Widescreen Wallpapers

Sharp may not do much in terms of ePaper, but they know their way around an LCD. And they’ve just shown off a new type of eight-color LCD that can hold a static image even when the power is cut.

The 14.1, 6.1, 2.4 and 1.7-inch displays are believe to use a cholesteric LCD material to freeze the images. Power specifications were not provided, but freezing data into the display apparently takes a “relatively large” amount of energy.

And while Sharp hasn’t pitched the tech for displaying the newspaper, they do see a lot of potential in the commercial market. One Osaka grocery is already testing several smaller displays that are hooked up to Wi-Fi and can change prices easily. The same principle would work well for nightly restaurant specials and the ever-fluctuating pricepoints at children’s lemonade stands everywhere. [Tech-On via Slashgear]

Even though the latest MacBook uses the same size display as the last-gen MacBook Air, the displays are not quite the same. The Air, being a more premium product, uses a display that’s more similar to the MacBook Pro than the MacBook. You’ll remember in our review that despite being both having glass components and visually similar designs, the MacBook’s 13-inch screen was of a lower quality than the 15-inch MacBook Pro screen. You can see that blacks are much blacker and the color representation is much better on the Air, as they are on the Pro

However, the new MacBook is a bit better than the old MacBook in terms of brightness, but the LED backlighting adds a bit of a blue tint to blacks. The Air doesn’t have this problem, and neither does the MacBook Pro. Minor differences, but it should help the decision if you’re trying to determine whether a MacBook is “good enough”, or if you should go for a MacBook Pro.

As a reminder, here are the MacBook vs. MacBook Pro shots. It should be obvious which is which.

When ever I go to change my screen resolution. (For the longest time it was 1440×900) And now randomly when I restarted my computer, it switched it from 1440 x 900 to 1440 x 1800.

I tried reinstalling my drivers and everything but it still isn’t working.

What the hell? Like everything was fine, and now its just all screwed up. Can someone help me as to how I can set it back to 1440 x 900? Cause it isn’t anywhere in the Display Properties. I just have other reversed crap and I just want it back to 1440 x 900.

If anybody can help, thanks.
It still hasn’t worked. I will try to email you.

While promising display technologies like SED have pretty much disappeared from the Earth, Mitsubishi has actually begun shipping their absolutely incredible 65″ LaserVue TVs. These sets suck less power than LCDs and feature two times the color of most competitive sets. Oh…but these sets still run almost $7,000 a pop. So that whole inexpensive aspect we’d heard about originally has been quietly swept under the rug for the time being. [LaserVue via Electronista]

6th Avenue Electronics has the Sharp AQUOS 32″ 1080p HDTV for $699, including shipping, with a coupon. It’s the lowest price we’ve seen for this LCD by about $100, and it’s a pretty well-reviewed line. This one features a 6ms response time and dual HDMI inputs. [DealNews]

The economy sucks. But like Warren Buffett, you should be greedy when everyone else is skurred. If you’ve got the extra scratch, this is probably the best holiday season ever to buy an HDTV, since retailers don’t want a pile of them going obsolete in their warehouse. But what should you look for in an HDTV? HD Guru Gary Merson—a dude who’s reviewed 125 TVs at once—uses sophisticated gear for his own studies, but told us the five most important things that all the rest of us Joe the Plumber types can look out for when buying an HDTV.

You can’t exactly load up a bunch of test signals and spectrum analyzers to carry into Best Buy to check out their TVs (though Gary has been known to do this). Still, there are some basic things you can look for beyond the specs, which are at times intentionally misleading. Once you’ve swept the reviews from the likes of HD Guru, CNet and Home Entertainment, giving you an approximate idea of the best performers in your price range, find out where they are and visit them in person. Obviously, the sets on the shelf aren’t always properly tuned, but if the store is committed to making a sale—and they are more now than ever before—they should produce a remote and let you mess around to properly vet it for your living situation.

Contrast

The contrast ratio is the most important thing to look for in today’s HDTVs. But don’t be fooled by crap like a 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio—it’s truly meaningless, since there’s not even test equipment to provide documented proof of the retardedly high numbers they throw out. What you can do, though, is check out the blacks. Bright whites aren’t a big issue today—most TVs now perform admirably on that side of the spectrum—so blacks are the most important.

Take a dark scene, and cup your hands around a black area of the screen, blocking out all the ambient light from your view. What it’s look like? Does it glow? Or is it really black? Next, how does it flow from dark to light? Is it a smooth gradation or is it a harsh step up? You want really deep, dark blacks and bright whites, but you want a nice even gradation between the two. Historically, plasmas have been better at blacks, but LED-backlit LCDs are catching up. Since the latter are ridiculously expensive, you’ll probably find a better deal on a plasma.

Angle of View

This test is pretty easy. Stand in the center of the TV. Then move off to the right or left. How quickly do the colors start to turn unnatural or seriously lose saturation? If colors shift or fade quickly, you will have problems. You want the widest viewing angle possible—that is to say, you want the picture to look as good as far off to the side as possible—so people stuck on your sofa’s netherparts aren’t left out of the I Am Legend suckfest. As you can see here, even LCDs from the same maker can have different viewing angles:Vertical viewing angle is less important because you will generally place your TV level with your eyes while seated, but if you watch TV while doing other things, and don’t have a fancy swivel wall mount, you should try to see how colors shift or fade as you crouch down or tiptoe up above the TV screen.

