Thinkpad T500 LCD options

[r3dplanet]

Hello.

I run a very active IT outfit and I've been an avid Thinkpad enthusiast for many years. On the side, I also buy and rebuild pre-Windows 8/10 Thinkpads (T430/T530 variants) for my clients who want a good notebook.

My own personal Thinkpad is a T500 that I built entirely out of spare parts and it's served me well for many years.

Recently I decided to swap my low resolution 1280x800 screen with a high res version so I bought a 44C9614 1920x1200 panel to replace it. I didn't realize at the time that I had the only LCD panel for the T500 that was LED backlit. Whoops. Anyway, this new panel is awful. The resolution is great but it's quite dim and the viewing angles are terrible.

So I can see that the LCD panel matrix (http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/TFT_display) shows two other panels with slightly better brightness levels (200 vs 175 cd/m2) with resolutions of 1680x1050, which is perfectly fine for me.

My question is whether anyone knows whether the LG/Philips model (LP154W02-TL10 / 42T0423) is any better than the Samsung model (LTN154P3-L02 / 42T0488) or vice versa.

Thanks.

[RealBlackStuff]

I don't know which WSXGA+ panel is better, but usually any Samsung screen is heavily frowned upon.

But I DO know that there are awesome WUXGA panels (1920x1200) around:
Sharp LQ154M1LW2A or LQ154M1LW02 (they are CCFL).
Those are/were used in several DELL laptops, they look like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/330844889748
You'll notice the two metal brackets on top, and the inverter below that panel.
Those need to be cut off (the upper two "shortened" to ca. 3mm is OK) without twisting the metal edge around the screen.
After that, it's a drop-in replacement in any 15.4" T60/T61/R60/R61/T500/R500 and possibly other 16:10 machines with CCFL.
You can reuse the Lenovo inverters.

In your case, you'll need to swap the LED LCD-cable for a CCFL LCD-cable and get an inverter.

[r3dplanet]

Wow!

That's incredibly useful information. I'm very thankful!

I'll order one of those and report back with some photos.

Thanks a million.

-m.

[r3dplanet]

Okay. As promised I'm back with some results. The new LCD panel arrived today and with some careful masking and Dremel work I was able to easily install the new panel.

I'd like to show the results but I can't seem to figure out how to upload images. Am I missing something?

[RealBlackStuff]

The forum does not have such an option.
So upload your pictures to the likes of Imgur, TinyPic, Photobucket etc.
Then post the links to those pictures here.