New Wider Displays 16x9 on W510... No Thanks Lenovo !!!

[JSSmith]

My worst fears came true this week. Lenovo announced all their new 15in Thinkpads: All models have the New 15.6" (16 x 9) wide screens... vs the previous 15.4" (16 x 10) form factor. What are you thinking - Lenovo. We are predominantly business users needing height more than width. 16 x 10 Widescreen was plenty wide - 16 x 9 is ridiculous.

I was considering the W510 but will now wait patiently for all the complaints to influence Lenovo to return to the 15.4" (16x10) form factor... I hope their Sales suffer big time until they come to their senses... the sooner the better. I don't want to have to wait more than a year with my T61 (2007).

Those who agree - Please Comment (Let our voices be heard)

[gaphic2]

Couldn't agree more. I'm nursing my IPS T60p as well.

On German sites sellers are offering a W510 with a 15.6" WUXGA (1920x1200) LED but that doesn't make sense. Could be a typo.

I'm tired of hearing notebook assemblers use the same argument over and over again. They always blame the panel manufacturers. I just don't get the glass efficiency argument. When the 4:3 IPS displays were produced the cutting efficiency rates were high as well.

[Harryc]

(Let our voices be heard)

By who? You're basically singing to the choir here...the site is owned and operated voluntarily and privately by Thinkpad enthusiasts. No Lenovo employees visit this forum.

[mybellyisempty]

While I'd personally prefer the higher resolution of a 16:10, I'm going to be a dissenting voice and say I'm looking forward to the new screen.

That being said, I'm looking at it as an upgrade from 1680x1050 to 1920x1080, so I will get more pixels.

But, the real difference maker that has me interested is the LED backlight, increased brightness, and color gamut.



Don't get me wrong, I'm generally against 16:9...but if I gain something worthwhile, I can accept it. I'm more concerned about the increase in physical size and weight...but if it gets me a quad core with 8gb of RAM that doesn't kill my wallet (4x2 is comparatively cheap compared to 2x4)...that seems like a worthy upgrade from my W500.


I already have a quote in and am waiting to hear back on the costs of the 3 year warranty and ultrabay slim costs...then I'll want to see a review, then I'm kissing what will likely end up $2400 good bye.

[yak]

If you have a 15.4" WUXGA 1920x1200 ThinkPad then you definitely will be disappointed. For everyone else, the 1920x1080 95% gamut high nit LED display is an upgrade.

Still, if I were to upgrade my 14.1" SXGA+ (1400x1050) T60, I probably would went with WXGA+ (1440x900) T410 as T/W510 are desptop replacements for me and I want something between power and portability (and I have an external monitor for long sessions).

[dr_st]

I was considering the W510 but will now wait patiently for all the complaints to influence Lenovo to return to the 15.4" (16x10) form factor... I hope their Sales suffer big time until they come to their senses...

Lenovo has nothing to do with this. You should complain to the LCD panel manufacturers. They caused the move to 16:9, and all manufacturers are forced to comply or be stuck without suppliers / spare parts.

DELL's new 15" Latitude series (E6510) are also going to be 16:9, and I bet HP's business models will follow suit.

[emeraldgirl08]

Wow! I thought it was a strange feeling to use a 14" WXGA+ screen for the first time. It's fine for me but I can definitely see why people like 4:3 screens. When I switch from the 14" widescreen to the R51e 4:3 screen there is a big difference in available vertical space! It seems as if we're stuck with this widescreen trend for the time being! It's a good thing that older Thinkpads are great to refurbish and are not too terribly expensive!

[proaudioguy]

Couldn't agree more. I'm nursing my IPS T60p as well.

On German sites sellers are offering a W510 with a 15.6" WUXGA (1920x1200) LED but that doesn't make sense. Could be a typo.

I'm tired of hearing notebook assemblers use the same argument over and over again. They always blame the panel manufacturers. I just don't get the glass efficiency argument. When the 4:3 IPS displays were produced the cutting efficiency rates were high as well.

A 1920x1080 16x9 is far better than a lower res 16x10. At least you can have 2 pages open side by side. Obviously a 16x10 rotated 90 degrees on it's side makes the most sense for business users since you can view most if not all of a document page without scrolling. I can't ever see that happening on a laptop.

[JSSmith]

Aspect Ratios on 15.x inch Thinkpads (Over Time)
4 x 3 @ 1600 x 1200 ... 15"
16x10 @ 1680 x 1050 ... 15.4" Lost 150 Pixels in Height, Gained 80 Pixels in width = OK
16x 9 @ 1600 x 900 ... 15.6" Lost another 150 Pixels in Height (300 Pixels Total Lost) = Too Wide
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
16 x 9 @ 1920 x 1080 ... a little to small for many on a 15.x inch Display

My Preference (Business use) is definitely 15.4" with 1680 x 1050 (16 x 10 AR) WSXGA+... I want my extra 150 pixels in height
Some of us don't watch movies on our thinkpads

By the way, the T410 is still 14.1" (16 x 10 AR) with an optional upgrade to a 1440 x 900 (WXGA+) from a standard 1280 x 800 (WXGA) Display.

