Thinkpads Forum

Well my X220i arrived recently and I spent a few days playing it with it alongside my 11.6" MacBook Air. Today it went back to JR (Amazon) and I placed an order for an X220 in the Lenovo Outlet.

The reason was the display. The X220i display was perfectly fine, a normal laptop display no better or worse than the ThinkPad TN panels I had in the old days. The problem is, the TN panel on my MacBook Air is so vastly superior that the X220i display just bothered me.

My new X220 was actually a better deal, $840 with a 128GB SSD (not the Intel, oh well), 9 cell battery, the high-end Core i5, and most importantly, the IPS display.

I wonder, will the IPS display make the TN panel on my MacBook Air look bad?

The x220i with IPS is at least for me a better solution than the Air. I put lot of unused stuff out of the notebook and with the 4 cell battery it weights now 1.212 kg. The new 11 inch air is a little less than 1.1 kg.

asiafish wrote:I wonder, will the IPS display make the TN panel on my MacBook Air look bad?

That's a question only you can answer, and I will be very happy to hear your thoughts on the matter once you get the new machine. Indeed the TN panels on the Macbooks are considered better than the average TN.

asiafish wrote:I wonder, will the IPS display make the TN panel on my MacBook Air look bad?

Can't they both be good?

FredGarvin wrote: Can't they both be good?

I sure hope so.

dr_st wrote: That's a question only you can answer, and I will be very happy to hear your thoughts on the matter once you get the new machine. Indeed the TN panels on the Macbooks are considered better than the average TN.

Thats been my experience. I went from a T400 with LED backlight to a MacBook Pro in 2008 and the Apple machine had a much better display. Better color, better contrast, more uniform backlighting and better viewing angles. Both were TN panels. Subsequent APple machines have even better displays, with the one on my current 2010 15" MacBook Pro (matte, high-res) by far the best laptop display I have ever owned (I've never had a FlexView ThinkPad).

MacBook Airs typically have display quality as good as MacBook Pro or better, though the new form factor from 2010 (unchanged in the 2011 models) brought higher pixel density, the panels remain about the same quality as the old ones (very good), while the regular MacBook Pro has since gotten better. Current MacBook Airs don't have full 24 bit color like MacBook Pros do, but they do have excellent color within their bit depth limits, and have great viewing angles and contrast.

As I said before, the MacBook Air has much better display quality than the standard X200i TN display. I've heard nothing but praise for the IPS displays and enjoy the IPS panel on my iPad, so I'm guessing this IPS X220 will be even better, perhaps better than my MacBook Pro.

I would say its on par with apple screens.

illini71 wrote:I would say its on par with apple screens.

Good to know. I just wish it would ship sooner than the 9/7 indicated. Makes no sense, it is from the outlet.