Thinkpad and 4:3 LCD

[think.t23]

Is the T61 the last T series Thinkpad available with 4:3 screen?

Just wondering if that is my last chance to get a Thinkpad (new) with a 4:3 screen.

thanks.

[andyP]

IMO it's not possible to say 100%. The general "feeling / rumours / speculation" seem to be that 4:3 screens 14" will "run out" sometime in 2008, possibly as soon as June or July, 15" even sooner. Not knowing what Lenovo has in planning, regarding model changes, no one can give you an accurate answer, maybe there will (not) be a T62 at the start of 2008 with the introduction of Penryn
I would suggest keeping a close eye on the market and jump in when you start getting really nervous.

[think.t23]

yeah, that's what I thought.

On another matter. Do you know if I were to buy a notebook from lenovo.com, do they ship internationally?

[ryengineer]

snip.....On another matter. Do you know if I were to buy a notebook from lenovo.com, do they ship internationally?

No, to place an order from lenovo, please consult european website of it.

[lightweight]

The general "feeling / rumours / speculation" seem to be that 4:3 screens 14" will "run out" sometime in 2008, possibly as soon as June or July, 15" even sooner.

As most every manufacturer moves towards widescreen notebooks, I wonder if one manufacturer will thrive in what will become a 4:3 niche market. Amusingly, perhaps only to me, there was a time where I would have expected IBM to be that manufacturer.

[cb474]

Somewhat related: Is the T61 (and X61 and R51, also I guess) the only 4:3 laptop left, from any manufacturer? I haven't looked around extensively, but I don't seem to see them anywhere else anymore.

Personally I think it's a shame. For working on text or the internet or graphics layout on regular 8 1/2 x 11 formats, I think it's the vertical space that matters. Some of the laptops, like a 12" widescreen, I just don't get.

[Puppy]

Somewhat related: Is the T61 (and X61 and R51, also I guess) the only 4:3 laptop left, from any manufacturer?

No, Panasonic and Fujitsu-Siemens still offers normal 4:3 notebooks. Its Lenovo who is going to leave the business segment with toy-centric notebooks only. I expect round displays in 2010 to complete the mission of idiocy

[whizkid]

I expect round displays in 2010 to complete the mission of idiocy :D

Well your eyes are round, so obviously displays should be as well.

[Troels]

Well your eyes are round, so obviously displays should be as well.

Now, jokes aside, the company i had the most faith in really caring about 4:3 was BOE-Hydis, their product plans were even to develop a 14.1" AFFS SXGA+ LCD, ad a sRGB color space 15" LCD, but the people in the BOE group did not like how much money BOE-Hydis were spending.

If a company should do something similar, it should be backed by a rich and large company like Apple, IBM or M$.
Unfortunately Apple is focused on only aestetics for the most part and not much about technology compared to LCD manufacturer themselves, and M$ is focusing more on the consumer grade LCD products and maximizing profit as i see it - so no room for niche products.
IBM is a corporation where much more research was going on, they even had a display unit business which later formed IDtech. There are numerous reports from them publicly available.. also about the ion beam technology.
But they decided to sell their PC division - but i think it was a huge mistake to leave the LCD business.
Samsung is slacking off now, just look at the amount of complaints with backlight bleed.
With regards to LED backlit, it does not seem to be sponsored much by the LCD screen manufacturers - they get other people to develop it for them.

What to do? Consumers like to pay as little as possible because only GHz and GB and the brand sells a notebook.
Corporations like to maximize their profits, and as the LCD is often the most expensive part, it's where they must save by choosing a cheap WS low-res LCD.

Perhaps IPS Alpha could be of some help... a large joint venture with great experience, but only TV panels
http://www.ips-alpha.co.jp/en/index.html

Perhaps they could produce a 15.4" or a 14.1" WS in respectable quality?

[dietpepsiaddict]

I would find it VERY hard to live without a stard aspect ratio screen. (4:3)

I am STRONGLY against widescreens. I would prefer a 14.1 or 13.3 standard. That is what I am used to, I would find it very very difficult to function with a widescreen.

STANDARD SCREEN ALL THE WAY!!!!!

[pianowizard]

dietpepsiaddict, many people on this forum prefer 4:3 screens but I've never seen anyone as strongly against widescreens as you. Would you elaborate on why you hate widescreens so much? Have you tried getting used to them?

