high quality external display guidelines

Discussion in 'Which Laptop should I buy?' started by nineroot, Apr 12, 2016.

  1. nineroot

    nineroot

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    Hello people,

    Any guidelines on choosing a laptop with high quality display
    on external monitor are appreciated!
    I plan to use my laptop as a movable desktop and I would
    like to connect it to large external monitor so I really need
    high resolution and refresh rate, clear and eyes friendly image.
    I am asking because on some laptops I've seen poor external
    image with flickering and/or noise (even with newest drivers and optimal adjustment).
    Also, on the internet there are many threads where people complain about such issues.

    So, should any laptop with high quality graphic card be good,
    or do you think testing is really the only way to see it?

    Also, some laptops only have HDMI ports, would using
    HDMI 2 DVI or HDMI 2 VGA adapters lower the display quality?

    Any other suggestions?

    Thanks a lot!
     
    nineroot, Apr 12, 2016
    #1
  2. nineroot

    fcuco

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    What's your main purpose for this setup? Because you are going to have different needs for different goals. Are you planing to use this as a gaming machine? Are you going to use it for work, and if so, what's your line of work, video editing? is this more of an entertainment center to consume media? Define "large" external monitor, it is a 50 inch tv set or a computer monitor? I know that the line between a TV and a Computer monitor is becoming more and more blurry but you still have some differences specially if you are planning to do some gaming because then you will need to pay attention to stuff like the refresh rate.

    HDMI to DVI makes sense, remember that DVI has both audio and video so if you are using HDMI you will need a different connection for audio.
     
    fcuco, Apr 13, 2016
    #2
  3. nineroot

    nineroot

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    Hi, thanks for the reply.
    So, the main purpose of the laptop will be programming and reading/writing.
    By "large" I mean 24" LCD.
     
    nineroot, Apr 13, 2016
    #3
  4. nineroot

    spence88

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    For a 24" monitor, 1920x1080 is the best resolution (for me). You can go 4k, but that is overkill since you're not gaming. You don't have to worry about I/O functionality of laptops nowadays, because they have more than what you normally need. You don't need to test the laptop's graphics card since you're outputting on a different device. So what you need to test is the monitor you're going to use :)
    Yes, there is no quality loss with HDMI or DVI. HDMI outputs video and audio, but DVI only video, so you have to use a different connection for audio as fcuco said.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2016
    spence88, Apr 14, 2016
    #4
  5. nineroot

    nineroot

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    Tnx for the reply spence88.

    I run some tests in the meantime. On the monitor I'm currently using,
    picture is worse (some noise, flickering) when using VGA output
    from the (mid-range dell) laptop. Picture is much better
    (almost no noise, no flicker) when connecting the monitor to a desktop computer with DVI output using DVI 2 VGA adapter.
    I gues pure DVI connection should work even better.

    On a friends laptop (high-end lenovo) same thing happens
    with a different external monitor: when using VGA cable connection
    with the laptop the picture has noise, but when connecting it with the
    desktop via DP output (and DP cable), the picture has no noise.

    The noises and flickerings mentioned are visible
    only from approx. 20cm distance, but there IS visible
    difference when switching outputs as described.

    So I suppose that it must either be the VGA connection
    or the graphic cards from the laptops...
     
    nineroot, Apr 14, 2016
    #5
  6. nineroot

    fcuco

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    Quite honestly if your main goal is programming I think that stuff like available RAM and the numbers of displays that you can have is more important than graphics capabilities. Programing on multiple displays is the ultimate productivity boost and while having 3 displays seems a little overkill once you try it you can't go back.

    You also need plenty of RAM so you can have all the programs that you need running at the same time, if you can't have access to a different machine to act as your testing and Q&A server then, presumably, you need to run everything on your main one, your database engine, your IDE or text editor, your test server and so on, so don't focus much on the graphics as the RAM is probably going to be your bottleneck.

    The difference of quality that you are seeing is the difference between an analog and digital connection, make sure your VGA cables have proper shielding. For DVI this is not an issue.
     
    fcuco, Apr 14, 2016
    #6
  7. nineroot

    spence88

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    Nice to see some results there!
    No problem. Yeah, your graphics card are fine!

    Yeah, it's the VGA cable. Don't use VGA cables, they're old.
    DVI or HDMI is faster, cleaner (less noise).
    DP cables are fine too.
     
    spence88, Apr 15, 2016
    #7
  8. nineroot

    nineroot

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    Yeah, I suppose the cables are the problem.
    @fcuco: don't worry, I've got all the processing/ram and such
    requirements covered, but I also want to optimize for the happy eyes.

    so graphic card with hdmi output should do fine,
    rest is on the monitor quality.
    fyi, the topic of monitor quality is covered here in detail:
    https://forum.pcmonitors.info/topic/easiest-monitor-on-eyes-for-daily-usage/

    they say these are main criteria (for eye friendly
    reading/programming monitor):
    no dither (true 8-bit color), no backlight flicker (no PWM),
    good contrast and no glare. now, one can find an external monitor
    with these reqs, but laptop screens are not made without backlight flicker,
    as far as I've read, but the rest of the criteria should be satisfiable
     
    nineroot, Apr 15, 2016
    #8
  9. nineroot

    spence88

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    Nice find. Thanks for sharing. Seems you've done your own research!
    Please do give us updates in the future. Thanks for stopping by the forums :)
     
    spence88, Apr 16, 2016
    #9
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