Greetings:
Here's the pertinent info:
Dell 9300 with UXGA Truelife display by Samsung, NVIDA GeForce with 256Mb RAM.
I received the 9300 last week, having read a lot of online information in advance regarding the display characteristics that many users found to be irritating or intollerable.
After living with the machine for a few days, here's the summary of my impressions, and I'd appreciate your feedback, particularly regarding DVD playback.
I didn't find the "sparkle" characteristic off-putting in any way; for me, it's a non-issue. The glossy screen surface and the effect that high resolution have on text size or whatever...also are non-issues with me.
Now...the light leak. It's there and it's impossible not to notice when playing DVD movies. In fact, the effect of the leak along the lower edge of the screen is significant enough to reduce apparent image contrast unless the scene of the moment is bright enough to overpower the effect...oh, let's say 40% on a brightness scale of 0 to 100.
In addition to the light leak, when the screen is dark, without a displayed iamge of any type, the illumination (or black level) of the screen is not very uniform, with patches of varying degrees of "black".
While playing DVD's (of course it's far more noticeable with movies of 2.35 aspect ratio), the light leak is significant enough to easily see several shades of difference between the "black bar" at the bottom of the frame, than the one at the top of the frame.
After reading a few instances of owners claiming that they're light leak has gone away or drastically reduced after a burn-in period, I've taken no action so far as talking to Dell. But, at the one week mark, there hasn't been even a slight degree of reduction of the effect on my display.
Here's my quandary: I'm not a very experienced laptop owner; this is my second machine, and the first with anywhere near this level of video sophistication. Also, I don't hang around with any people who have comparable machines against which to compare. Display models on store shelves are the nearest comparison I have. I'm not sure if I'm expecting an unrealistic level of performance for DVD movie-viewing, but, it seems to me that given the display size, relative to the average TV screen and the inherent quality of the medium, that a dazzling on-screen viewing experience, at 17 inches, should be a no-brainer.
I would appreciate hearing from any of you with comparable results (or not), and what kind of improvement can be had from a Dell replacement.
Oh...the display characteristics are just fine when using productivity software or surfing the net. In every regard except DVD viewing, I'm rather pleased.
Thanks,
David (padanx)
Here's the pertinent info:
Dell 9300 with UXGA Truelife display by Samsung, NVIDA GeForce with 256Mb RAM.
I received the 9300 last week, having read a lot of online information in advance regarding the display characteristics that many users found to be irritating or intollerable.
After living with the machine for a few days, here's the summary of my impressions, and I'd appreciate your feedback, particularly regarding DVD playback.
I didn't find the "sparkle" characteristic off-putting in any way; for me, it's a non-issue. The glossy screen surface and the effect that high resolution have on text size or whatever...also are non-issues with me.
Now...the light leak. It's there and it's impossible not to notice when playing DVD movies. In fact, the effect of the leak along the lower edge of the screen is significant enough to reduce apparent image contrast unless the scene of the moment is bright enough to overpower the effect...oh, let's say 40% on a brightness scale of 0 to 100.
In addition to the light leak, when the screen is dark, without a displayed iamge of any type, the illumination (or black level) of the screen is not very uniform, with patches of varying degrees of "black".
While playing DVD's (of course it's far more noticeable with movies of 2.35 aspect ratio), the light leak is significant enough to easily see several shades of difference between the "black bar" at the bottom of the frame, than the one at the top of the frame.
After reading a few instances of owners claiming that they're light leak has gone away or drastically reduced after a burn-in period, I've taken no action so far as talking to Dell. But, at the one week mark, there hasn't been even a slight degree of reduction of the effect on my display.
Here's my quandary: I'm not a very experienced laptop owner; this is my second machine, and the first with anywhere near this level of video sophistication. Also, I don't hang around with any people who have comparable machines against which to compare. Display models on store shelves are the nearest comparison I have. I'm not sure if I'm expecting an unrealistic level of performance for DVD movie-viewing, but, it seems to me that given the display size, relative to the average TV screen and the inherent quality of the medium, that a dazzling on-screen viewing experience, at 17 inches, should be a no-brainer.
I would appreciate hearing from any of you with comparable results (or not), and what kind of improvement can be had from a Dell replacement.
Oh...the display characteristics are just fine when using productivity software or surfing the net. In every regard except DVD viewing, I'm rather pleased.
Thanks,
David (padanx)
