A sharp screen is worth 20 visits to the optometrist. That's especially true with notebook screens, which users view in all sorts of conditions, from airplane tray tables in subdued light to the glare of the great outdoors. So before you lay down the bucks for a notebook, consider the screen above all other components. Here's a brief rundown of what's out there, what you should look for, and why.
LCD flavors
Today's notebooks use either passive- or active-matrix, flat-panel LCD displays. A passive display is made up of a lattice of wires, each wire controlled by a single transistor. LCD elements that generate pixels lie where the wires meet. With active-matrix displays, which typically rely on thin-film transistor, or TFT, technology, each pixel is controlled by one or more transistors. The ultimate difference? Active-matrix screens are faster and sharper, have a wider viewing angle, and deliver richer colors than passive displays.
Passive color displays are still used on low-end notebooks, thanks to a steady stream of improvements and significantly lower production costs. But they've yet to exceed 13 inches in size. Active-matrix screens are up to a whopping 15.7 inches and have maximum resolutions of up to 1,600 by 1,200 pixels.
No contest
In short, if image quality is paramount, an active-matrix screen is a must. But TFT displays aren't cheap to make, thanks to the multiple transistors used to control each pixel. And every time a transistor goes bad, the pixel attached to it starts shining steadily in green, red, or blue. Better manufacturing techniques have minimized this problem, but bad pixels still pop up occasionally. Vendor policies on how many bad transistors constitute a problem varies, but my advice is to be the squeaky wheel. If you buy a new notebook with even one bad pixel, return it immediately. Most vendors cover screens for a year, some for three years.
Unfortunately for the outdoorsy among us, LCD screens aren't readable in bright sunlight. New transflective screens help, because they augment their backlighting with ambient light, resulting in much brighter screen images. But so far, transflective screens have been available only in handhelds and in NEC's LaVie subnotebook. But 12.1-inch models--probably showing up in Panasonic Toughbooks first--should appear later this year.
I've yet to use a transflective screen while frolicking in the pollen, but folks who have swear that these screens are readable in even the brightest conditions.
Buy right; buy smart
Some other gotchas you should be aware of:
- Make sure that the screen's size is matched with its resolution. Some manufacturers try to squeeze too many pixels into too small a space, with disastrous results. A general rule of thumb: 800 by 600 pixels is about right for a 12.1-inch LCD; 1,024 by 768 for 13.3 inches; and 1,280 by 1,024 for 15 inches.
- Vendors often misuse the terms VGA, super-VGA, and XGA when referring to a screen's maximum resolution. Usually these terms mean that the screen is optimized for 640 by 480, 800 by 600, or 1,024 by 768 resolution. Remember, an LCD screen has only one native resolution. The screen's ability to emulate other resolutions is a function of the graphics driver. But strictly speaking, an XGA screen can have a resolution of 640 by 480. Ignore the acronyms and look for the numbers.
- Color is a key factor to look out for. While color CRT monitors can display an almost infinite range of colors, LCDs are more limited. Some current active-matrix displays can render as many as 16 million colors. But older LCD models are often limited to 65,565, 256, or even 16 colors--unsuitable for manipulating graphics or photographs.
The bottom line: Unless you're on a very tight budget, buy a laptop with the biggest active-matrix screen you can afford. Active displays are fast enough for playing games or watching videos, and they won't force you to play "find the cursor." If you do a lot of work outdoors, consider waiting for the transflective displays to appear on full-sized notebooks.
