si_edgey

I knew it was too good to be true.

My Asusvivobook is now really stinging my eyes and I feel nauseous.

Would you recommend the HP open over the dell xps 15 then? When you say the HP was noisy - was that just for gaming, or would it be very noisy also for zoom calls etc? I don’t mind about weight but do need something where the fan isn’t crazy loud.

Those that have found the omen helps is it only that model number as they seem out of stock. This one is available but I don’t know if you’d recommend this equally? HP OMEN 15-dh1005na/15-dh1005sa 15.6 Inch Full HD, 144 Hz Gaming Laptop, Intel Core i7-10750H, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6 GB Dedicated) Graphics, Windows 10 Home - Black, Bundle.

Thank again!

    9 months later

    I am back with an update after 18 months. The Asus Zephyrus G14 mentioned in the OP is still not comfortable for me so I use it only sparingly: no more than 30 minutes / day. I switched to a Samsung Galaxy tab S7 as my primary computing device - it's perfectly comfortable for all-day use. I also upgraded my phone to an iPhone 11 and that is perfectly usable as well.

    I am on the hunt for a workable laptop again and am currently testing out two laptops. They both have MUX switch, NVIDIA discrete graphics cards, and screens without PWM according to review sites.

    Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X (Model  82V20003US from Costco in USA):

    • Windows 11 Home

    • AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS (8-Core) Processor

    • 14.5" Touchscreen IPS sRGB 3K (3072 x 1920) 120Hz Display

    • NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3050, 4GB

    MSI GE76 Raider (Model Raider GE76 12UE-456 from Costco in USA):

    • Windows 11 Home

    • 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H Processor

    • 17.3" Thin Bezel IPS FHD (1920 x 1080) 144Hz Display

    • NVIDIA® GeForce RTX 3060 Graphics, 6GB

    My reasoning for testing these two quite different laptops is to compare the effects of:

    • High resolution panel vs low resolution panel

    • Glossy panel (Lenovo) v/s matte panel

    • 14.5" screen v/s 17" screen (test effect of viewing distance)

    • AMD v/s Intel CPU (should not matter in theory since I am going to use discrete graphics)

    The Lenovo looked more promising initially so I am doing a deeper test on it first with the following software modifications:

    • NVIDIA Control Panel: display mode set to "NVIDIA GPU Only", native resolution and max frame rate (120 Hz), use NVIDIA color settings with 8 bpc output color depth, no scaling, and G-sync enabled for full-screen and windowed mode.

    • Registry update to disable dithering (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOGVm1tjsT4), used the "turn off dithering binary key db,01,00,00,10,00,00,00,02,00,01,04,f3,00,00,00"

    • Windows settings: Night Light on and set to 50%, increased font size to 150%, tuned "ClearType" text, scaling remained at default 200%.

    The Lenovo appears to be significantly more comfortable than the Zephyrus G14, but unfortunately my eyes are already strained from doing the initial setup yesterday. I need to let my eyes rest for a day before resuming the evaluation. I will post an update in a few days.

    9 days later

    I decided to keep the Lenovo and return the MSI Raider. After a lot of testing and settings configuration, I think I have a fairly usable setup now. This is still not as comfortable as my tablet (Samsung Galaxy S7) or phone (iPhone 11), but way better than any new laptop I have used.

    I think for me personally, glossy hi-res screen works better because the text looks sharper and I can more easily focus on it. So far I can only use NVIDIA graphics set to 8-bit color mode. The AMD graphics forces 10-bit output which is not comfortable at all. I suspect it's because the panel used in this laptop is 8-bit + FRC.

    Thanks to user si_edgey here, I have been using the red color file as my desktop background and can easily see the banding with 8-bit color output but not with 10-bit color output. I am attaching the file in case it's helpful to others

    The next step is to try out Linux, either pop_os or MX Linux distro. Even if that does not work out (I strongly prefer using Linux), I am thrilled to have a usable laptop that can at least run Windows 11.

    Your mileage with Linux will vary quite a lot. To be honest, I do not at all use Linux regularly because the video drivers on my system are not great. My system is integrated Intel, so my choices are twofold, I can use the modesetting driver, or I can use the x.org driver. Modesetting will work with both Wayland and X11, x.org driver works only with x.org. Neither of them are as good as the Windows driver in terms of rendering and on my system x.org renders better than Wayland (it was the same with the Videocore IV as well, the legacy x.org driver rendered better than the modesetting one for me). Additional complications are the compositors and font rendering settings. It's a shame the Linux desktop is such a problem. I should look into a dock for my steamdeck, but I want a good one not one made by the lowest bidder. It would be interesting to see how the AMD drivers render on my monitor.

