Monitor color - T23 vs. T42

[Double Down]

Are the monitors the same on the T23 and T42 models? More specifically do they display colors the same way?

[jdhurst]

I have had a T23, T30 and now a T41, and the colours display the same way on all of them. The T41 has a brighter monitor, but the colour rendition is the same on all of them so far as I can see. ... JD Hurst

[beeblebrox]

The T2x series has a different display, more yellow teint.
The T4x (SXGA) has a more blue/white teint.
Colors are different. I can clearly see it when putting both notebooks side by side. Both screens are about 1 year old.

The T4x screen is far brighter than the T2x screen.

[Double Down]

Thanks for the replies. Will the T42 monitor display color similar to the lcd on my Dell desktop? There's a big difference between the color display on my T23 and my desktop.

[K. Eng]

It's hard to say without knowing what kind of T42 you are getting and what model of Dell LCD you have.

I've got a T40, and the XGA display on it sucks compared to my Dell UltraSharp 1703FP. Brightness, contrast, color reproduction, and response time are vastly inferior.

You'd need to get a ThinkPad with a FlexView display to match the quality of desktop panels, and even then the display won't be as bright simply because of power usage constraints.

The T40 LCD has a more bluish tint than the T23, but brightness, viewing angle, and contrast have not improved one bit. I suspect that IBM purposely put dim screens in these machines to extend the battery life. The D600 I had before had a much brighter screen, but the battery life was a good hour and a quarter shorter, even with both batteries rated the same (48 Watt/hrs).

[maciej]

The T2x series has a different display, more yellow teint.
The T4x (SXGA) has a more blue/white teint.
Colors are different. I can clearly see it when putting both notebooks side by side. Both screens are about 1 year old.

The T4x screen is far brighter than the T2x screen.

I totally agree with you. I have T22 (resolution: 1400x1050) and T42p (res. 1600x1200) and my opinion about that problem is strictly the same.

[beeblebrox]

K.Eng. - I am not sure what users expect from a display. They want long battery life and a super bright screen. Unless you use esoteric technology such as OLEDS etc. you always will have a tradeoff. The displays nowadays are quite the same in terms of transmission. So all the difference in brightness is the illumination. The highest efficiency today is the cold cathode ray tube. Those things just burn out after a while (physics) and change color (physics). You want brighter screens? Put in 2 tubes (Sony), sure, but then they suck up twice as much current.

A car can have 200 or 400 horsepowers. using a V4 or V8 engine. The tank lasts for 300 miles or 150 miles. It depends on what you want to do.

Since the T40 is used as a business notebook, und business user's primary concern was real working time, I think the conclusion is a battery saving screen.
You want multimedia? Surely you want to get another notebook with a multimedia screen.
You want both? Get the flexview, which is a compromise, nothing else. Mediocre battery life and mediocre screen. Neither fish nor flesh.
I think that's life. Maybe OLED screens will solve the contradiction of battery life and great screen.

[mdarnton]

You can make any screen any color you want by digging through the screen properties menus. I do a lot of very color critical work (shouldn't even be using a laptop, but I do), and every laptop I've ever used (HP, Compaq, Sony, IBM, and a couple of others) has come from the factory set too blue--check the menu bars, if you have a neutral color scheme set, and you can see this blue cast pretty obviously. The main difference I'm finding between my IBM T41 and my other computers is that the color saturation is lower--much more natural, in fact--than the other computers and screens, LCD and tube, that I'm using.

[Double Down]

You can make any screen any color you want by digging through the screen properties menus.

I tried adjusting it so they were closer with little success. The T23 renders green colors so much different than the Dell I couldn't even get close without messing up the red and blue.

[edbatista]

I have a T23 2647-6KU, bought in 2001, and the display was fine--for about three years. Mid-2004 it died and had to be replaced by IBM. (Thank God for on-site service.) The replacement has one missing pixel in the center of the screen, but is otherwise superb--extremely bright, and battery life's very good (~4.5 hours? Almost an entire cross-country flight.)

I just bought a certified reconditioned T40 2374-72U, and the display is much dimmer. It's OK--I can use it fine. But when you put it side-by-side with my old T23, it's like night and day--the replacement in the 23 is just much better.

Finally, my wife has an A30, bought in 2002, and the display seems to be a little better than the T40, not nearly as good as the T23.

[darrenf]

-edbatista,

Did you compare brightness while the T40 was plugged in? Out of the box the BIOS will dim the screen on battery, even when set to 7 bars (max brightness) . It took me a while to figure this out so I thought mine was broken compared with two other T-series (they were running on AC while I was on battery).

-darren

[beeblebrox]

edbatista -

I completely agree with you. The screen of my old T20 went dim and spotty after 3 years. IBM replaced it about 1 year ago, and the new screen was dramatically better than the old one. Much brighter and text was much crisper. To my surprise, the screen has not changed a bit during heavy usage in one year.

My conclusion: IBM has not used an old screen from inventory, but used a new one with newest technology.

I recently saw on old IBM T21, and could not believe that the difference is that huge.
3 years of continuous R&D on LCD screens has really paid off.
This alone would be a reason for me not to suggest buying an old refurbished notebook, but rather a 1 year old one.