x200s vs. flexview screen comparison

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asundstrom · #1 Post by **asundstrom** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 9:47 pm

I thought prospective x200s purchasers might be interested in these shots, comparing the x200s I received today with my 4.5 year old T42p (uxga/flexview).

http://photos-g.ll.facebook.com/photos- ... 2_9230.jpg is a photo on the x200s, at full brightness.

http://photos-f.ll.facebook.com/photos- ... 1_9686.jpg is that same photo on the t42p.

http://photos-b.ll.facebook.com/photos- ... 1_3022.jpg is a shot of the photo on both screens, straight on.

http://photos-c.ll.facebook.com/photos- ... 38_821.jpg is a shot from the side.

http://photos-c.ll.facebook.com/photos- ... 6_5270.jpg is a shot from above.

As you can see, the t42p has much better viewing angles, contrast and color accuracy. I figured the viewing angles wouldn't matter so much if I looked at the screens straight on, but the viewing angles on the x200s are sufficiently bad that it's impossible to view all parts of the screen from the optimal viewing angle, and some colors are always washed out. The weight and form factor of the x200s are really nice (although the t42p has a more responsive keyboard for some reason), but if I can't get used to the mediocre display I'll probably eat the $300 restocking fee and get a Sony Z-Series.

dr_st · #2 Post by **dr_st** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 4:09 am

Thanks for the nice pics.

Nothing is surprising really. The new screen is brighter, but viewing angles are horrible.

The keyboard on the T4x laptops is really better (less flex) than anything after that.

If you get a Sony Z series, you will probably get a somewhat better TN screen, but still not a Flexview.

csv96 · #3 Post by **csv96** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 8:33 am

Thanks for the pics. Would be interested in seeing how the new X200 Tablet IPS screens fare against the T42p.

asundstrom · #4 Post by **asundstrom** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:05 am

I'm replacing a pretty negative post I wrote this morning. Basically, I still think this is a very mediocre display (even for TN) - but there is an easy fix to really improve the user experience.

The main problem with usability is that there is no vertical viewing angle at which the entire screen is optimally displayed - either the top or the bottom is washed out, making it hard to read either menus or window designations. I am running Windows XP on this, and switched the display theme to "High Contrast Black." This shifts the menu and taskbar text (as well as that of folders) to white on a black background, which more or less solves the problem. The dark background also reduces eyestrain a lot, and allows lower brightness settings - which in turn reduce the degree of blacklight bleed and improve the non-black portion of the display.

The improvement is sufficient that I'm almost starting to like the notebook. Other than the poor display (which also seems to have an annoying "flicker"), it really is tiny, extremely light, has no audible fan noise whatsoever, and is fun to carry around wherever. Reminds me a bit of the early Powerbook Duos.

Puppy · #5 Post by **Puppy** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 4:03 am

Nice. It clearly shows the disaster.

martin255 · #6 Post by **martin255** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 7:05 am

I find you all a bit harsh. I am not denying that the screen is really bad but so far it does not prevent me from working (MS Office and some light coding).
As asundstrom said the X200s is the perfect laptop for me except for its screen and, to me at least, it is bearable. Not great, not perfect, but bearable. In my experience the bleeding and viewing angles only get really bad at full brightness: the screen seems to have some kind of white veil that does not let you focus on it. Just lowering the brightness to 10-12/15 depending on the ambient light makes it way more comfortable.

Of course I am eagerly waiting for a better compatible panel to come out, so I can swap...

alee · #7 Post by **alee** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:03 pm

The real question is not how it looks out of box, but how well the screen takes to color profiling.

In my experience, the IPS display on the Thinkpad also suffers from color inaccuracy. Unless you calibrate both displays using similiar conditions with the same colorimeter, about the only thing meanful about the test in the original poster's pictures is the demonstration of off-angle viewing on an IPS screen.

Basic colorimeters are cheap these days, and even the most bargain basement color profiling tool can make dramatic differences. If color accuracy is truly important to you, profile your displays.

maciejs · #8 Post by **maciejs** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:21 pm

what screen this x200s has? led or ccfl?

t42p clearly has a better screen (judging by those pictures) but imho x200s it's not really THAT bad... just my 2 cents

#9 Post by **JaneL** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 2:11 pm

maciejs wrote:what screen this x200s has? led or ccfl?

