Figure folks from here are picky enough to possibly know -

Any 13-14" laptops out there with a decent wide viewing angle screen?

Not necessarily IPS, but more than, well... junk.. garbage.. 5 degree viewing angle stuff they're putting in consumer gear these days.

Anyone know what an Envy 13 has?

-Dan

The best screen on a widely distributed notebook would be the 15" Macbook Pro, and somewhat lower quality, but still better than most would be the 13" Macbook Pro.

The 13" HP envy is better than average, too.

I will also go for the Macbook Pro. It pefectly meets the requirements as mentioned in the first post. As the viewing angles of the Macbook Pro screen. Horizontal viewing angles are very impressive, while vertical angles are as expected from a notebook screen.

I upgraded my Thinkpad X32 to an IPS screen from a tablet, and it's incredible, can't go back to a junk laptop screen again. The closest alternative is getting an X200 non-LED screen and upgrading to an IPS screen from a Gateway tablet.

I'm hoping that with the iPad and iMac 22" & 27" making a big deal about it being an IPS screen, that there's some attention paid to that sector. Just picked up a 24" IPS screen for my desktop and am a happy camper.

I ended up getting an off-lease T60 14" for my wife - screen is crap, but she's not nearly as picky about these things as I am...

-Dan

It is hard to get IPS screens for a laptop, IBM made some and they were listed as Flexview displays. No current notebook manufacture is making good displays to my knowledge anymore. Hopefully this will change as more people become aware of the situation.

Does Samsung put a CPVA panel in any laptops? (I believe CPVA may be proprietary to Samsung.) It is almost as good as IPS, but cheaper to make. Seems like a no-brainer.

The Dell Studio XPS 16 offers a wide gamut RGB LED display. Qualitative reviews from tech sites say it's good but it is a TN panel apparently.

I think there's hope - the iPad uses IPS, and the new iPhone is supposedly going to use IPS. Also, the latest KNO tablet is said to use a dual-screen 14.1" (!!) IPS panel. The word is getting out that:
a. Your current laptop screen sucks
b. It doesn't HAVE to suck

My hunch is that SOMEONE is going to see this as an opportunity to sell a few million new laptops as the market get saturated with Smartbooks, Smartphones, netbooks, notebooks, and desktop replacements - not many markets left beyond "replacebooks"

-Dan

Couldn't agree more.

"replacebooks" - even these exist... eReaders like Kindle and such.
The nicest one I've seen yet is the Plastic Logic Que (not yet released).

Some new technologies such as from Pixel Qi, and Liquavista that crossover the line between e-ink and regular LCD will reportedly be showing up in both slates and netbooks. Might give you the best of both worlds in terms of being able to use it both backlit and non-backlit or outdoors.

http://www.liquavista.com/products/liquavistacolor.aspx
http://www.liliputing.com/2010/06/pixel ... rated.html

These sorts of improvements can't happen soon enough in my opinion.

yes, I'm also very angry at the number of low-quality display panels recently.

Especially low-resolution panels, it's really hard to get a HQ low resolution panel for easy reading

More importantly, laptops dont avertise the type of panel used. I've returned 3 laptops in the last 3 years due to display and/or cpu whine problems

VAIO Zs are praised for their superior panels, and HP Elitebook tablet PCs have amazing viewing angles. Step into the high end Elitebooks and you can customize with the 30-bit DreamColor Panel. Should the $500 upgrade seem a bit much, just remember that their 24" desktop DreamColor retails $2,899 These screens were supposedly developed with-for DreamWorks.

You get what you pay for, and one of the easiest places for manufacturers to bring costs down is in the screens.

I currently have a new 15" MacBook Pro, and the IPS (anti-glare) screen is great. My previous laptop was a Sony Z, and that one was excellent, as well. An advantage of the latter is that you have the option of 1600x900 or 1920x1080 on a 13" laptop... either one is much higher than similar laptops with that screen size.

It does look gorgeous; by comparison most other laptop screens look almost black and white.

nah... good screens are OLED screens. Any idea of when are they coming at reasonable prices?
Who is to blame that they are not already here at mass production? Samsung patents?

that one was excellent, as well. An advantage of the latter is that you have the option of 1600x900 or 1920x1080 on a 13" laptop... either one is much higher than similar laptops with that screen size.

Is the new Macbook Pro IPS screen the same technology as the Apple LED Cinema Display? I do like the new Retina Displays for the iPhone 4. Apparently they are going to be putting them in the next iPads in 2012. Hopefully they'll also put them in the Macbook Pros next year too. I've heard rumors that they are redesigning the cases too. While I'm sure there will be some good deals on the older version Macbook Pro, I'm thinking the next generation will be too tempting and I'll have to get one.