I feel comfortable using both types of screens, although for desktop LCDs, I generally like 4:3 monitors more because they take up less space on my desk.

[ajkula66]

I'm the one who tried getting used to widescreens and it's simply not happening.

No comment on the one used on X300 since I haven't seen it yet, but they are just too painful on my eyes, and dim when compared to an IPS LCD. And for all the simple applications I use (web, office, basic stuff) 4:3 LCDs are much better IMHO.

I'll be taking some pictures over the weekend just to have evidence how pathetic a WSXGA+ LCD of a T60 looks when standing next to a five-year old IPS on an A31p....

[dietpepsiaddict]

I am kinda on Georges side. I try to get used to them by using my teachers Dell Latitude D830, but I just can't. Half the pages are only half the screen, it is very wide and therefore rather heavy, The screen seems to be very cheap since that is what they are going for here, that's thier gig for using the widescreens now. They're cheaper to manufacture, therefore making them less durable and strong.

That's my reasoning.

[qviri]

They're cheaper to manufacture, therefore making them less durable and strong.

If widescreens are cheaper to manufacture than 4:3 screens, wouldn't that mean you'd get more strength for the same price, or equal strength for cheaper?

They're cheaper to make because they're smaller in area. That doesn't necessarily imply costs are also cut in other areas, like durability/strength.

[dietpepsiaddict]

Yeah, I guess your sorta right. I just can't get used to them!
I just detest them, I don't know why. I am just SOOOO used to normal screens that I am very reluctant to change over.

[ulrich.von.lich]

I like the form of 4:3 ThinkPads. I always think they are better looking. Although I've never seen a widescreen ThinkPad in person, they do look less sleeker and even somehow distorted in photos. The extra space to both sides of the keyboard also makes me think they have large footprints.

It's still seem like yesterday when the first widescreen laptop was introduced to the public and it's hard to believe now they have retired almost all the "regular" screens. I think that's because most of people like them. It's good to see some non-widescreen addicts here but I guess there's nothing we can do

[ZaZ]

To me on a 15" notebook it doesn't matter so much as both SXGA+ and WSXGA+ offer 1050 vertical resolution, in which case I'd prefer the better quality of a FlexView over the wide aspect screen. On a 14" notebook where for things like Office and Internet, SXGA+ offers a clear advantage over WXGA+ top to bottom.

All you get is extra white space on the side of WXGA+ and it's not really wide enough to accommodate side by side viewing of documents like WSXGA+. Now, if you watch a lot of movies or something similar, wide may be better. The wide screen's other plus is it's brighter than the standard screens. My R60 is too dim on some of the lower settings to be useful. At higher brightness levels it's good enough, but that cuts into battery life.

[dr_st]

To me on a 15" notebook it doesn't matter so much as both SXGA+ and WSXGA+ offer 1050 vertical resolution, in which case I'd prefer the better quality of a FlexView over the wide aspect screen. On a 14" notebook where for things like Office and Internet, SXGA+ offers a clear advantage over WXGA+ top to bottom.

Here's a true story.

I work at a company where all employees have Thinkpad laptops, which are exchanged about once every 3 years on average. I joined about 9 months ago, when they were giving SXGA+ T60's. A months or so later they started giving WXGA+ T61's. I coudn't believe how lucky I was to join when I did.


All this time the rest of my team still had T42p/T43p's (also SXGA+). Last week word came out that IT will exchange all of their laptops. They were so happy and excited (and for a good reason, because the aging Pentium M CPUs in their machines struggled under the heavy heavy image that our company uses on its laptops).


I was happy for them until they started teasing me with "We're gonna have a better laptop than you". When I calmly pointed out to them that my laptop will still be superior, from reasons that may not be obvious to them, but are to me, I got the "Yeah, right, you're just jealous cause we'll have something newer and better." To which I said nothing, and just waited.


It took less than 15 minutes from the time they received the laptops that all of them started complaining about how the screen was too wide and too short and barely useful.

[cb474]

Somewhat related: Is the T61 (and X61 and R51, also I guess) the only 4:3 laptop left, from any manufacturer?

