Thinkpads Forum

I was reading up about LED displays after the macbook pros came out with theirs, and I noticed an odd comment that said the UltraLight displays found in the X61s and X60s were also LED backlit. At first I just disregarded him saying obviously not, otherwise they'd promote it like the other brands do given the current hype surrounding these. I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere on the offical lenovo/ibm websites to confirm it, but I also could not disprove it either. However given the benefits of the display it does indeed make sense.

Further searching revealed one particular comment of much interest. On lenovoblogs, a lenovo employee left a comment that rather clearly said that the UltraLight displays were indeed LED backlit.

One note: we do offer an LED backlight on special models of the ThinkPad X60s. These models are denoted as “UltraLight” and use an LED backlight.

Any thoughts? Knowledge?

edit: For anyone just now viewing this topic, the UltraLight display is NOT backlit by LEDs.

I highly doubt that the X60s/X61s UltraLight TMD XGA TFT-Panels are based on LED backlights. - AFAIK TMD didn't offered 12" LED based notebook panels before (in 2005/2006), also when I look over their panel product list (except their new actual 2007 LED panel news announcement)...

http://tmd-product.tmdisplay.com/index_e.cfm

...I don't see any LED based 12" XGA TFT-panels listed there.

They (TMD) made an fresh announcement this year on march, that they now offer LED-backlit based notebook panels...

http://www.tmdisplay.com/tm_dsp/press/2 ... 03-20.html

Thus I'am not sure if what Tim Supples told in the lenovo blogs is correct at all.

On the other side, here at the shown LaptopLogic link, they also told that the UltraLight panel would instead be LED based...

http://laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.p ... &part=full

...which is still questionable for me.

Did somebody ever looked inside an UltraLight panel and thus can tell us for sure on which backlight technology those Ultralight TFT-panels are finally based?

vkyr wrote:They (TMD) made an fresh announcement this year on march, that they now offer LED-backlit based notebook panels...

http://www.tmdisplay.com/tm_dsp/press/2 ... 03-20.html

I don't believe this is the ultralight display -- the TMD 12.1" panel is rated at 300 cd/m2, whereas the one in the X61s is 180 cd/m2.

I didn't said that among the 2007 press announcement is the UltraLigt panel, I just said that they NOW 2007 offer LED based panels. - Instead I pointed to this list here...

http://tmd-product.tmdisplay.com/index_e.cfm

...there you can see the panel types which had been also offered before and among which the UltraLight might be (maybe it's one of the 12" XGA panels on that list, the LTD133ECKS, LTD121KA0S or LTD121EC5S etc.).

I know you didn't say that ... but someone else might have assumed that from reading your post ...

I asked this through several different channels a while back and got a consistent "no." They wouldn't reveal much information, but the gist was it is just a specialized panel where they saved weight as much as possible and increased the brightness.

That and if you think about it - wouldn't it make sense to advertise an LED backlight given how much of a buzz word it is these days?

Of course they would have advertised it, if it would have been a LED based panel. The marketing guys are always quick on these things.

However, I somehow wonder that Lenovo people like Tim Supples are telling such untrue and finally confusing things related to some of their ThinkPad products. They usually should know better!

AFAIK, Tim wrote that article a year ago when he was a writer for Laptop Logic, and before he went to work for Lenovo. That article about the Ultralight being a LED backlit panel likely resulted from getting a "hot scoop" from a source who claimed to know more than they actually did.

We all know how a story passed from one person to the next often gets muddled. One person may say: "I bet that new Ultralight panel uses LED's." The one hearing that comment then tells the next person: "So and so says that the new Ultralight panel uses LED's."

Well, I meant more the following and above in this threads first post initially referenced lenovo blogs entry...

http://www.lenovoblogs.com/designmatter ... mment-7447

...which stems from April 5th, 2007 at 5:03 pm, and thus isn't that old at all. In the meantime the poster (Tim S.) should know the products of the company he is working for a little bit better.

However, I agree with your explanation of these in germany so called "silent post" rumour stories.

He or someone from Lenovo must be browsing this forum and read your post, because I see he edited that comment.

Edit: I later learned that in fact, the X Series does NOT employ an LED backlight. This was some previously inaccurate information I had, I apologize for the confusion!

Well that pretty much clears its up then

Ok, even if it's not LED, where does higher brightness "come from" - more power provided to two lamps or 4 lamps or...?

Usually such small 12" TFT-panels are only driven by one lamp at all and only bigger notebook TFT-panels >= 15" are powered by two lamps.

Thus the light efficiency of the UltraLight panel must be better, I guess it's lamp might illuminate higher or since it's substrate is thinner, there is more illumination from just one lamp.

Here is an image of how a usual backlight looks like in action:

http://www.tdcomponents.com/cms/fileadm ... s/10_7.jpg