ThinkPad X61 vs. Dell XPS M1330

[vkyr]

Boe Hydis in march 07 started to produce a 12,1" widescreen TFT-display HV121XWX5 with a resolution of 1280x800 pixels in mass. This panel is an AFFS panel with LED backlighting. When just using 2.64 W the LED backlighting of the panel is said to have a luminance of 220cd/m² (nits). The viewing angles are -thanks to AFFS- good with 160° vertical and 160° horizontal.

The Power-Booster for every of the 12 in row connected LEDs is directly integrated into the display. The lightingunit has 4 rows per 12 LEDs. The display has just one plug-connector for the display logic and backlighting together. One advantage of the LED-backlighting is its smaller needed size, thus the panel is mostly only 3.95 mm thick, only at the area where the circuit board for the elektronic is placed it reaches a thickness of 6.5 mm. The display has a standard 6-Bit per color LVDS-input with an EDID-interface for the communication of the displaydata.

[snife]

So you would go for the Dell Snife?

Personally no I would not, i value being abe to navigate a system above everything else and I know that nothing allows me to work faster than a ThinkPad TrackPoint. Saying that though, colour reporduction is not that important to me, when I design for the web, I always test on numerous monitors anyway and when I design for print, I always use pantone refereneces. I am also of the opinion that, while glossy screens do look more vivid, I think they are unusable for anything other than watching a dvd in the dark due to the reflections.

I'd personally go with the SXGA+ X61 Tablet which I feel are really good screens, however, you have not really stated why the features your talking about matter to you so maybe this may make a difference. I'm assuming though that by going for an ultraportable, your planning on using the system when out and about which would rule out having to use an external mouse and not being able to see whats on your screen.

There will never be LED backlights for X6* models, they will be on new models.

A non tablet AFFS panel would be easy to produce, it would require very little re-tooling by the manufacturer so given X series ship volumes i'm sure it could be done, however, it would mean Lenovo relying on one supplier which they are probably not keen to do again.

Disclaimer; I am, and always have been a Dell hater so my opinion is biased. However, I have given several Dells a fair chance, and while they are improving, I've not found one I could use on a permanent basis.

[vkyr]

Related to the general glare vs. matt panel debate, I'am personally also biased and would clearly vote always for good quality matt panels in favour of any glare panels.

In the glare panel segment I only know a few panels, which I would rate to have really better surface coatings, color quality and higher luminances etc. And these sort of glare panels are mostly those, which are used in the more expensive than usual specific Sony notebook models. Those higher price by Sony assembled panels, even they are glare panels, have still some anti-reflection coatings on their surface and thus do not glare as much as other common consumer glare panels. Further these panels have also a higher luminance, which also compensates a little bit of the glare effect.

However, as said initially I would still always prefer a matt (anti-glare) panel, especially if it would meet some better quality than usually. - So my main concerns with the common X-series Thinkpads (except the tablets) is, that for their overhigh european pricings, the matt 12" XGA panels offered for them, aren't very spectacular in many aspects and do thus fall more into the cheap and weak category of matt panels. - So actually only some of the panels used by the X6x Tablets are of overall better quality and some of them are also available in higher resolutions than XGA, which might be thus more worth to somehow justify the higher prices of the X-series in some countries.

But to say the truth, actually I would feel like a fool to pay over €2000 in europe for any X-series Thinkpad, if the same Thinkpad hardware costs just 2/3 or half the price in the USA and some other countries.

[tomh009]

Boe Hydis in march 07 started to produce a 12,1" widescreen TFT-display HV121XWX5 with a resolution of 1280x800 pixels in mass. This panel is an AFFS panel with LED backlighting. When just using 2.64 W the LED backlighting of the panel is said to have a luminance of 220cd/m² (nits). The viewing angles are -thanks to AFFS- good with 160° vertical and 160° horizontal.

That surely will not fit the current X61 models, though -- and that was the point: there are no 12.1" (4:3) AFFS panels available on the market, bar the tablet panels.

[vkyr]

...
That surely will not fit the current X61 models, though -- and that was the point: there are no 12.1" (4:3) AFFS panels available on the market, bar the tablet panels.

That info was first of all meant as a forecast for the possible future, ...let's say for a widescreen X-series model with a possible LED backlighting, which seems to be something some people would like to see coming one day.

Beside that, there is an Boe Hydis HV121X02 12" XGA AFFS model available, which is not meant for TabletPCs, but instead for industrial environments. But I highly doubt it would fit for the X-series.

[vkyr]

Apropos, where we previously talked about better TFT panels, brightness, matt vs. glare etc. Here is the visable difference between matt and glare panels under the same lighting consitions inside a conference room:

(glare) ---> http://www.heise.de/bilder/78425/1/1
(matt) ---> http://www.heise.de/bilder/78425/2/1


I just looked over this review here...

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Lenov ... 138.0.html

...where a X61T with the XGA TFT panel was reviewed and was disappointed about the luminance value of an only average 110.3 cd/m² (nit). From 9 measured different sections on the panel, the highest in the bottom left corner was just 119.1 cd/m². - Well, that's pretty bad no matter if used inside or outside for a panel which comes otherwise with fine viewing angles and a good black value.

Also the usual X60s/X61s TFT panels are -sadly said- pretty dim, look at the panel measurements of a X60s with the usual XGA panel here (this time in english)...

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-IBM ... 445.0.html

All in all most of the X-series notebooks and also some of the tablets would benefit for sure if they would be supplied in the future (for the next X-series generations) with some better and more luminant panels.

[snife]

I'm assuming the tablet they tested (i didn't really read the article) was the multitouch so had 150nits quoted brightness rather than the 190nits quoted brightness of the SXGA+ panels. I'd also be dubious on these tests versus real world usage as the filters on both these panels use environmental light to actually improve the brightness of the display (due to the way the light is reflected), brightness testing apparatus would not be able to measure such an improvement.

[vkyr]

They didn't named exactly which XGA panel or model it was and since they didn't talked about any multitouch capabilities, but named a price of 2800 Euro, I think it's the usual by Lenovo with 155 nits advertized X61T model.

Some other vendors have assembled more contrast rich and luminant panels into their Tablets, like for example the R400...

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Tos ... 099.0.html

...which is in most points superiour, but doesn't reach the same viewing angle quality.

However, no matter which X-series Thinkpads you look at, most of them (except those with an UltraLight panel maybe) have pretty dim screens and by far don't reach the by IBM/Lenovo Tabook etc. advertized marketing blabla luminance values. Thus I also doubt that the X61T SXGA+ panel will ever reach a luminance of 190 nits, even it might be better usable in-/outdoors than the other X61T XGA screen models.

[tomh009]

However, no matter which X-series Thinkpads you look at, most of them (except those with an UltraLight panel maybe) have pretty dim screens and by far don't reach the by IBM/Lenovo Tabook etc. advertized marketing blabla luminance values.

Note that those specifications are provided by the panel manufacturers themselves (ie TMD, Boe Hydis etc) and Lenovo simply uses those panels' specifications in the ThinkPad specifications -- pretty standard industry practice.

[vkyr]

I know and it's pretty much the same like with advertized battery runtime specs and so on. - However, many of the used panels could be still brighter if Lenovo would drive their backlights with slightly more voltage, but they usually don't drive them with this much voltage in order to reach overall better battery runtimes.

I still hope they will do something here in this direction for future X-series models in order to enhance the overall panel quality.