No, Panasonic and Fujitsu-Siemens still offers normal 4:3 notebooks. Its Lenovo who is going to leave the business segment with toy-centric notebooks only. I expect round displays in 2010 to complete the mission of idiocy

It looks like now it's only Panasonic that continues to offer 4:3 notebooks. And then there was one.

[Moskito]

Panasonic will switch, too. They've already introduced Thoughbooks with wide screen displays.

The problem seems to be that the display manufacturers no longer want to produce 4:3 panels, and well, the notebook manufacturers didn't put up that much of a fight (wide screen can be used as an argument for a new notebook, even if probably 90% would be better without wide screen, because they don't use the notebook mainly for watching movies).
As a result of this, new techniques such as LED displays haven't been introduced for the standard screen displays (though it would be easy to do so for the panel manufacturers) and now that can be used as an argument for switching to 16:10 displays.

Also most people don't realize that there were always high resolution displays available and they are very happy to have a 1280x800 display instead of a 1024x768 and then argue that now with wide screen they've got much more space. But nobody seems interested in the fact that there exist(ed) notebooks with 1400x1050 displays where the switch to wide screen reduces the resolution to 1440x900...



Lenovo should continue to offer standard screen models for the T line (meaning Txx and Txxp respectively their successors (T and W lines)) as those are expected to be the business models.

But if we want to achieve anything, then have to be more people than just me asking for this. I've, once again, written a post in the standard/wide screen thread on the Lenovo forums.
Some backup in the form of other people asking for the continuation of standard screen lines would certainly help:
http://forum.lenovo.com/lnv/board/messa ... rue#M11583

Regards, Moskito

[kunfuchopsticks]

Its Lenovo who is going to leave the business segment with toy-centric notebooks only. I expect round displays in 2010 to complete the mission of idiocy

hahah I leave that to Apple

[Deckard]

dietpepsiaddict, many people on this forum prefer 4:3 screens but I've never seen anyone as strongly against widescreens as you. Would you elaborate on why you hate widescreens so much? Have you tried getting used to them?

I feel comfortable using both types of screens, although for desktop LCDs, I generally like 4:3 monitors more because they take up less space on my desk.

Today, we have received widescreen LCD monitors at the office. 19" Samsung. This is the first time I am actually using a widescreen monitor.

It's a complete waste of space, unless you are using CAD/CAM, Photoshop & Co. or any other design software, where you need a couple of hundreds of buttons and command bars at the top, on the right, on the left or at the bottom of the screen.

For internet and office stuff, widescreen is just a waste of horizontal pixels.

And, if I wanted to use the software mentioned above on the Thinkpad , I'd either connect a 'real' external monitor (24") or go the dual monitor setup anyway.

I don't hate widescreen, I just find it useless for my needs.

[mybellyisempty]

But nobody seems interested in the fact that there exist(ed) notebooks with 1400x1050 displays where the switch to wide screen reduces the resolution to 1440x900...

I tend to believe that the vast majority of the people that come here are a little more intelligent than the standard fare of computer users.

That being said, I find it strange that you chose WXGA+, 1440x900, as the wide screen equivalent to SXGA+'s 1400x1050, rather than the actual WSXGA+ resolution of 1680x1050.

At least, if you're going to be naysay about widescreen, be fair and accurate.




Incidentally, I'm 100% widescreen until next week, when I get a used D610 w/ a 14" XGA. for $200 shipped, I can settle for a lower resolution.

While I certainly do not disagree with the vertical advantages of 4:3, I couldn't wait to go back to the 1680x1050 I first enjoyed with my Acer Ferrari 4005 after using my T43's 1400x1050. As soon as I had the money, I had a widescreen T60 in WSXGA+, and when my dad's laptop failed on him I gave him my T60 for my T61p w/ WUXGA.

I won't miss 4:3. I might miss the drop in weight a bit, but I personally find the benefits to outweigh (no pun intended) the drawbacks.

[kunfuchopsticks]

Note from Admin: deleted excessive, nested quoting.

Yeah a Widesceen is good for things you mentioned, but I also find it very usefull for web browsing. You can have more tabs!

[GomJabbar]

But nobody seems interested in the fact that there exist(ed) notebooks with 1400x1050 displays where the switch to wide screen reduces the resolution to 1440x900...

