Laptop with "good" monitor for CM

[VitOne]

I am looking for a laptop/mobile PC, in the 13-15" range, that could be used for some color critical work. I am not expecting the performance of my NECs (SpectraView 271 and 301) but maybe something "decent". I own the MacBook Air and I found that I can reach better results using the spectrophotometers and colorimeter that I own on the aluminum side of the screen than on the display  



I never had this need before, do you have any suggestion? I would go for a non-glossy screen to start… Any of you with some good experience with his laptop?
Thanks!

[Mark D Segal]

First you have to think about how you would exactly standardize and fully stabilize the angle of vision between your head the screen before moving on to any other consideration, because this one is usually a show-stopper if we're talking really "colour-critical" on a laptop.

[VitOne]

I was looking exactly for a laptop that has a decent angle of vision, my question is this: is there a laptop with a “decent” monitor that I can use when I can’t have access to my main screens? Maybe I will have to come back in a few years and hope that the technology will bring us this kind of laptop monitors?

[rasworth]

This thread has given be a strong sense of deja vu, seems like we've been done this road before.  AFAIK all laptops use TN LCD screens and relatively low gamut backlights, I assume primarily for power efficiency reasons, and therefore have a very limited angle of view and limited color capability.  The iPad uses an IPS screen, actually does a very good job on color and angle, although the gamut is somewhat smaller than a normal desktop IPS display.

One can create a profile representing the iPad colorspace (somewhat laborious procedure but doable), which can be applied to an image via "Convert to Profile" on a PC/Mac prior to downloading to the iPad.  Or one can make sure the image is in sRGB space and achieve reasonably good color on the iPad with no other conversion.

Richard Southworth

[Wayne Fox]

I also believe one other issue is nearly all laptops use 6 bit displays (@262,000 colors) because they have much lower power draw, and simulate millions of colors through "dithering".  While this process is very good, only you could decide if it's good enough for "color critical" work. I do a lot of preliminary editing on my MacBook Pro, but most of the time it is real basic stuff to decide which images are worth working on, then those I start from scratch on my NEC 301w.

 I believe there are a couple of laptops out there which do use 8bit displays but I'm not sure who makes them.

[Schewe]

Laptop with a display for decent color management doesn't go together...I would never use a laptop (well profiled or not) to make color critical decisions...

[digitaldog]

Laptop with a display for decent color management doesn't go together...I would never use a laptop (well profiled or not) to make color critical decisions...

Agreed! Hook up a good external or just hope for the best.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I think there may be one or two decent laptops out there, with IPS displays intended for demanding work, I read about them but don't know make and designation. Obviously very expensive ones.

Best regards
Erik

Laptop with a display for decent color management doesn't go together...I would never use a laptop (well profiled or not) to make color critical decisions...

[shewhorn]

Lenovo used to have a model with an IPS panel. Dell did as well. Not sure if they still do. That said... I still wouldn't trust 'em to anything critical.

[Steve Weldon]

If I understand right you're not looking for a perfectly matched monitor while on the road, just something that gets you in the general ballpark with some consistency?  Because that's likely to be all you get from a laptop.

Lenovo's W series and some discontinued Dell XPS models came with IPS panels and while they had a wider gamut approaching Adobe98.. you still had to live with less than an accurate match.  I'm currently running Lenovo's and Dell's, and find when profiled they are much better than when not profiled, yet less than a perfect match.   Sometimes I think a really good CM laptop is more a matter of luck, but then we say that about things we don't have all the information on.

I have one laptop which when profiles comes extremely close to matching my LCD2690uxi2's.. I would trust it for processing portraits and landscapes, but not products.  It's a Mobile Precision Workstation with an optional Nvidia quattro video card.  Dell sells a version of these with a 1920x1200 matte screen and when profiled it's surprisingly good.  I've had the opportunity to profile 3-4 of these, and they're consistently good.  And like what's already been said, a consistent viewing angle and ambient light remains necessary.

Good luck.

[mediumcool]

I have a MBP 13" 2.4 from last year, so was interested to read this; the craptacular viewing angles, particularly vertically, make it useable only for appraisal of images, not for real colour work.

[VitOne]

Thanks for the answers. At the moment I said “no, is not possible” to the client that was asking me to color evaluate some pictures on a mobile PC.

I don’t need something perfect (and I also don’t 100% trust what I see on my monitor, I usually make an “hard proof” printing a sample when I am involved in color critical applications). I don’t think that anybody will ever be able to show on a monitor the difference between two papers with different texture-surfaces, I have some colors that my 7900 on certain papers reproduces that are outside my monitors gamut. My monitor resolution-per-area is smaller than my printer resolution, so it is also hard/impossible to have a good idea of the sharpening of the image... Sometimes you can trust your calibrated-monitor, sometimes you will need a print. I found limits in all the monitors that I have tested (and owned)…

I opened this discussion hoping that someone could understand that is not always possible to bring a good LCD screen with you... I need a fast, small, portable solution to show some files that need to be color-evaluated very fast. Sometimes you simply can’t say “I am sorry, you will need to come to my studio where we will see the pictures in my gray-painted room where I use 98% CRI lights and all the right hardware to do this evaluation”. I am of course not expecting good results, but maybe something “decent”. I know how hard is to get good color-matching, it is hard also to install properly a monitor in a studio if the light is not well balanced, so I am not expecting “miracles” from a laptop screen, but maybe something better than a 200k color TN display.
I know what limits a mobile display solution will have (related to ambient conditions).