LCDs tend to have more problems than plasma in this regard—the costly, otherwise awesome LED-backlit LCDs are especially known to have reduced viewing angles. Microdisplay projection TVs, like the Mitsubishi LaserVue and other DLPs, are also subject to viewing-angle issues, mostly a reduction in brightness.

Static Resolution

Static resolution is a little difficult to comprehensively evaluate without test signals, but you can kind of eyeball it by looking at fine detail on a set. If you’re watching a Yankees game—one of Gary’s favorite examples—can you make out the pinstripes cleanly? On a close-up of a head of hair, can you see every strand? It’s all about the details. On a crappy set, you just can’t see ‘em.

Motion Resolution

Motion resolution matters a lot if you’re a sports or action movie fan. It’s also fairly easy to test, just have them put on a baseball or football game. Remember the Yankee pinstripes? Sure they might look clean when a pitcher is chilling on the mound, but how about when he winds up? Or when a football player is dashing down the field, can you see his legs, or are they a total blur? On a set with good motion resolution, you wouldn’t lose those details. Again, plasma traditionally has the edge here, though 120Hz LCDs do make up for LCD’s inherent motion-blur weakness.

Overall Impression

This is probably the most subjective, though ultimately what really matters. Do you like what you see? On a great set, the picture will be crisp, the colors will be vibrant and rich (aka saturated) and it’ll have a nice pop to it. As much as personal taste matters, the most “objective” way to evaluate this is to look at faces. Do they look real, with natural, smooth transitions from lighter to darker areas, or are there severe discrepancies between one area and another? Some older HDTVs gave standard-def faces a waxy look. Just take a step back and think about what you really think looks fantastic (within your budget, of course).

That should cover most of the basics of eye-on-the-tube picture quality evaluation—it’s not the only thing to look for in an HDTV, but definitely the most important after price. And speaking of price, stay glued to Giz for heads-ups on the best TV deals to put all this new insight to use. And if you’ve got any other TV buying tips, let ‘em loose in the comments. You can also get more in-depth info about plasma and LCD TVs here and here.

Something you still wanna know? Send any questions about TVs, Scientologists or Satan Clawz to tips@gizmodo.com, with “Giz Explains” in the subject line.

Special thanks to Gary Merson!

In case you haven’t gotten enough of amazing TVs you can’t possibly afford in this awesome economy today, Cnet has reviewed the 55-inch, plasma-killin’ tri-color LED-backlit Bravia XBR8 we saw a couple months ago. Spoiler: Sony’s setup didn’t lie—it’s the best LCD TV ever, falling just short of the best HDTV ever, nearly matching Pioneer’s PDP-111FD (Cnet’s best flat-panel period) in blacks, color accuracy and bright-room picture quality.

Here’s what great: The black levels are near-Kuro deep. In dimly-lit scenes, blacks had “an inky depth in dark areas that lent superb punch and realism to the image, and easily outclassed the rest of the non-Pioneer sets.” The only taint is that when bright areas are next to dark ones, it lightens up the bars a bit, so Pioneer wins here. The color accuracy “is nothing short of superb” and after calibration they’re as “excellently balanced and still as saturated as on the Pioneer.” Its de-juddering mode is also the best they’ve ever seen.

Its few weak points: Image quality fades when you look at it from an off angle, the previously mentioned blooming with high contrast images, and the dejuddering can produce some artifacts, especially with a standard-def picture. Oh, and it’s $7000, the most expensive TV they’ve ever tested. On the upside, if you’re willing to spend more than $6500 on a TV, you apparently can’t go wrong. [Cnet via Sony Insider]

Sometimes it’s painfully obvious that there is no rule in the world of electronics that someone has to need (or even have a single conceivable use for) a new product before it’s designed. That might help explain what you’re seeing above: a double-sided LCD panel by LG, first heard about a few months back. This is not two screens strapped together, and it’s not even two separate display signals being shown back to back — this incredibly thin screen displays the same image in two directions, all the time. The concept is fundamentally interesting, but with one side of the panel always displaying a mirror of the other, I’m really having trouble imagining how to use it. Advertising? Two-sided home theaters? The least private laptop ever? You’ve got plenty of time to think about it, as LG is giving no indication of when — of even if — this tech will make it to market. [TechOn]

If you’re in the market for a new television and a Blu-Ray player, Sharp will help you kill two birds with one of its new Aquos DXs. The company has released a line of LCD TVs that have built-in Blu-Ray disc recorders, which they tout as an all-in-one solution for recording television onto BDs… in case there’s television that’s actually worth the trouble. The 16 sets in the Aquos DX line range from 26-inch to 52-inch models and cost between $1,600 and $4,900.

The larger models (37-inches and up) boast 1,920 x 1,080 pixel resolution, a 2000:1 contrast ratio, 30W speakers, a 176 degree viewing angle and nine different types of input. The smaller versions have a 1,366×768 pixel resolution, a 1500:1 contrast ratio, and 20W speakers. [Sharp via Akihabara News]

The latest 24-inch Cinema Displays now look like the the iMacs (and by extension, the latest MacBook and MacBook Pros) with a glossy black front and a silver back. The glass display looks great, but the cool innovation is the three-prong connector that we talked about during the liveblog. One goes to the MagSafe, one goes to USB and one goes to the Mini Display Port. $899 is a bit more than other comparable 24-inch displays, but nothing else comes bundled with that MagSafe. Aesthetically, it’s the only one that matches with the design features of your MB or MBP, so if that’s important to you, you’ve got a new monitor.
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