That being said, I find it strange that you chose WXGA+, 1440x900, as the wide screen equivalent to SXGA+'s 1400x1050, rather than the actual WSXGA+ resolution of 1680x1050.

At least, if you're going to be naysay about widescreen, be fair and accurate.

I agree with Moskito here for the simple fact that WSXGA+ has never been an option on 14.1" ThinkPad displays (at least on the T-Series - haven't looked at the others). AFAIK, the only options ever offered on modern ThinkPad 14.1" displays have been: XGA, SXGA+, WXGA and WXGA+. That translates to two resolutions offered for the 4:3 models and two resolutions offered for the widescreen models.

IMO we are being sold a bill of goods with these widescreen displays.

[gator]

I agree with Moskito here for the simple fact that WSXGA+ has never been an option on 14.1" ThinkPad displays (at least on the T-Series - haven't looked at the others).

In fact, WSXGA+ does not exist on ANY 14.1" laptop as of today. Since WXGA+ is the best you can get on 14.1", it is only fair that we compare it with SXGA+, the best we have on 4:3 14" screens.

I am one of those 'old minded' youngins that preferes a 4:3 laptop much much more than widescreens for work. Even for watching movies my 15" T60 is excellent esp because of the IPS screen. I am trying hard to adapt to widescreens (have a work given Dell D420) but it is really painful ... I don't take the '2 windows side by side' arguement for widescreens simply because I don't get the point ... without increasing resolution on a 14", it does NOT make sense to lose the vertical screen footprint.

15.4" WUXGA has increased resolution going for it compared to UXGA, but I'll never buy a 15" widescreen because they are too huge to handle, carry and use.

Sony is going to be releasing true 16:9 laptops with centrino 2. They have a 13.3" 1600*900 screen in one of them ... which is even better than the WXGA+ we have onthe 13.3" X300.

[mybellyisempty]

That may be that it's not being offered in a 14" model...I certainly hadn't considered Lenovo's choice in this matter. I was simply responding to 1440x900 being presented as the "equivalent" alternative to 1400x1050, rather than Lenovo's presented replacement.

That being said, a 14" widescreen has the same vertical height as what, a 12"?

I know the 15.4" 16:10 screen is relatively the same height as a 14" 4:3 (actually, a bit smaller than the 14"). So, what is the 14" 16:10 similar to in vertical height?

Unfortunately, and maybe this is more to the point, a 14" 4:3 is in no way similar to the 14" 16:10, and shouldn't be judged as such when dissimilar resolutions are in play.

[Moskito]

@mybellyisempty
I just wrote that there were models available with 1400x1050 where now only 1440x900 is available.
And as several people already wrote, there's no WSXGA+ offered for the 14" ws models, so the highest resolution available for a 14" ws Thinkpad is 1440x900 compared to the 1400x1050 which was available before.


All the things about the height are just theoretical and have nothing to do with the "real" live. What you're calculating is the height of the panel but that doesn't have to be linear to the height of the whole display.
Best prove for this is:
http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/34779.jpg

A 12" X200 and a 12" X61.

As you can see, the height of the X200 is almost the same as the height of the X200 due to its very large display bezel. Basically the X200, being the official successor of the x61 and the smallest Thinkpad offered by Lenovo now, is larger than the x61 without any gain on display space due to its large display bezel. The larger resolution could have been achieved as well by offering a 1280x960 display for the X61, which would probably have the same dpi as the panel in the X200.
All they did was increasing the width of the notebook.


So, what was your point for wide screen again?

Regards, Moskito

[gator]

The larger resolution could have been achieved as well by offering a 1280x960 display for the X61, which would probably have the same dpi as the panel in the X200.
All they did was increasing the width of the notebook.

Excellent point. I wonder why we saw only XGA or SXGA+ in recent thinkpads. An SXGA (1280 * 1024) would have been a great upgrade for a 4:3 X series thinkpad.

[pianowizard]

An SXGA (1280 * 1024) would have been a great upgrade for a 4:3 X series thinkpad.

Sri, I'm sure that was just a typo since you are a veteran on this forum. 1280x1024 has a 5:4 aspect ratio and the 770X/770Z were the only Thinkpads I know of that used such a resolution. So, I bet you meant 1280x960, which is 4:3. BTW, both 1280x1024 and 1280x960 are SXGA. Confusing!