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Which screen technology is better? 2 options


U

Umyd

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Hi folks,

I'm planning to purchase a laptop from a build-to-order company and I get to choose most of the ccomponents. I'm gonna be running Adobes PS, AE and premiere pro. I get confusing suggestions when it comes to the sreen tec.
There are two options: some say go for "17.3 inch Full HD Non-Glare - 72% Gamut (AUO B173HW01 V4)" and some say "17.3 inch Full HD Glare - 90% Gamut (AUO B173HW01 V5)".
Any suggestions?

Greetings,

Umyd
 
There was a time, not long ago, that virtually no laptop screen could be trusted for serious color-managed work. I suspect not much has changed. There are literally hundreds of posts, threads, complaints, etc. about this on the web. If you would like, I can send you an annotated list of a dozen or two of these articles. Even worse, even if you use a hardware calibrator, on many laptops the improvement is often minimal, and unfortunately, the average or maximum color error ( delta_E) after calibration is rarely reported by low-end calibrator software.

Maybe this has changed -- maybe not. I have no experience with the two screens you mentioned, and I suspect that most other photographers will be in the same situation. Since you are posting here, I assume you have looked thoroughly for comments on these two screens and are not finding much useful information. In that case, I think the only reasonable approach is to have a heart-to-heart discussion with the company that's building your system and ask (a) their opinion, and (b) ask if they have performed hardware calibrations of these two choices including a measurement of the maximum delta_E. If the better one has an adequate maximum delta_E, you can then place your order with them in confidence.

If they refuse to do this (even after you try to convince them how much having this capability will benefit their sales ;-) ), then, I suggest purchasing the cheaper of the two and using the extra money to buy yourself a good desktop monitor that IS designed for color-critical editing (eg, an NEC with NEC's Spectraview calibrator system).

WRT the different gamuts of the two screens you mentioned, obviously, all-thing-being-equal, the larger gamut is preferable. The reason is that a wide gamut monitor will show you small differences in color / tonality that will be utterly invisible on a more modest monitor. There are horrible examples of poor color correction because of a limited gamut monitor in practically ever few posts on photography and photoshop websites. Even worse, the people doing this have absolutely no idea that anything is wrong and think you are just picking on them needlessly if you point out the problem to them.

The best of luck,

Tom M
 
Tom Mann said:
There was a time, not long ago, that virtually no laptop screen could be trusted for serious color-managed work. I suspect not much has changed. There are literally hundreds of posts, threads, complaints, etc. about this on the web. If you would like, I can send you an annotated list of a dozen or two of these articles. Even worse, even if you use a hardware calibrator, on many laptops the improvement is often minimal, and unfortunately, the average or maximum color error ( delta_E) after calibration is rarely reported by low-end calibrator software.

Maybe this has changed -- maybe not. I have no experience with the two screens you mentioned, and I suspect that most other photographers will be in the same situation. Since you are posting here, I assume you have looked thoroughly for comments on these two screens and are not finding much useful information. In that case, I think the only reasonable approach is to have a heart-to-heart discussion with the company that's building your system and ask (a) their opinion, and (b) ask if they have performed hardware calibrations of these two choices including a measurement of the maximum delta_E. If the better one has an adequate maximum delta_E, you can then place your order with them in confidence.

If they refuse to do this (even after you try to convince them how much having this capability will benefit their sales ;-) ), then, I suggest purchasing the cheaper of the two and using the extra money to buy yourself a good desktop monitor that IS designed for color-critical editing (eg, an NEC with NEC's Spectraview calibrator system).

WRT the different gamuts of the two screens you mentioned, obviously, all-thing-being-equal, the larger gamut is preferable. The reason is that a wide gamut monitor will show you small differences in color / tonality that will be utterly invisible on a more modest monitor. There are horrible examples of poor color correction because of a limited gamut monitor in practically ever few posts on photography and photoshop websites. Even worse, the people doing this have absolutely no idea that anything is wrong and think you are just picking on them needlessly if you point out the problem to them.

The best of luck,

Tom M
Click to expand...

What an excellent reply.
as my q must have suggested, I'm not experienced with screen tec at all, and u have really given me a lesson.
I will take everything u said into consideration.
Thanks so much!
 
Glad to have helped, at least a little bit. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to drop back in and let us know how the search for a good laptop screen goes. I'm always interested in this issue.

Best regards,

Tom
 
Tom,
You and I have had numerous conversations about laptop screens and regular monitors. As you know, I bought a decent HP monitor and use it with my laptop. I print a lot of my stuff that you never see online. I calibrated both monitors again with the Spyder Pro4 and I promise you, my prints match my Dell laptop screen better than they do the HP monitor. Now, I am far from a professional, and I will say that if I were making my living with my output and it was color critical, I would make the investment and buy a truly professional monitor. However, I am getting good results using both screens. Most of the time, I run them both at the same time. I work from my laptop, but I have the other monitor up too and check colors on both. I am printing with a Canon Pro 100 -8 color printer using Red River papers and their profiles and Canon dye based ink. I like my prints well enough to frame them in acrylic frames and hang them on my wall. So, your point of laptop screens being improved may be so for some, maybe not all. For the moment though, my money stays in my pocket instead of investing in a high dollar monitor.
 
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