LED

j-dawg · #10 Post by **j-dawg** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:50 pm

csv96 wrote:Thanks for the pics. Would be interested in seeing how the new X200 Tablet IPS screens fare against the T42p.

I was under the impression that the X200 Tablet would get a TN panel.

Really, though, it's nothing about TN panels vs IPS panels anymore. A friend has an Asus laptop with a TN display and the viewing angles/colors are as good as one would ever notice in practical use as those of the IPS panel in my X61 Tablet. The problem is more that Lenovo doesn't fit good TN panels.

csv96 · #11 Post by **csv96** » Sun Dec 21, 2008 6:32 pm

X200 Tablets have 3 screen options, 2 with IPS.

mazzinia · #12 Post by **mazzinia** » Mon Dec 22, 2008 8:56 am

It's not only lenovo.

A friend of mine now works for HP and they issued him a new notebook, business line kind (15" wide obviously).
Well, that display is totally crappy and he is the first one crying.
Yes , can be used but the vertical viewing angles are not existing and half of the screen is never uniform so you can get a normal top half, or bottom half. nothing more.

He tried to watch movies on it and practically vomited. I've seen it and would never buy it even for 1$.

His reasoning on why this thing, is that it's a business notebook and so probably the users care for spreadsheets or documents, not for movies.

Bah... I've a normal x31 but in comparison to that HP the x31 screen is like an ips...

asundstrom · #13 Post by **asundstrom** » Mon Dec 22, 2008 10:42 am

No way could a colorimeter be used to fix this. I've figured out that regardless of viewing angle (I turned the laptop upside down and it hasn't changed) the same color is much lighter at the top of the screen than the bottom, e.g. dark blue vs. light blue. You can see the effect in the first shot above - the blue bar at the very top of the screen should be the same color as the blue taskbar at the bottom.

I think I may just have gotten a defective display. Has anyone had success at getting Lenovo to swap LCD panels in this type of situation?

dr_st · #14 Post by **dr_st** » Mon Dec 22, 2008 11:09 am

j-dawg wrote:Really, though, it's nothing about TN panels vs IPS panels anymore. A friend has an Asus laptop with a TN display and the viewing angles/colors are as good as one would ever notice in practical use as those of the IPS panel in my X61 Tablet. The problem is more that Lenovo doesn't fit good TN panels.

You are right. Some TN screens have much better vertical viewing angles than the ones fitted in Lenovo's (and most other) laptops. For start, all the modern desktop TN panels. And some manufacturers publish "wide viewing angle" screens, which are not IPS, but just a better TN (for instance, the HP Elitebook workstations).

Strictly speaking, the viewing angles of the tablet are not as good as general IPS. The digitizer adds some noticeable color distortions at wide angles, but of course nothing that makes it unusable. To me the viewing angles of a tablet LCD with an IPS screen are comparable to one of the older VA panels. At wide angles, the white becomes yellowish, but mostly that's it.

csv96 wrote:X200 Tablets have 3 screen options, 2 with IPS

All X200 Tablet screens are IPS. FFS is also IPS (a slightly improved one). No TN screens have been in any of the Lenovo tablets, except a very small number of X60 Tablets, as far as I know.

asundstrom wrote: think I may just have gotten a defective display.

I doubt you did. It's just a particularly bad low-contrast washed out TN panel. Even if you could get Lenovo to swap it, you'd end up with the same thing again, or so I believe.

asundstrom · #15 Post by **asundstrom** » Mon Dec 22, 2008 6:06 pm

Not sure this is still on topic, but I returned my x200s today and bought a vaio TT. I spent a couple of hours playing with the vaio TT, the vaio Z, and the MacBook Air. All three had *much* better screens than the x200s, with comparatively excellent viewing angles, rich colors, and contrast.

