Thinkpads Forum

Just curious, why Lenovo put such bad LCD on their thinkpads? This is my second thinkpad and there's no improvement on LCD. When it is next to my dell desktop monitor, the thinkpad LCD looks so dim. The desktop monitor looks like it is 5 times brighter.

Not just brightness. At least for the 14.1" SXGA+ ones, they lack in contrast, color accuracy and color vividness. The SXGA+ on my T61 shows serious backlight bleeding at the bottom. To some extent the T42 screen isn't as bad.

I totally share your disappointment.

madcow wrote:snip...The desktop monitor looks like it is 5 times brighter.

Do you realize the Dell monitor can have more luminance (nits).

On my T61p 14.1 SXGA+ (Samsung) display, what I am most disappointed with is the sharpness of text (or I should say the lack of sharpness) on the display. My T42p was better in this regard. I have found that turning down the display brightness and fine tuning Cleartype using the XP Cleartype tuner (works in Vista although not supported) has helped make this less noticeable, but I still wish it was better and think it should be a lot better considering this is an SXGA+ display.

However, I find the T61p screen to be plenty bright despite the 150 nit spec. It is so bright I have to turn down the brightness quite a bit for comfortable extended viewing.

Also, there are several different color profiles preloaded on the machine. If you don't like the Lenovo default color profile, I recommend trying some of the other preloads. I found one that works much better for me and yields more vivid saturated colors with better contrast, although I have no idea how accurate it is.

Also, interestingly fwimbw, when starting up Photoshop CS3 with the default Lenovo profile enabled, I always got an error message from Photoshop saying the default color profile was "corrupted." Once I changed the default color profile to another one of the preloads, Photoshop CS3 no longer gave that error message.

pae77 wrote:snipped

Where I can find any profile? I have T60 15" sxga+ flexview. Thanks

ryengineer wrote:

madcow wrote:snip...The desktop monitor looks like it is 5 times brighter.

Do you realize the Dell monitor can have more luminance (nits).

Yes, I know that. But my question is why Lenovo put an LCD with low luminance on a Thinkpad?

pae77 wrote: However, I find the T61p screen to be plenty bright despite the 150 nit spec. It is so bright I have to turn down the brightness quite a bit for comfortable extended viewing.

Mine is a Samsung XGA.

It is not bright enough. It is starting to bother my eyes. I set brightness to max already.

madcow wrote:Mine is a Samsung XGA.

It is not bright enough. It is starting to bother my eyes. snip...

Do you have a T60 or a T61? If it's a T60, is it 14.1" or 15"?

commander wrote:

pae77 wrote:snipped

Where I can find any profile? I have T60 15" sxga+ flexview. Thanks

I have no Profiles on my T60 Flexview either but do you need them with the best lcd screen available. This screen has more accurate colors then my Samsung TN desktop panel.

TTY wrote:

madcow wrote: Mine is a Samsung XGA.

It is not bright enough. It is starting to bother my eyes. snip...

Do you have a T60 or a T61? If it's a T60, is ist 14.1" or 15"?

It is a t61. The screen is a 14.1 SGA.

I also have a t60 with a 14.1 SXGA+, but the fonts are too small and hurting my eyes.

The brightness of both are the same.

madcow wrote:Yes, I know that. But my question is why Lenovo put an LCD with low luminance on a Thinkpad?

You missed my point, if you want to compare your thinkpad with another display then compare it with same technology and luminance.

To see what profiles are preinstalled on your machine and/or to change the profile in Vista do the following:

control panel (classic view)/personalization/display settings/advanced settings/color management tab/color management/

and then you will see what your current default profile is and there are three more tabs in that dialog. "Devices" (where you are now), "All Profiles," and "Advanced." You can then click on the "all profiles" tab to see what profiles are already loaded and available on your machine and there is an "advanced" tab which I think allows you to choose which one you want to make default. I'm not exactly sure how I changed the default profile from within one of those tabs as it's been a while since I messed around with it, but as I said above, it did improve things for me. I just played with it changing default profiles until I got the some improved (to me) results. I ended up using (i.e., making the default profile), the "sRGB virtual device model profile." Then I made a few more adjustments to the brightness, gamma, and contrast levels in the nVidia control panel, and I thought things were much improved (again for my taste, ymmv).

madcow wrote:Yes, I know that. But my question is why Lenovo put an LCD with low luminance on a Thinkpad?

Laptop displays in general tend to have lower brightness than desktop LCD displays. It is done to save battery power. Besides, for office work the comfortable level of brightness is considered to be 100nit. The contrast of these low quality panels is usually a much bigger problem than the brightness.

ya, only the technology is upgraded but LCD, still using the old 90s' technology

ryengineer wrote:

madcow wrote:Yes, I know that. But my question is why Lenovo put an LCD with low luminance on a Thinkpad?

You missed my point, if you want to compare your thinkpad with another display then compare it with same technology and luminance.

I will compare it to other laptops' screens and let you know.

I've owned nothing but Thinkpads and have always been quite IMPRESSED with their screens. My brother's Dell looks washed out, my dad's Acer not much better.

I always look for a display with high resolution (SXGA+, or, ideally UXGA), as well as one with IPS. IBM/Lenovo calls these types of screens Flexview's. My latest one, which I just recently got, is so bright, it hurts my eyes on the highest setting, and the sharpness is also breathtaking. It feels like you're IN a picture, if the picture is in 1600x1200, to use UXGA as an example.

This is the very reason I refuse to go near ANY of the T61/T61p's. No more IPS. I've seen TONS of threads on here about people complaining about, and having to adjust all kinds of settings to "deal with" the T61/p's displays.

I am sure Flexview/IPS is a pretty good LCD. However for those of us who want a 14.1" LCD thinkpad, Flexview/IPS has never been an option.

I just installed the XP color profile add-on. With a tuned profile applied automatically when Windows starts, color accuracy on the T61 SXGA+ here looks much more acceptable compared with a Sony VAIO.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Of course, that won't address the brightness and color vividness short comings, but I can live with them.