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8600 WSXGA+: The Side by Side Comparison & Identifying Your Manufacturer
A couple of days ago I had two Inspiron 8600s side by side. One had the WSGXA+ screen made by Hitachi. This unit was from my first order. I was not happy with the screen (plus it had a power supply/motherboard problem) so Customer Service sent me a new laptop. By the time the return packing slips had arrived to return the old machine, the new machine arrived. This machine had the same configuration except it was using the Samsung WSXGA+ screen. Possessing both machines at once allowed me to compare the screens side by side. Here are my findings:
1. THE CORRECT WAY TO DETERMINE LCD MANUFACTURER: Dell has taken steps lately to remove all LCD monitor IDS (e.g., in the registry). Yes, the shipping label usually states Samsung when the in fact the screen is a Hitachi (happened to me and many others). If you download and burn Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.org/) onto a CD and boot from that CD, the Linux display manager will tell you who manufactured your screen. Do not worry, no data is written to your hard drive when you boot from the Knoppix Linux CD.
2. The Samsung screen is better than the Hitachi screen. It appears to have a slightly (about 15 percent is my guess) better LCD response time. Stating this, the ghosting on the Hitachi is not THAT bad. Yes, it is a little blurry when scrolling text but the colours are crisp and vibrant. The reason I returned my computer is because the amount of white light bleeding out from the bottom was unacceptable. This was quite noticeable when I viewed DVDs. I am not sure if this is a problem with all Hitachi screens.
3. The Hitachi screen initially appears to displays colours correctly (compared to Samsung). You need to do more tweaking with the Samsung.
4. Does the Hitachi screen meet DELL specifications? I think so except the LCD response time is a little slow. I played the Unreal II multiplayer demo on both computers at the same time. Looking at the same mountain view and moving quickly around, I noticed slightly more ghosting on the Hitachi. Again, I would guess it is about a 15 percent difference.
5. The “show window contents while dragging” was initially disabled by Dell on both computers.
MY CONCLUSION
Rollie will state that both LCD screens meet Dell specifications. He is probably right. On the other hand, can you blame customers who spend a lot of money on this high-end notebook to want the best LCD screen available? The Hitachi screen is not awful. In fact, it is pretty good. The problem is that “pretty good” may not be good enough when an “excellent” screen is being shipped to other customers who pay more or less what you paid.
I was lucky that I received the Samsung screen on the 2nd order. I am not lucky that I have one dead pixel located 4 inches from the left of the screen. Oh well, one battle at a time :-)
My humble opinion,
John
P.S. Do you ever wonder who writes these messages? I am a high school teacher. Just another guy who does not have a lot of money and wants the best value for money spent.
Message Edited by John Harrison on 01-14-2004 05:07 PM
LeeAbe
49 Posts
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January 15th, 2004 06:00
I had pretty much decided that the Hitachi screen is pretty good, not perfect, but good (well besides the buzzing which you could hear over fans of the system at times). The paperwork and the packaging that came with the replacement LCD all said Samsung. I really don't care to do any tests because I am at a point where it doesn't matter any more.
The Samsung doesn't blow me away. It does handle showing the windows contents while dragging better, it doesn't have a dark spot in the lower right corner, and scrolling text it does quite well (but Opera pretty much fixed that problem anyway). With games it appears to be a bit better when the whole screen moves also.
I love my 8600, but I was pretty stressed about it at one point and was sick of the hassle. I would just say for those of you who have Hitachi's still, don't worry about it, they are good displays. The Samsung is a bit better, but not overwhelming so. They aren't worth sending your computer in for 2 weeks to get it fixed at least.
Now if I could get my standby problems fixed, the computer would be perfect. :)
LeeAbe
49 Posts
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January 15th, 2004 07:00
brulkikker
17 Posts
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January 15th, 2004 14:00
We don't know if it's the Hitachi screen that is causing the problems. May be it's something else, but I bet the problems got SOMETHING to do with hitachi. May be a bad batch, or may be something else. I have compared my laptop with two older Dell laptops. The ghosting is really really much worse. May be mine is ghosting more than others, or may be you compared something else. My test was as follows:
check the Show window contents while dragging (btw with my desktop dell this option is also active default). Open the My computer icon on your desktop. Move this window in small circles. Move it slow, move it fast. The differences between the two laptops was quite amazing, especially considering the fact the other laptop was 3 years old. I also have some strange disturbances when things move. I am not sure what is causing this, and I haven't seen any other posts about it, so may be we got different problems.
John Harrison
14 Posts
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January 16th, 2004 15:00
It appears the more common problems are the the dark corners or the light bleeding from top or bottom.
John