Thinkpads Forum

ThinkRob wrote:
There is no difference in eyestrain caused by the difference between CCFL/LED backlighting, provided that 1) the screen is bright enough to match your current environment 2) you are bright enough to dim it as necessary to match your current environment.

maybe on paper LOL....

I have had 2LED lenovo led screens and side by side with ccfl backlights, it is very obvious to even the casual observer. The led is way harder on the eyes in all of my viewing. I don't think the technology is bad, just lenovos horrible choices. Many of the apple, Sony, and other led screens look fine to me.

Nubulin wrote:
I have had 2LED lenovo led screens and side by side with ccfl backlights, it is very obvious to even the casual observer. The led is way harder on the eyes in all of my viewing. I don't think the technology is bad, just lenovos horrible choices.

That may well be. The panels used in the LED-equipped models are different than those in the CCFL ones, so I certainly can believe that there is a sufficient difference in the contrast ratios of the panels as to account for an increase in eyestrain.

I stand by my statement, however, that the backlighting tech. itself is not the cause of any increased eyestrain.

Oddly enough, the Lenovo website still only offers the x200/200s for sale, however if you go to the "features" tab, they already have the video posted for the x201/201s. Based on the images, it confirms the trackpad is there, low voltage core i5 or i7 processor, but I though it was strange that the maximum battery life went down to 12.2 hours vs. 13.2 hours. I suppose it's just a faster processor?

I didn't notice any other changes...still seems to have the rollcage and magnesium alloy body. I wonder if the x200/x200s will get a huge price drop soon.

EDIT: wow how strange, I must have gone to the site right when it was being updated, as now the x201 and x201s show up for sale right along side the 200/200s

WOW, still no WWAN on the X201s. Lenovo is run by idiots! Why would they not include WWAN on the X201s? It is SPECIFICALLY built for long battery life and ultra-mobility, yet has a 300ft leash to a WiFi hotspot? A ultraportable without the internet is basically useless and if you are going to be near WiFi, why not use a real computer instead of a ultraportable?

I am about done with Lenovo. If there is no WWAN and WXGA+ in the new X201/s, there is little reason to buy Lenovo over many of the other plain vanilla WXGA 12" offerings with better screens and nicer designs.

Nubulin wrote:If there is no WWAN and WXGA+ in the new X201/s...

You can get the X201 with WWAN and the X201s with WXGA+, so technically your requirements should be satisfied.

At this point there is no X201* machine with WWAN and WXGA+, which is kind of stupid. The only possible explanation would be that the WWAN drains so much battery that offering it in the X201s would make no sense. But why no high-res screens in the X201? Some people need the faster processors in the non-s version.

The LED backlight is so bad because of the flickering. As far as I remember from a nother discussion I participated on this forum about that issue, lenovo tricks the user that the display has more colors than it actually has by modulating the frequency.

Ever seen an x30x youtube video and see its display flickering? You'll see that on all video reviews. You never see that on any macbook air video. It is the bad display. I only know of the x300 display, I returned this notebook the next day. Never had such a bad display and I owned lots of other notebooks before. So bad, as this notebook is that light and despite its "holy bezel-tastic" design it is a masterpiece of engineering.

Volker wrote: But why no high-res screens in the X201? Some people need the faster processors in the non-s version.

That is because of marketing. They want you to buy the more expensive s model when you want to have a better display.

Doesn't that only bother some people? The LED screens I've seen haven't offered any better image quality, but I didn't notice any flickering.

About the flickering see Puppys post:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 88#p505588

FredGarvin wrote:Doesn't that only bother some people? The LED screens I've seen haven't offered any better image quality, but I didn't notice any flickering.

I work at a company that is 50% macs so I've seen lots of LED backlit screens. Apple switched MacBook Pros to LED before the unibody models, so you can have two identical looking laptops, one with CCFL, one with LED. The LED one can go dimmer and brighter, that's for sure. Plus no waiting for colours/brightness to stabilize, no mercury, and less power consumption, the usual LED benefits.

One image quality thing that is definitely better on the LED MBPs is the backlight uniformity, as is most obviously seen on a black screen. On the LED screens it isn't obvious where the backlight is located.

All things being equal, I wouldn't expect an image quality improvement comparing similar panels (i.e. both IPS or both PVA), one with CCFL and the other with LED. Plenty of backlight differences though.