[pianowizard]

Lenovo has nothing to do with this. You should complain to the LCD panel manufacturers. They caused the move to 16:9

Did any of the LCD manufacturers announce that they will soon stop making 16:10 screens? I don't recall any such announcement.

For me, the only instance where 16:9 is better than other aspects ratios is 1366x768 on 10.1" or 11.6" netbooks, because these netbooks need to be as small as possible. Such a wide resolution makes the computer wide enough for a bigger keyboard while not making the machine too deep. For 12.1" and up (which are so big that I don't want to carry them around much anyway), I am more or less equally happy with 4:3 or 16:10, but would try to avoid 16:9 for as long as I can.

[dr_st]

Did any of the LCD manufacturers announce that they will soon stop making 16:10 screens? I don't recall any such announcement.

They don't announce these things to the public generally, but here's something:
http://www.displaysearch.com/cps/rde/xc ... by9_PR.asp

[proaudioguy]

I would still prefer a 4x3 most of the time for a given pixels per inch. Alas, we are the only ones that care. I am just happy to have no gloss on my screen.

[gaphic2]

Lenovo has nothing to do with this. You should complain to the LCD panel manufacturers. They caused the move to 16:9, and all manufacturers are forced to comply or be stuck without suppliers / spare parts.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't cut any ice with me. We've got the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers to thank for the 16:9 standard.

Why monitor and notebook panels have to have the same aspect ratio as TV's is a mystery to me. After all, it's not like TV, monitor and notebook panels are cut out of one and the same large glass substrate. They all have separate production lines.

Wider displays with less height will of course give a larger diagonal while having less surface, and so they are cheaper to make. That means notebook manufacturers can claim to sell 'larger screens' while keeping the prices down. The usual marketing lies.

Slightly OT: why is Lenovo able to offer an 'outdoor visible, enhanced multitouch, 270 nits, 500:1 contrast, 1280x800' IPS panel on its 12.1" X200? Where does this leave Matt Kohut's comments "IPS is not coming back". It sounds as these are new generation IPS panels. Just imagine if they told the manufacturer to make some less cuts: a wonderful 1600x1285 screen with a 5:4 aspect ratio! I'd gladly put my T60p into retirement for one of those.

[dr_st]

The question here is not who to thank for the standard, and what marketing lies have been and will be made.

My point, which you seemingly ignored, is that it is not the laptop manufacturers, but the LCD panel manufacturers who determine what is available. And they don't ask the laptop manufacturers' opinions.

Your disagreement with it does not make it any less true.

And tablet LCD market is not the same as notebook LCD market, is not the same as desktop LCD market, is not the same as TV LCD market, is not the same as embedded LCD market. Which is why it is perfectly possible for certain technologies which are all but extinct in one sector to be prevalent in others.

[JSSmith]

According to this lengthy discussion on a Lenovo Blog, all the Panel Manufacturers require is a 15K Unit/Quantity OEM Order - to secure any size/grade of LCD Panels... If True, surely Lenovo could meet this 15K requirement for a high end business Model (i.e. W5xx).

Lenovo... Some of us are quite disappointed (Please - No 16x9 AR for Business Laptops). Only time will determine the winner (the Panel & Laptop Manufacturers or US - the Consumers)

http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=220

[gaphic2]

My point, which you seemingly ignored, is that it is not the laptop manufacturers, but the LCD panel manufacturers who determine what is available. And they don't ask the laptop manufacturers' opinions.

I do understand what you're saying. But surely it is a question of price. At the moment, the panel makers seem to be able to make more profit by cutting up their IPS substrates into smaller screens for smartphones and automotive applications.

So if laptop makers offered them a bit more, they'd be only too happy to produce larger screens. What I don't get is why notebook manufacturers don't think they can shift these premium screens. It's not like they haven't asked extra money before: a couple of years ago you had to pay more if you wanted a glossy screen, and now you have to fork out a bonus for a matte one.

And that brings me back to cynical marketing and the highly cyclical nature of these things. The next generation thinkpads or the one after that will almost certainly have OLED panels (although I hope not glossy and transparent - have you seen the samsung demo notebook?), and the folks that are getting W510's now will have to whip out their wallets once again.

[dr_st]

Forgive me for selecting specific parts of your quote, but these are the parts to which I'd like to reply.

I do understand what you're saying. But surely it is a question of price....
So if laptop makers offered them a bit more, they'd be only too happy to produce larger screens.

It's not that simple. Panel manufacturers don't produce panels by the hundreds, but by hundreds of thousands. Mass producing the same product in an established process is the only way to make any profit in today's world of technology. In fact, I recall Matt Kohut (I think it was him) mentioning that panel manufacturers barely make any profit at all.

Just like Intel does not go and ask the OEMs "what processors would you like", but rather comes and says "this is our line-up, these are the prices, pick what you want from it", the panel makers present the same choices to the notebook / desktop screen makers.

And they are not going to change this process to produce just a few thousands (or tens of thousands, at best) of premium or special-order panels, from a specific manufacturer. Or if they do agree to produce a special batch, the production overhead price will be so high, that it won't be "just a little more". I am not a product analyst, I cannot say how more. But probably much more than the difference used to be in the times when IPS was available.

