Notebook Screen Guideby Dustin Sklavos, California USAIntroduction. Notebook screens! And we usually don’t give them too much of a passing thought when we go buying; by and large when I went notebook shopping I just assumed “well, it has one, and it sure looks pretty” and was pretty much done with that. While dedicated workstations are still the most efficient machines for video production, it's now quite common for editors to use. All you wanted to know about the Gm Diet. The General Motors diet is a popular diet program. Get details of the diet plan, how to prepare, side effects and more. The problem is that as consumers we like and want to be informed, and we shouldn’t have to default to “oh, well, okay.” But the terminology used to describe notebooks is always a bunch of complex crap that, quite frankly, doesn’t mean anything to most consumers. I’ve been working on computers for years and years and “WSXGA+” and “WUXGA” and all that don’t make any sense at all. Why can’t they just state the actual screen resolution? The reality of it is that there are all kinds of minutiae about notebook screens that should be understood, as well as a couple of major things, like dead pixels. This guide is here to help make some sense of it all. Aspect Ratio and Resolution. Get access to the new features in Adobe After Effects CC. With a smoother playback experience, faster importing, more Cinema 4D export options, and more.Aspect ratio isn’t just “widescreen” and “standard.” Where TVs are basically two different sizes, computer screens have been hopelessly convoluted. Resolution is the number of pixels (the individual dots that make up the picture) wide the screen is and the number of pixels tall the screen is, and we can get the aspect ratio from this. For example, the average 1. That means the picture is 1,0. This screen has an aspect ratio of 4: 3. Notebook screens are confusing. If you're confused by the alphabet soup of XGA, SXGA+, WSXGA, UXGA or matte versus glossy screen, what a dead pixel is, or what screen. DEFlicker Overview Reel. DEFlicker by RE:Vision Effects is designed to smooth out annoying flicker and artifacts when shooting high speed or timelapse video. That means that for every four pixels there are horizontally, there are three pixels vertically. Your home television and most desktop computer screens are built 4: 3. Now, of course, this is all great, but notebook manufacturers often don’t tell you the screens aspect ratio and seldom list resolution. They usually just say “WUXGA” or something similar. Here’s a guide that tells you exactly what each of those abbreviations really means. I’ve *’ed the odd ones out and will explain them in detail after the chart.“Standard” Screens. Abbreviation / Resolution / Aspect Ratio. XGA / 1. 02. 4. For some odd reason, it became very popular, but the aspect ratio is off. The actual proper step up in resolution to maintain the 4: 3 ratio is 1. They’re usually cited as 1. So your DVDs are STILL going to get letterboxed, but it’ll be much more negligible. Also, one major pain is that ultraportable notebooks will sometimes use a resolution of 1. Because notebook screens have a fixed number of pixels (while desktop CRT monitors do not), pixels are essentially “blended” to achieve the intended resolution. In older screens this tended to look pretty awful, but newer ones blend very well and produce a fairly good picture. Still, it won’t look as good as the screen’s native resolution. The reason that I mention any of this is because I’ve seen people ask if their screen can run at a lower resolution, and yes, it can. But you probably won’t want to. Gamers will actually probably want to stick to lower resolution screens so the games can run at native resolution, while multimedia enthusiasts (digital image manipulation, video editing) will want to get as high a resolution as they can. Screen Size. So now you have the fundamentals for understanding how many pixels are on the screen, but what about the screen size? When a manufacturer lists a screen size in inches, it measures that distance from the bottom left corner to the top right corner. So if a screen size is listed as 1. Note that the first one in each list will be by far the most common one. Standard Screen Sizes and Typical Resolutions: 1. The lower sizes are for ultraportables and thin and lights. Widescreen Vs. Standard. Widescreen is becoming the norm against standard aspect ratio in notebooks, partially because a widescreen will effectively add a lot more reading space to a screen with a minimal amount of increase in size. More than that, widescreen is fairly logical for humans, since our eyes aren’t jammed right next to each other. If you’re going to be a gamer, though, widescreen can become a problem. While many games will run at widescreen resolutions, many won’t either. This is one of those things that really just befuddles me, as most gamer boutique notebooks are being made with widescreens these days. The IBM Think. Pad X4. Matte. There are basically two flavors of screen available on notebooks (and flat panel monitors in general) right now: glossy and matte. Because glossy screens are more common these days, I’ll go over those first. Glossy screens are just that – glossy. They have a coating applied to the screen beneath them that is reflective, but also helps reduce “screen door effect” – the black spaces between pixels – and improves the contrast and brightness of the image. Of course, the downside of a glossy screen is the reflectiveness. It’s not at all uncommon to catch a crystal clear reflection or a glare off of something in the environment. Additionally, some users have reported that glossy screens cause more eyestrain for them than matte screens. This pretty much boils down to personal preference; I personally have a hard time choosing between one or the other, though I usually lean towards glossy. A glossy screen can provide a bright display with bold contrast, as shown on this Fujitsu Life. Book S6. 