When do we finally get a good screen? (P50 4K) [ Edited ]

[Puppy]

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tk-don wrote:.

Why buy a $5000 external display, when NECs excellent hardware-calibrateable displays are available for $1500? I have the LCD2490WUXI from 2008(!), which is by many still considered one of the best external displays. There is no excuse for Lenovo here, not even remotely.

Because NEC wants to deliver high quality displays while Lenovo does not care. I own NEC 2090UXi (4:3 !) since 2007 and the picture is still excellent despite of CCFL backlight aging (runs 15 hrs /day) because of compensation mechanism and high quality components.

There is no hope with OLED displays as well. Manufacturers will find a way how to cheapen them the same way they did with LCDs so you will get the same crap you are getting now because cutting costs matters (at least for Lenovo). OLEDs have different issues like permanent image retention (screen burn) or high power consumption.

There is no reason an LCD panel must always look that horrible like in Lenovo laptops. It is technologically possible (for many years) to make them look perfect but it would be a $100 more expensive and it is too much for a Lenovo $7000 laptop

That's the whole story - cheap, cheap and even more cheap. Let's try what customers accepts this time ... Worked ? Ok, deliver even worse crap next time. And so on. No way to get a decent laptop even for $7000.

It is like going to good restaurant for a $200 menu but actually get a $5 cheap wine.

[Phil__C]

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tk-don wrote:

• FHD with PWM flicker, very low color gamut and so-so viewing angles.
• 4K without PWM flicker, high color gamut that the included toy colorimeter cannot even remotely calibrate, horrible viewing angles.

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I thought it was the 4K screen that had PWM flicker, while the FHD did not.  That's what the notebookcheck reviewers found with the P70 and P50 respectively.

Have you found the FHD to have a problem too?

[ibmthink]

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Phil__C schrieb:

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tk-don wrote:

• FHD with PWM flicker, very low color gamut and so-so viewing angles.
• 4K without PWM flicker, high color gamut that the included toy colorimeter cannot even remotely calibrate, horrible viewing angles.

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I thought it was the 4K screen that had PWM flicker, while the FHD did not.  That's what the notebookcheck reviewers found with the P70 and P50 respectively.

Have you found the FHD to have a problem too?

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P50 4K screen is untested, so there is no indication if it has PWM or not yet. The same is true for the P70 FHD screen, also untested.

P70 4K screen is made by Panasonic. All the Panasonic screens in recent ThinkPads have PWM. P50 4K screen is made by Sharp, maybe it has some PWM, looking at other Sharp 15.6" 4K panels, they all seem to have PWM below 20 % brightness. The P70 FHD screens are made by Samsung and AUO, the P50 FHD screens are made by LG, BOE and Samsung. Some of these may have PWM, other not.

The P50 with FHD notebookcheck tested had the LG panel (LP156WF6-SPK1), which is the same panel that I have in my P50, and it does not show any PWM.

[tk-don]

Sorry, I stand corrected. It is indeed correct that the FHD does not have PWM flicker - I was thinking about the P70 4K display. I'm a bit hyper-sensitive to flickering light, but I don't/didn't see any on the P50 4K, and not even when I look at it from the corner of my eye.

[rojblake]

Hi All,

Probably won't be a surprise to anybody, but just to close this loop: I heard back from the repair depot a second time: they maintain that the P50 4K screen performs as designed, so they're not touching it.  They're sending the machine back to me. 

(Just for the record, this is for the problem of the very visible brightness variation across the screen.)

Thanks to all of you for the support and insights; I didn't have extremely high hopes, but it was definitely worth trying, and I appreciated everybody's help

[Puppy]

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ibmthink wrote:

Some of these may have PWM, other not.

In case of a $500 laptop no problem, in case of a $7000 unacceptable.

[Puppy]

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rojblake wrote:

Hi All,

Probably won't be a surprise to anybody, but just to close this loop: I heard back from the repair depot a second time: they maintain that the P50 4K screen performs as designed, so they're not touching it.  They're sending the machine back to me.

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Return it, this is unacceptable for the given price. It is the only way Lenovo may finally understand their cheap components game has limits.

[freakwave10]

Since I am playing around with the scaling issues for quite some time, I have some recommendations.

The fact that windows 10 scaling really sucks, I went back to just simply changing the resolution of the screen.

For me the best results I get with following custom resolutions:

2880 x 1620

or

2560 x 1440

you can add these to the existing list the Nvidia Control Panel.

This is way better than playing with the scaling in windows 10 or using windows 8.1 with the Windows 10 DPI Fix tool, switching back and forth ....

At least this is consistent in all apps and the screen still looks ok.

Wolfgang

[Bthurber]

I'm sitting right next to a coworker with a Dell XPS 15 display - and it looks great. The crazy thing is that this is what hwinfo reports for the Dell

Model LQ156D1  (note it is missing the JWO5 on the end that our panels model numbers have).

It also says "Sharp 143E"

Also, the week of manufacture is 2015/week 40 on the Dell as opposed to 2015/week 36 on my panel that I just received in a new P50 last week.

Is it possible the matte finish is causing all of these problems for us on the Lenovo? The Dell has a Glossy finish.

[tk-don]

It cannot possibly be the matte coating as that coating sheet applied to the front polarizer has no polarizing effect in it self.

Would it be possible for you - when you have time - to take some side by side photos with the Dell next to the P50, showing identical images on and slightly off-angle? And post here ? It is really rarely that people have the opportunity to be able to compare both displays. As of right now no-one has the "proof" that the P50 4K panel behaves differently from the Dell variant.

I would be extremely grateful for that, as it would probably help me solving my RMA case, and it might be helpful for others too.