6. Display Brightness, Contrast, And Uniformity

The following charts present our measurements of display brightness and contrast for the Sony VAIO Professional VGN-TX1XP, along with similar measurements from five other ultra-portable laptops we've tested recently.

This display is bright enough to permit users to work in normally lit environments. In very bright ambient light or outdoors, this display wins no prizes, as is the case for the majority of mobile computers with TFT screens. LED backlighting appears to be something of a back and forth matter. The black/white contrast level of 433:1 we measured is very good, but not overwhelmingly so. By comparison, the Dell Inspiron 6000 with a 15.4" display posts a much more impressive level of 692:1.

In Part 1 of this story, we discussed a known shortcoming of the kind of LED technology that Sony uses in the TX series - namely, "backlight bleeding". This effect is limited to the lowermost rows of the display, and is only detected in part by the cross-shaped measurement sensor we use in our testing; it has little or no effect on our display measurements. The naked eye has no problem detecting this effect, however, so buyers must decide for themselves how bothersome it is.

Even here at MobilityGuru we were split on this subject - one group declared "we can live with it," while another said "no way." An additional comment is worth mentioning in this context as well. Even in devices with CCFL backlighting, some displays show effects from the backlight as a bright white stripe within their lowermost lines - even models from the best-ranked vendors. This technology, though well-tried and accepted for years, isn't perfect either.