Laptop LCD Roundup: Road Warriors Deserve Better
by Jarred Walton on May 22, 2007 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Viewing Angles
Viewing angles are one of those specifications that have become very inflated by the manufacturers. The basic requirement is that a display has to maintain a 10:1 contrast ratio in order to qualify as "viewable". The reality is that most LCDs are unfit for viewing outside of about a 45° arc, and on laptops you may not even get that much of a viewing arc. While we doubt that most people would want to view a display from an oblique angle, the typical positioning of a laptop - sitting on your lap only a couple feet from your eyes - can make viewing angles more important. Unfortunately, as all of the LCDs appear to use TN panels, that means viewing angles become more important and the technology becomes less satisfactory.
We used a Canon Digital Rebel SLR camera to take shots from head-on as well as from the left, right, top, and bottom at ~30° angles. We then combined the images into a single representative shot, showing how brightness and contrast ratios are affected in off-angle viewing. The camera was set to manual mode and an ISO value of 400 with an exposure time of 1/60s. While there's no substitute for actually sitting in front of a display yourself and using it, we did our best to use settings that generated images similar to what we saw in person. With all of the laptops photographed under the same conditions and with the same settings, the relative appearance of the images is at least as important as how each image looks individually.
Again, the ASUS G2P clearly comes out on top and offers the best overall viewing angles. The Dell XPS M1710 and MSI S271 are somewhat similar, though we would give the edge to the Dell laptop. The ASUS A8Js on the other hand ranks at the bottom, particularly in the areas of vertical viewing angles. On desktop systems, horizontal viewing angles are often more important, but in everyday use we find that vertical viewing angles are definitely a problem with many laptops. A slight tilt of your lap or a straightening of your back, and the perceived image can quickly become washed out.
Viewing angles are one of those specifications that have become very inflated by the manufacturers. The basic requirement is that a display has to maintain a 10:1 contrast ratio in order to qualify as "viewable". The reality is that most LCDs are unfit for viewing outside of about a 45° arc, and on laptops you may not even get that much of a viewing arc. While we doubt that most people would want to view a display from an oblique angle, the typical positioning of a laptop - sitting on your lap only a couple feet from your eyes - can make viewing angles more important. Unfortunately, as all of the LCDs appear to use TN panels, that means viewing angles become more important and the technology becomes less satisfactory.
We used a Canon Digital Rebel SLR camera to take shots from head-on as well as from the left, right, top, and bottom at ~30° angles. We then combined the images into a single representative shot, showing how brightness and contrast ratios are affected in off-angle viewing. The camera was set to manual mode and an ISO value of 400 with an exposure time of 1/60s. While there's no substitute for actually sitting in front of a display yourself and using it, we did our best to use settings that generated images similar to what we saw in person. With all of the laptops photographed under the same conditions and with the same settings, the relative appearance of the images is at least as important as how each image looks individually.
 ASUS A8Js  ASUS G2P  Dell XPS M1710  MSI S271 |
| Click to enlarge |
Again, the ASUS G2P clearly comes out on top and offers the best overall viewing angles. The Dell XPS M1710 and MSI S271 are somewhat similar, though we would give the edge to the Dell laptop. The ASUS A8Js on the other hand ranks at the bottom, particularly in the areas of vertical viewing angles. On desktop systems, horizontal viewing angles are often more important, but in everyday use we find that vertical viewing angles are definitely a problem with many laptops. A slight tilt of your lap or a straightening of your back, and the perceived image can quickly become washed out.
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koljit singh - Saturday, August 9, 2008 - link
hii was confused in different manufacturers making same size lcds and which one fit which ones ?
i would like to import them but the model no are so huge it seems difficult to import all of them
is there any way to find out which ones fit which ones like compatibility chart would be great help
thanks
koljit
Oscarine - Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - link
Just a point of note that probably holds true for all the laptop manufacturers (especially Dell). Although the basic technology process for the displays I'm sure is the same, the quality of the sourced display even in the same model can vary wildly. When purchasing a dell with a WUXGA+ Res screen you could be recieving any number of manufacturers displays, fro Phillips, LG, Samsung, etc, and even among those manufacturers numerous different versions of the same panel. Case in point I owned a Dell 9300, with a samsung wuxga+ screen, it had poor contrast, miserable colors, and horrible light bleeding. Whereas my wife's 9300 had LG unit that had much better contrast, richer but less accurate color, and much less light bleed. All of this within the same model, at the same time period. So just like all the other components from DVD, HDD, even keyboards and whatnot are sourced from multiple manufacturers so are the displays, and some are significantly better than others in performance.JarredWalton - Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - link
Yeah... which really sucks but unfortunately we can't do much about it other than point out the fact. I will try to determine the panel manufacturers on the various laptops and update the table to reflect this information.lazybum131 - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
Just a note about the updated table with the panel vendors, most likely the Seiko Epson panel reported for the M1710 is actually a Samsung panel. I just replaced a Samsung panel with a LG-Philips on my Latitude D620 (you may have heard about the screen complaints), where Astra reported the Samsung as a Seiko Epson SEC4457.Wesleyrpg - Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - link
hey there, great and infomative article.Any ideas who the manufacturer is of the panels in each laptop? I'm curious about the G2P, and apparently the A8JS has two different manufacturers of the panel used in it depending on the country you are based in.
I'm using a fujistu lifebook n6220, its got a Samsung 17inch panel, 1440 x 900, and a beautiful display, i wonder if its the same panel as the G2P???
austonia - Wednesday, May 23, 2007 - link
The quality of the display (viewing angles, brightness, contrast) is very high on my priority list when buying a notebook, yet few of them come with a decent display and few sites/reviewers focus on it. I hope Anandtech will follow up on this idea with a wider range of notebooks, when they can.jmvillafana - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
This is a great topic with too few attention. As IT head for a large corporation I used to have Dell as standard for Laptops I used to be glad with response from the total user experience. When switching some 50 users from ispiron 8600 provided in 2004 to a Latitude D820 in late 2006, we had very bad comments. Better speed, better resolution, but the display brightness and clarity was really difficult in users eyes. When looking around for options of other brands, we found similar trends in other brands. Toshiba´s looked better than Dell´s still were not as good as their own laptops from three years before. It seems that most brands have looked for this area as a cut cutting opportunity. The problem is that we could not get better displays even as options for additional cost. The company that grabs this as a marketing opportunity has a good chance of making good money.figuerc - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
Agreed - my old Toshiba (Celeron 400) has a better screen then my newer one (P4 2.8 ghz - not that new). Some of the newer dells and gateways are just terrible on the eyes.Theguynextdoor - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
This little laptop has the Xbrite screen with an LED bulb. Does anyone know if this will be tested anytime soon?JarredWalton - Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - link
If Sony deems to send us one, we will happily test it. We don't have any contacts at Sony right now, unfortunately, so the best we can do is ask and hope for a response. If any of you have an inside track at Sony, tell them to contact me via email.