Laptop displays suck.
This is no secret. While laptops have made great strides in battery life, processing power and overall size, displays continue to be a sore point which sees very little advancement. The laptop displays which we have today are not much better than the ones we had three or even five years ago. Some even argue they are worse- although I’m not sure I’d take it that far.
But why do laptop displays suck? It seems like that improving laptop displays would be an obvious way for a laptop vendor to gain the upper hand against competitors. After all, this is a growing and very competitive market, and the display is something a consumer will be using every time they use their laptop. It can’t be replaced or upgraded – what you see is what you’ll have for as long as you own the laptop.
If we can understand the problem, then perhaps we can find a solution. So, let’s take a look at why laptop displays suck.
Laptop Displays Are Easy to Doll Up
Almost every single consumer laptop on the market today has a glossy display. Glossy displays have their advantages. They usually have higher brightness than matte displays and also benefit from higher contrast ratios. However, the fact that 99% of consumer laptops have a glossy display doesn’t seem to jive with consumer’s attitudes towards them. If you surf some Youtube video reviews of laptops you’ll find quite a few complaints about various laptops with glossy displays.
So why do vendors use them? Because they show well. The showroom floors of stores which sell laptops usually have something in common – the laptops are at the back of the store. This is a relatively dark area of the store (although you don’t perceive it as such once your eyes adjust) and the only lights are directly above – an angle which is unlikely to cause major reflections on a laptop screen. In this sort of environment the glossy displays serve to doll up the product, making it look more expensive and clearer than it really is. It is only once you use the laptop for a week that you realize that the in-store display wasn’t a reflective (hah! get it?) of real-world usage.
Laptop Demos Are Limited
Another major reason why laptop displays continue to suck again has to deal with the showroom floor or, more specifically, how very little you can do with a laptop on the showroom floor. Apple – which has relatively nice displays on their laptops – is the only company which consistently gives shoppers the chance to full explore a laptop’s potential in a retail store. Bestbuy, Sony Style, Fry’s and numerous other retailers have laptop models on display, but you can’t do much with them. You can’t surf the Internet, or watch videos, or play games.
The inability to do these things conceals the weaknesses of modern laptop displays. It is hard to gauge the viewing angles on the laptop simply by looking at the Windows desktop. It is even harder to gauge how well the laptop displays colors or moving images. Some retailers don’t even let you view the Windows desktop – you’re limited to staring at the password protected login screen as your sole method of gauging a laptop’s display quality.
Retailers are Impossible to Control
The limited nature of laptop retailers in demos isn’t the fault of manufacturers. It is the fault of retailers. Even retailers in the same franchise often have very different shopping experiences in terms of how well demo laptops are treated. For example, I have two Best Buys in my area. One of the stores does a very good job when it comes to demo units. The laptops are almost always fully operational and are never password locked. The other Best Buy is the complete opposite. The laptops are constantly malfunctioning or password protected. You can ask an associate to help you, but then you have to listen to them spout corporate drivel while you try and concentrate of demoing the laptop.
Laptop vendors have absolutely no control over this. If you’ve ever wondered why Apple opened its own retail stores, I assure you this was one of the more important reasons. Let me give you a great example – The Dell XPS 16. Best Buy sells a Dell XPS 16 which has a very nice 1600×900 screen in the basic model. Good viewing angles, good color accuracy. Yet Dell sees almost no benefit from this on the showroom floor. Why? Because Dell doesn’t control what I see on that display. If everybody who came in saw a Dell demo which featured bright, vivid video and games on that display Dell would certainly see results. But even if Dell could come up with such a thing, they would have no way of making sure it actually was on display. In fact, companies like Best Buy would rather not show such things – they would rather use their own branded demos because it gives them an opportunity to pimp their services, like Geek Squad.
So What Can Be Done?
It would be nice to see more consumer awareness concerning the issue. Unfortunately mainstream consumer magazines, like Consumer Reports, are terrible when it comes to reporting on technology. Better consumer information would go a long way. As it is, consumer seem to feel very disempowered when it comes to buying laptops. There seems to be a feeling that you just have to make compromises if you buy a laptop. That shouldn’t be the case.
The more important issue, however, is that we need more competition in the retail laptop market. The fall of Circuit City, which was not a stellar operation my any measure, has left Best Buy as the only nationwide electronics retailer in the United States. Besides Best Buy there is a hodge-podge of regional companies, like Fry’s and Microcenter, and then finally the office stores and Wal-mart. All of these retailers do a terrible job of demoing laptops. Unless an environment exists where consumers can actually see the difference between laptop displays in the store we’ll continue to see stagnation when it comes to laptop displays.
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