If I had to rank the screens of each display I saw today, my x200s, and my Flexview thinkpad, I would rank them:

1. vaio Z
2. vaio TT
3. T42p
4. MacBook Air
(huge drop)
5. x200s

If I had to rate the models on build quality, I would rank them:

1. x200s
2. T42p
3. vaio TT
4. MacBook Air
(huge drop)
5. vaio Z (which also had a horrible keyboard problem across several models).

I can't say I really lament the absence of IPS displays in laptops anymore.

Utwig · #16 Post by **Utwig** » Sat Dec 27, 2008 10:11 pm

Here's a pic of MacBook Air, T42p (flexview) and HP 2510p side by side:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3200/285 ... 9428_b.jpg

I haven't come across worthy replacement for my T42p yet.

sparta.rising · #17 Post by **sparta.rising** » Sat Dec 27, 2008 10:56 pm

How do you like the 2510p? I've been eying the model since so many people like the nc2400.

Utwig · #18 Post by **Utwig** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:24 pm

I worked with it for about two days:
- screen is bright, nice
- it's a bit louder than T42p
- it's keyboard base is a bit higher than T42p
- i don't like the HP's 7 shaped end facing you, it cuts into wrists, I much prefer Thinkpad's > shape
- the HPs trackpoint starts hurting your finger after some use but you can order Thinkpad trackpoint collection and replace it. The newer elitebooks have bigger better black trackpoint, HP is learning. It has a trackpad (if that's your thing) but only two mouse buttons (I need 3)
- it has an optical drive which is great for it's size.
- it's very light, feels nice picking it up, overall I liked it
- keyboard is nice though not as nice as Thinkpad

More pics:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3067/285 ... decd_b.jpg
Funny how widescreen has totally redefined small footprint - the Air is exactly as wide as T42p
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3258/285 ... 1997_b.jpg
Apple doesn't cut brightness when unplugged
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3120/285 ... ee52_b.jpg

The new 2530p has the new Elitebook design which ripped off everything from the Macs and Thinkpads - thinklight, usable trackpoint, brushed aluminium - black plastic. I only got my hands on 8730w and I didn't like the new look and feel personally - metal palmrest feels colder than keyboard.

pianowizard · #19 Post by **pianowizard** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:46 pm

Utwig wrote:- the HPs trackpoint starts hurting your finger after some use

I had the HP 2400, the precursor to the 2510p. I don't know if they use the same type of trackpoint, but I didn't like the 2400's because it was too slippery, not because it hurt my finger. The Thinkpad's Classic Dome trackpoint hurts one's finger a lot worse.

Utwig wrote:It has a trackpad (if that's your thing)

One of the main reasons I sold the 2400 was that it didn't have a touchpad. I would have liked the 2510p much more.

Utwig wrote:Funny how widescreen has totally redefined small footprint - the Air is exactly as wide as T42p

The Air's screen is 11.3 x 7 inches, whereas the T42p's is 12 x 9 inches, so the former's screen itself has a much smaller footprint than the latter. It's the Air's thick display bezel that makes the laptop's footprint big. Many current laptops have ridiculously wide display bezels. If Lenovo were still making 15.0" 4:3 Thinkpads, they would probably be wider and taller than your T42p.

Cunha · #20 Post by **Cunha** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 3:00 pm

I dont get the way companies get away with embarrassingly large bezels these days, including lenovo.

That IPS screen looks to have oversaturated colors in comparison to the slightly washed out colors in the X200 TN panel. Pick your poison I guess.

GL

comptiger5000 · #21 Post by **comptiger5000** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:12 pm

They explain the huge bezels as "That's where the antennas go". They don't have to make them quite so big, but the days of T4x and T60 4:3 bezels are gone, like it or not. Wifi, bluetooth, cell modem (without the lump), UWB and all the other antennas just take up a lot of space. And they decided that they could get better signal by putting bluetooth and more stuff in the screen, instead of the laptop body.

#22 Post by **archer6** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:20 pm

pianowizard wrote:The Air's screen is 11.3 x 7 inches, whereas the T42p's is 12 x 9 inches, so the former's screen itself has a much smaller footprint than the latter. It's the Air's thick display bezel that makes the laptop's footprint big. Many current laptops have ridiculously wide display bezels. If Lenovo were still making 15.0" 4:3 Thinkpads, they would probably be wider and taller than your T42p.