I found the Lenovo X220, any idea about this product and his IPS screen? Do you know if the video card in this mobile PC has 1 or 3 LUTs? I tried to search but I had no success, maybe someone can help (or suggest a different product.

[Steve Weldon]

Thanks for the answers. At the moment I said “no, is not possible” to the client that was asking me to color evaluate some pictures on a mobile PC.

I opened this discussion hoping that someone could understand that is not always possible to bring a good LCD screen with you...

I hate it when people do this.  It's rude and unnecessary.

Are you telling us you knew the answer to the question you asked, and asked the question just so your client could look here and see if people agreed with your assessment?  Is your credibility with your client that bad?

Or by "someone" do you mean you were trying to 'teach' people you don't even know who frequent this forum?

I really hope I misunderstood..

[Wayne Fox]

I hate it when people do this.  It's rude and unnecessary.

Are you telling us you knew the answer to the question you asked, and asked the question just so your client could look here and see if people agreed with your assessment?  Is your credibility with your client that bad?

Or by "someone" do you mean you were trying to 'teach' people you don't even know who frequent this forum?

I really hope I misunderstood..

I didn't interpret his statement that way ... I interpreted it moe as hoping someone out there had a similar problem in that they needed a very portable yet somewhat decent laptop and had found something that did OK.

In reading his original post, if he is just asking for "decent" and not color critical, the Macbook Air should deliver that pretty well ... it'll be about as good as he can expect without a better display.

[mediumcool]

I own the MacBook Air and I found that I can reach better results using the spectrophotometers and colorimeter that I own on the aluminum side of the screen than on the display  

If I’d happened to notice the above statement on first reading, I would not have expended the energy required to post. Don’t let it get to you, Steve! 

[Terry Cooney]

There are two models out there which might be worth considering, both offer IPS panels and have workstation-class video cards (Quadro or FirePro): the Dell M4600 and the HP EliteBook 8560w. Both are 15", configurable, and one of the options for both under Display is the IPS panel, for about $450 in each case. I owned the HP variant and their IPS panel is called Dreamcolor 1/2 and is a 10 bit panel. I have no experience with the Dell, but maybe one of these would get you 'close' to what you're looking for.

[VitOne]

Steve my English is not perfect and maybe this was the problem. The meaning of my previous post was: I am not completely new to color management, so I know what I can expect from a “portable solution” and what I can’t expect from a mobile solution, that, for definition, will not be used in a “safe location” for color management applications. So please help me to find the better possible solution, if there is one (technology evolves fast, so maybe will we get “adaptive monitors” that can compensate any ambient light change, just to make a stupid example).

Are you really asking about my credibility with my client? I wrote that I hoped to find someone that had the same exact need that I had and you say that I want to teach in this forum when in all my posts I always say that I am not an expert and I will appreciate any positive input (you can search my posts)... It is very different to say “I am the teacher” from saying “Teacher, I am not a beginner, so, please, if I ask how to solve a differential equation don’t start teaching what a real number is, because we did this last week”.

Mediumcool I appreciated your input and I read your Anand link. Thanks (again, I already said “thank you” to all the one that spend their time posting here) for that. I already knew that the MBP screen is not good for “color critical” work. I am looking for something different and better (if it exists). I think that you can understand that what I wrote in that “statement” was a joke, made to let everybody understand that I know what the MBA limits are in terms of color correction.

Thanks Terrry for your indications! Do you have any idea if one of those graphic card has one independent LUT for each RGB channel? For what I know this is the only solution to get a decent calibration. I can’t find any information about nVidia and AMD documentation that I found.

[Czornyj]

Do you have any idea if one of those graphic card has one independent LUT for each RGB channel?

Are you sure there's really something with a LUT that can't control RGB channels independently? I've never heard of such a thing.

AFAIK Lenovo X220 has W-LED backlit IPS display. Some IPS-based mobile solutions seem to appear lately, and I think they might be interesting - at least much better than any notebook with TN display, including Macbooks etc.

Speaking of Apple - I wish I could use an USB-tethered iPad (IPS!) as external display for my Macbook Air... There's a workaround to achieve it, but only with jailbroken unit.

[mediumcool]

Speaking of Apple - I wish I could use an USB-tethered iPad (IPS!) as external display for my Macbook Air... There's a workaround to achieve it, but only with jailbroken unit.

I was pondering just this about 30 minutes ago! The iPad screen is excellent. Could you provide a link, please?

[Czornyj]

I was pondering just this about 30 minutes ago! The iPad screen is excellent. Could you provide a link, please?

http://hijinksinc.com/2010/06/01/use-air-display-over-a-usb-cable/