So the only way a move like this can be worthwhile to the end-user, is if several laptop OEMs join to order a number of units that would make it worthwhile to the panel makers. And in a world where 90% of the people don't care about their screen being 15.6" or 15.4", 16:9 or 4:3, matte or glossy, it is not very likely.

Sad, I agree. But I just see no reason to blame Lenovo for not going out of their way to battle certain industry tendencies. There are plenty of other things to blame them for.

[gaphic2]

Yes, of course. Lenovo can't act alone in this. The X200 panel is probably in a number of Dell and Sony models as well.

This year about 300 million computers will be sold, more than half of those are netbooks and notebooks. Let's say your 10% is right. That means at least 15 million units of premium panels.

I rest my case.

[dr_st]

Yes, of course. Lenovo can't act alone in this. The X200 panel is probably in a number of Dell and Sony models as well.

The X200 tablet panel is in tablets only. And there won't be 300 million tablets sold this year. Again, notebooks and netbooks are a different sector.

[w0qj]

I've put in a comparison of pixels per inch of different recent Thinkpads here:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 47#p551547

[Greg Gebhardt]

These wide screens are all about money. All the MFGs are trying to tell us we need these wide but squat screens and the real reason is it is cheaper to produce! Lenovo is tryiong to compete with everyone else and with only a few screen makers, they are all in the same wide but squat boat!

[Marin85]

Oh I didn´t see this thread earlier. Otherwise I would have added my little rant on the new 16:9 laptop screens ratio here

[Crunch]

My worst fears came true this week. Lenovo announced all their new 15in Thinkpads: All models have the New 15.6" (16 x 9) wide screens... vs the previous 15.4" (16 x 10) form factor. What are you thinking - Lenovo. We are predominantly business users needing height more than width. 16 x 10 Widescreen was plenty wide - 16 x 9 is ridiculous.

I was considering the W510 but will now wait patiently for all the complaints to influence Lenovo to return to the 15.4" (16x10) form factor... I hope their Sales suffer big time until they come to their senses... the sooner the better. I don't want to have to wait more than a year with my T61 (2007).

Those who agree - Please Comment (Let our voices be heard)

Agreed. That's why I went from my 4:3 15" UXGA T60p right to a 16:10 17" WUXGA W700, as I didn't even like 15" 16:10. By the way, does anyone know if the W710 will be 16:9 also???

And returning to IPS displays is too expensive because the screen is too small on notebooks???...Really? I call BS. Why do tablets still have it? How is it that Apple can mass-produce an even smaller IPS screen, 9.7" to be exact, and sell them for as low as $499 in their upcoming iPad?!? They'll have IPS + LED! When the iMac line was refreshed last year, they added IPS to those as well. Another IPS + LED combination, this time in 21.5" and 27" sizes. Apple's notebooks will be refreshed this year, and talking to some of the managers of Apple stores in my area, they said IPS will be coming to the MacBook Pro series, and they both said to wait to buy a MacBook for the time being so as not to end up with old technology in a few months. Woah, not that I necessarily put a lot of weight in what a store employee claims, but that was music to my ears. They know what they're doing with displays. The next iPhone will likely get OLED technology and 480x800 resolution.

So I'm not buying that it supposedly matters as to how big or small the display is, nor do I believe that it has a whole lot to do with cost. Besides, ThinkPad buyers have always shelled out more money than the "rest". And now, we have E-IPS. Besides Apple adding IPS to one product line after another, check this baby out that LG is making for all of $300!

I'm in my 11th year as a ThinkPad owner, and I want to stay with the brand, but Lenovo is pi$$**ing me off.

[dr_st]

Apple's notebooks will be refreshed this year, and talking to some of the managers of Apple stores in my area, they said IPS will be coming to the MacBook Pro series, and they both said to wait to buy a MacBook for the time being so as not to end up with old technology in a few months.

If and when that happens, then we can (and should) complain to Lenovo.

[Crunch]

Looks like the W701 (as opposed to W710) will have a Samsung panel. That likely means that it will not have IPS.

I hope I'm wrong but I doubt it. Apple's Steve Jobs has noted that there will be an A+ update for the iPhone, a significant update to the MacBook line, and being that Apple has added IPS panels to every one of their screens of every line of their products that it has last refreshed, that leaves the screens of the MacBook's the sole products that have yet to follow suit.

The old arguments are no longer valid. With E-IPS, cost is no longer a factor. And obviously, size isn't either. We have IPS on 9.7", 21.5", 24", 27.5", and 30" screens at the aforementioned company. What's between less than 10" and 20" and up? 13", 15", and 17" laptops. MacBook's. The 17" WUXGA I'll be getting will be very expensive ($2,500+). But so is the W700, and so will be the W701. They'll both have a Core i7 with the option of an i7 Extreme Edition. They'll both have killer graphics. And large hard drives. But if I'm right about my predictions, I'll get more bang for my buck at Apple, which runs Windows 7 flawlessly, and legally, along with Windows applications on an NTFS partition. And I betcha the darn thing will be Multi-Touch to boot!