IBM A-20p display brightness has soured, maybe, not sure.

[davidashaw]

I bought an A-20p about 4 years ago and I have a concern with the brightness of the display. After about 2 years or so, the display appeared to have dimmed a bit. I then purchased a Dell Inspiron 8100 with the flexview screen and (wow) I could really see a difference. You would have thought the A-20p was on battery power and had almost no color at all as the color looked so washed out as compared to the Dell. I disregarded it at the time, thinking that the Dell just had a superior display due to the flexview technology. After 6 months, I could not stand to use the Dell (inferior to IBM) computer any longer and ordered a ThinkPad T-40p. The 14" screen is, of course, not flexview, but I had to either admire the brightness and color rich display of the T-40p or consider that there was something wrong with the display on my A-20p. The difference in viewing the 2 displays was significant. With both displaying 1400 x 1050 resolution, should the difference be that significant? Has the display technology (non-flexview) improved that much over a period of just a couple of years? Of course, the video card is better in the T-40p, however the ATi card in the A20p was the top of the line in it's time. I use to use my A20p outdoors from time to time. Can the brightness of the sun affect future performance? Are there any enhancements that I can do to my A-20p display short of replacing it? Can the backlighting of the display be replaced, possibly with new and improved (brighter) backlighting? Other than the display, the remainder of the computer functions perfectly. I've upgraded the memmory and DVD/CD-RW. the keyboard feels better than that of my T-40p and I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this thing is built like a rock.
Thanks,
David