView) panels will be discontinued even for SXGA+ resolution. No decent display -> no ThinkPad

So can you not get a 14.1'' 1400x1050 with Flexview?

Dead1nside wrote:

Puppy wrote:I fear that IPS (FlexView) panels will be discontinued even for SXGA+ resolution. No decent display -> no ThinkPad

So can you not get a 14.1'' 1400x1050 with Flexview?

You never could.

Didn't think so, it's a shame that.

Dead1nside wrote: I think I'll wait and see what T61(p) brings.

I too am interested in what they'll do with t61. Of course the cpu speed will increase, but that is not that important ... current cpus are very fast anyway. What will they do with graphics in t61p ? Considering there aren't really any substitutes for FGL 5200/5250 for 14" laptops. And reasonable Quadro FX are mostly found in 17". Apparently NVidia is working on some laptop cards based on g80 core for the laptops, although they can't even put a low end quadro into smaller laptops. Hopefully ati can come up with something by the time. A better screen would be super.

I'm hopeful. There's been a change in trends recently, nvidia have been the ones with the most laptop partnerships in regards to graphics, this used to be dominated by ATI, but they've come rather unstuck since the AMD take over.

By now however, they should be getting on their feet.

I don't think there's a point in buying a new Thinkpads until Vista is rolled out on the whole range anyway. Although I do not know the status of the ThinkVantage tools on Vista.