9300 owners: tell us about your WUXGA

Tally and Summary of 9300 Owner Responses (stopped after the first 24)

W9892: Samsung LCD replacement kit (contains K9922/SEC5557)
See the LCD replacement thread here:
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=70498

X9065/LPL0000: XPS2 LG LCD
Dragon_Myr: lots of sparkles, good colors, no light leakage

J9662/LPL0000: loves:9, tolerates: 2, hates:5 (note: at least 4 lovers later requested replacements)
fuzzb3k: sparklies - I noticed that the minute I turned it on.
ankurg: sparkles, returned for exchange
SirBA: NO sparkles, even on white background; perfect; loves it
U.N.Inspector: no issues, likes the looks during game play (later, ordered replacement)
trioxin: really likes it, slight sparkles, but not bothersome
obigal: very good, bright, better than Compaq BrightView
markusw(europe): better than the 9200, but not perfect. returning.
joseyu: no sparkles (K9975 on packing slip) (later, ordered replacement)
Maklar: sparkle pretty apparent, it's going back to Dell
bbstls: much better than 9200 (K9975 on paper)
prism: annoying sparkles, dirty whites, but great colors
chichopf1: very very good except for two dark corners, no sparkles
luology1: no sparkles, good color (K9975 on paper) (later, ordered replacement)
mbman: very little sparkle, little light leakage, very bright (K9975 on paper) (later, ordered replacement)
augiepat: sparkly, distracting (K9975 on packing slip)
Shodaime: bad sparkle, colors suck (K9975 on packing slip)

J9676/LPL0000: same as J9662 above

K9975/SEC5557: loves:4, tolerates:1, hates:0
shboyles: better than the 9200 LG, some minor sparkles
gearshifter: great screen, but i do see a grain if i look really close
gerryh: I'm happy with this screen
yellowlt4: one of the best WUXGAs ever!
mystikarkitect: little light leakage, no sparkles, pretty happy

K9922/SEC5557: loves:4, tolerates:1, hates:1
Shinji_U(asia): looks as good as a Sony X-Brite
Quiquin: not as good as an X-Brite, but will probably keep it
HillbillyOne: much better than 9200 LG, needed minor color adjustment
joseyu: oh, that's what white is supposed to look like
u.n.inspector: washed-out colors, light leakage
Maklar: much better than LG

How do I tell which panel I have?

Well, it appears that the new panels use a different protocol to get the EDID structure, so the old tools don't work, but tools like PowerStrip do:
http://www.download.com/PowerStrip/3...ml?tag=lst-0-1

There's an even simpler test that seems to always work. If you change the LCD brightness from level 2-3 using the FN-up-arrow brightness control, the LG will not change brightness between those two levels, while the Samsung will.

And the EDID is reporting the same model numbers Dell shipped in the 9200:

1) LPL0000, LG Philips WUXGA (Dell part J9662)
LG-Philips LP171WU1
(DP/N KR-0J9962-56252-52O-0322)

2) SEC5557, Samsung WUXGA (Dell part K9975)
3) SEC5557 Samsung WUXGA (Dell part K9922, 20ms beauty?)
Samsung LTN170WU
(DP/N KR-0K9922-39792-52L-00YM)

Users are reporting "sparkles" from both panels, so now we need to determine which is less annoying (my money is on the Samsung). Please note that nobody has really complained about any of the 9300 panels. Everybody seems pretty pleased with them so far. The reported "sparkle" may be quite tolerable.

For users who ordered the WXGA+, they appear to be identical to those shipped on the 9200. See this thread for more info:
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=55769

What the hell is "sparkle"?

Maybe this will help:
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=69723

Original Message

There's some concern that Dell is shipping the same LCD as they did for the 9200 as a new and improved TrueLife (TM) LCD for the 9300. There's a relatively easy way to find out, but I need a volunteer from the audience.

1) Download get-edid
http://john.fremlin.de/programs/linu...t-edid-dos.zip

2) extract it to some dir, say C:\BIN

3) open a command prompt (aka DOS box), and CD to the extract dir

4) hit Alt-Enter to open the DOS box to full screen

5) run GET-EDID from the command line

6) tell us what it says. it'll spew some binary data out, but there should be an ASCII string towards the end of the spew. for example, mine says "Y4014" and "170WU" near the end.

If yours also says Y4014, I'll be kind of pissed.

Bummer. But I'm pretty sure that means yours is a different LCD. One that doesn't support reading the EDID structure (maybe Dell learned a lesson from all of those 9200 returns).

Cool. That should confirm it is a different part, so Dell is not just sticking a NuShield thingy on the old part. The glossy coating is coming from Samsung.

Sonic, Scotty already booted Knoppix and it couldn't determine the LCD either, so whatever it is, it doesn't seem to support getting the EDID.

I think it was yellow who determined it was a Samsung. He didn't say, but I assume he actually cracked open the case to check.

It's possible. Part of the EDID structure contains manufacturer information, but another part is for vendor information. I doubt the manufacturer would make it writable, though. They probably just burn a ROM for the batch they send to a given vendor.

I am certain that Dell originally intended the 9200 LCD to be shipped with the 9300 (it was labeled SULLIVAN/GILBERT, the code names for the 9300/9200), but they learned from the returns, and it's pretty clear they're going with a different LCD now.