23. 1 screen. But the downside is the reflectivity you’ll get from the screen, as noticed in this almost perfect reflection of the keyboard in the glossy (Crysal View) screen of the Fujitsu notebook. To look directly at a notebook screen, you’ll know if it’s a glossy or not solely because of the reflectivity of the screen and contrast of the picture. However, if you don’t have that option (buying online, for example), glossy screens are typically noted by a special name. Sony calls them XBRITE, Fujitsu calls them Crystal. View. My Gateway is Ultrabright. You see how it is, and you’ll know a glossy screen when you see the option, because many order online notebooks offer the glossy screen at an extra cost (usually a small cost; HP adds $2. Matte screens are basically the screens of old, although they do still see use today and for some, these are preferable. These have no reflectivity, and newer ones still have excellent contrast. The “screen door effect” can be more pronounced on these screens. These tend to be less expensive than glossy screens. New i. Books, for example, use these screens. Even if you’re shopping online, you’ll want to go to a local retailer and actually get a good look at the screens for yourself so you know the difference. It’s one of those things that can’t be fully articulated in a guide and should be experienced personally, but hopefully this guide will help you tell the difference between the two. Backlighting and Spill. Notebook screens have adjustable brightness, mainly to conserve power, but the brightness adjustment actually adjusts the intensity of the backlight – a light inside the panel that illuminates the screen. The screen consumes a substantial amount of your notebook’s power, so adjusting the brightness to a lower setting can save a lot of battery life. However, backlighting isn’t always even and sometimes the source of the light can be seen (usually on the bottom). This is called spill. Some less expensive notebooks (and even some more expensive ones, like Dell’s Inspiron 9. Spill is most noticeable when the screen is black. Uneven backlighting is seen on this VAIO S notebook, notice how the bottom is brighter than the top corners (view larger image)Viewing Angles. Notebook screens and flat panel monitors are unique in that unlike their boxy CRT cousins, they don’t always look the same from different angles. The best picture a viewer can get of a notebook screen is invariably from straight on. From the sides and especially from above, contrast may seem off, and colors may look different. This really varies from notebook to notebook and by and large isn’t a huge problem. If you’re in the store, you can check it out for yourself. More expensive screens tend to have better viewing angles than the cheaper ones; getting into any more detail than that would require delving into esoterica that likely the technician at your local retail store isn’t even familiar with. Suffice to say, while viewing angles used to be a huge problem with these screens (early notebooks were practically unviewable from the sides), it’s pretty tolerable and minor these days. When viewed straight on the Dell Inspiron 9. LCD screens (view larger image)BUT, here we have a Dell Inspiron 9. A desktop CRT screen will never have these, but because notebook screens are comprised largely of tiny dots that light up depending on what’s displayed, there’s a small chance that your notebook’s screen will have some dead pixels. This is one of those things that really hoses the consumer lately, because when you buy a notebook you pretty much expect it to work 1. The editor, Andrew Baxter, wrote up an excellent guide to dead pixels, found here, which I strongly encourage you to read, since it covers this subject in far more detail than I can, and includes existing dead pixel policies for major vendors. I will add two suggestions, though. First, most major retailers can be pretty understanding when it comes to dead pixels. I know Best Buy will usually accept an exchange on a notebook with dead pixels. Second, many users advocate the use of a program called Dead Pixel Buddy to find dead pixels on your screen. I do not, and I will tell you why — If the dead pixel isn’t immediately apparent on a personal examination of the screen or after casual use of it, chances are you aren’t going to notice it. If you’re anything like me, and you run Dead Pixel Buddy, and you find a dead pixel (or more), it’s going to tick you off where you wouldn’t have been ticked before. I don’t see any dead pixels on my screen in casual use, but I’m not going to go looking for them, either. Oh no! All you really want to know is: what kind of screen would be good for me?
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