For a point of reference I checked mine and here are the footprints:

12.8 x 8.9" MacBook Air

12.4 x 10.1" T42p - 14"

13.2 x 10.6" T60p - 15"

14.3 x 9.8" MacBook Pro

asundstrom · #23 Post by **asundstrom** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:03 am

In response to the comment about color saturation, http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ is a good set of tests to evaluate LCD displays. My Vaio TT display does slightly worse on the contrast test than the T42p (some colors fade together at band 26-32, but none do on the T42p), performs identically in the black levels test (first row of black squares is not visible on either display, but the rest are, and all look different from one another), and of course does worse on the viewing angle test. It also looks more vivid due to the increased brightness and semi-glossy coating. The x200s performed miserably on all of those tests - on the black levels one, only two and a half rows of black squares were visible, and except for the pure white square they all looked the same shade of grey.

Lamentably, I am returning the VAIO as well - the keyboard is very uncomfortable for sustained use and randomly produces a double key output when a single key is pressed. Looks like I'll continue to use this T42p at least until the backlight burns out.

martin255 · #24 Post by **martin255** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 5:04 am

asundstrom, I just tried the test on my X200s. While the results were clearly worse than on my desktop monitor (Dell 2407WFP), it wasn't as bad as what you describe. In particular, in the black level test, the las two squares of the first line are distinguishable from the background. There might be a problem with your X200s display, or I got lucky.

Utwig · #25 Post by **Utwig** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:09 am

T42p is perfect, if they made identical laptop only with only newer chipset, CPU, SATA and GPU I'd buy it.

asundstrom · #26 Post by **asundstrom** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:21 am

Sounds like I just got unlucky with the LCD supplier in my x200s. It's a shame, since with the screen quality you describe it'd be a great laptop. Too bad I can't afford to play the 15% restocking fee lottery over and over until getting a decent display.

#27 Post by **archer6** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:30 am

asundstrom wrote:Sounds like I just got unlucky with the LCD supplier in my x200s. It's a shame, since with the screen quality you describe it'd be a great laptop. Too bad I can't afford to play the 15% restocking fee lottery over and over until getting a decent display.

I'm with you, this an unfortunate situation, and quite frankly the only one of any significance on the X200s. It's also a very frustrating situation for those of us who are long time ThinkPad users / advocates. The x200 is an excellent machine that deserves a better display.

lophiomys · #28 Post by **lophiomys** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 2:59 pm

Utwig wrote:T42p is perfect, if they made identical laptop only with only newer chipset, CPU, SATA and GPU I'd buy it.

Full ACK.

asundstrom · #29 Post by **asundstrom** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:45 pm

After an annoying detour to the RGB-LED backlit Dell M4400 (horrible viewing angles, about as bad as with the x200s) I finally settled on the X200 Tablet with LED backlight and no Multitouch. I'm very pleased with the screen, which is a lot better than the X200s. The keyboard is fantastic, better than both the X200s and my t42p flexview.

Compared to the t42p, the contrast is very slightly worse, but the display is more evenly backlit and much brighter at maximum brightness. On the lagom lcd calibration site, two test patterns in the inverson/pixel-walk test produce flickering on the X200 that do not on the t42p, but my external monitor also produces flickering in the same test patterns and I have not noticed it outside of the lagom test. The grain from the protective tablet coating is noticeable, but not a big deal. The tablet coating also makes images become blurry at extreme viewing angles, so the effective viewing angle is lower than the t42p, but it retains the key IPS attribute of stable colors at normal viewing angles.

I think this is a great machine.

Marin85 · #30 Post by **Marin85** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:49 pm

Could you post some pics of your newly acquired X200t as well? Thanks,

Marin

EDIT: I have to admit I am quite surprised that all somewhat more decent Vaios have better viewing angles than my WUXGA. So, even amongst TN panels, it could get much better...

x200s vs. flexview screen comparison

x200s vs. flexview screen comparison

Re: x200s vs. flexview screen comparison

Re: x200s vs. flexview screen comparison

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