I've done some research in the market over the past weeks on laptops for image editing, and the results I've come up with are quite disappointing when it comes to screen quality. The only online resource I've found that has done some actual testing for the purpose is Rob Galbraith's site, where he's commented on the backstep that Apple has made with the new LED-screens for the MacBooks. His comments made me curious, so I've tried to research exactly what kind of LCD/TFT panels the various makers use in their laptops. My conclusion is that such info is gleaming in absence. However, if you look at the sites of vendors providing replacement screens, there are links to all the major screen manufacturers with lists of models available. As it turns out, the range of models is quite limited, even across all the major manufacturers. The only screen size that can still be had with high-quality screens is in fact 17".
I guess I ought to say something about what I think of as high and low quality... To me, the most important thing about a screen is colour range (gamut) and accuracy. Below the 17" segment it seems that all screen mfg.'s delivers only "TN" panels. This is a production technology that only gives a colour depth of 6 bits per channel, to a total of some 230,000 colours. Despite what the video card can offer. I know there is some colour dithering going on, and there's some discussion on Apple vs. Microsoft when it comes to the quality of the dithering. The bottom line however is still those 6 bits as opposed to 8 bits obtainable by other panel technologies. The previous generation of Macbook Pro had such panels. So had the WideView varieties of some Lenovo machines like the T60, and some of the Dell and HP models. As far as I've made out, the current models with wide-gamut screens are limited to the 17" macbook pro, the Lenovo W700 and some options from Dell in the Precision series. There may be other brands with high-end offerings too, but not in the Norwegian market, I think. Jostein -- http://www.alunfoto.no/galleri/ http://alunfoto.blogspot.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
