Laptop LCD Roundup: Road Warriors Deserve Better

Viewing Angles

Viewing angles are one of those specifications that have become very inflated by the manufacturers. The basic requirement is that a display has to maintain a 10:1 contrast ratio in order to qualify as "viewable". The reality is that most LCDs are unfit for viewing outside of about a 45° arc, and on laptops you may not even get that much of a viewing arc. While we doubt that most people would want to view a display from an oblique angle, the typical positioning of a laptop - sitting on your lap only a couple feet from your eyes - can make viewing angles more important. Unfortunately, as all of the LCDs appear to use TN panels, that means viewing angles become more important and the technology becomes less satisfactory.

We used a Canon Digital Rebel SLR camera to take shots from head-on as well as from the left, right, top, and bottom at ~30° angles. We then combined the images into a single representative shot, showing how brightness and contrast ratios are affected in off-angle viewing. The camera was set to manual mode and an ISO value of 400 with an exposure time of 1/60s. While there's no substitute for actually sitting in front of a display yourself and using it, we did our best to use settings that generated images similar to what we saw in person. With all of the laptops photographed under the same conditions and with the same settings, the relative appearance of the images is at least as important as how each image looks individually.

ASUS A8Js ASUS G2P Dell XPS M1710 MSI S271

Click to enlarge

Again, the ASUS G2P clearly comes out on top and offers the best overall viewing angles. The Dell XPS M1710 and MSI S271 are somewhat similar, though we would give the edge to the Dell laptop. The ASUS A8Js on the other hand ranks at the bottom, particularly in the areas of vertical viewing angles. On desktop systems, horizontal viewing angles are often more important, but in everyday use we find that vertical viewing angles are definitely a problem with many laptops. A slight tilt of your lap or a straightening of your back, and the perceived image can quickly become washed out.