    There's something odd going on if you're having banding with that red image. It's not a gradient. It's just a uniform shade of red in 8-bit. You should not have banding at all. If you're having banding on an 8-bit image, you're outputting at a colour depth that is lower than 8-bit, or your panel is natively 6-bit.

    This is the thread describing the banding with the background (scroll down to an update of post #1): https://ledstrain.org/d/152-temporal-dithering-sensitivity-my-solution.

    I am sure that my laptop screen is 8-bit + FRC. The specific color in the image is #c84141 - I am not sure why this behavior occurs since 8-bit monitors should be able to perfectly display any hex color code in theory. Maybe it's something to do with an imperfect coverage of the sRGB gamut. My experience matches that of si_edgey - no issues when there is banding, but I get eye strain when it is displayed without banding.

    Thanks for the detailed explanation of potential issues with Linux. I am not optimistic either but will give it a try next month.

    9 months later

    Here's another update after 9 months. The Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X is still working great with minimal eye strain using the Nvidia RTX 3050 GPU. I am not going to bother to install Linux on this machine. It's highly unlikely that Linux display drivers will be any better than Windows drivers.

    I have been experimenting with the display settings to improve my comfort level using the integrated AMD GPU. I was able to use the "Custom Resolution Utility" to force the display EDID to report as 8-bit instead of 10-bit (8 + 2 FRC). This was an attempt to reduce or eliminate the effects of temporal dithering. Unfortunately, I don't think this made any difference and I am giving up on being able to use the AMD GPU. Note that the USB-C display output is connected only to the integrated AMD GPU.

    Here is a review of the laptop in case anybody is interested: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Slim-7-Pro-X-laptop-review-The-Asus-VivoBook-14-alternative.697031.0.html

    I am able to confirm using HWINFO that the panel used is CSOT T3 MNE507ZA1-1 as listed in the review above.

      owmyeyes

      Glad it's working for you. So your force NVIDIA on at all times? Also curious what Windows version you use?

        I am using Windows 11 Enterprise 22H2. The NVIDIA GPU is on at all times using the following setting:

        6 days later

        Hello owmyeyes, I just bought this laptop based on your post above. For the moment looks like I have minimal symptoms if I work on it which is GREAT, but if I'm connecting it to my external monitor, the "nvidia GPU only" mode is grayed out and "optimus" is selected by default.

        This is not good because I think the signal is still bypassed via the iGPU and I'm getting dizzy with eye strain.

        Do you use an external monitor? If yes, how did you make sure the "nvidia GPU only" mode is active and survives after the laptop restart?

        Thanks

          necreatul I think the best mode is disable igpu on devices manager or connect tò external monitor by hdmi

            necreatul I am glad to hear that the laptop seems to be working for you! Because it's a fairly new model, I hope to use it for a long time. I am careful to NOT update the NVIDIA driver to avoid the risk of a software update messing up my working configuration.

            Sorry, I don't think it is possible to bypass the iGPU when you use an external monitor using the USB-C ports. It is a hardware limitation and I can't think of any way to get around it. I have the same issue and my solution is to use only the laptop screen for now.

            I recently ordered an Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C color e-ink tablet. I plan to use it as a secondary display wirelessly using Spacedesk software - I will update once I test it out.

                owmyeyes Hello, yeah I also tried to make it bypass the iGPU but with no luck. The second display is giving me headaches so I think I'm gonna return the laptop. Although the screen is super nice, it is too small for my work as UX designer.

                  6 months later

                  I have another update - I could not use the Onyx Boox e-ink device at all, either as a secondary monitor or as a standalone eReader.

                  My laptop (Lenovo Slim Pro X) is still working fine but I can't use any external display with it. I do need a larger screen for work so I got a used desktop with i5-12600K CPU and RTX 3060 Ti GPU. I tried a number of monitors that were uncomfortable until I settled on a Sony KD-43X77L 4k TV to use as a computer monitor. I still had to change a bunch of settings on my PC as well as the TV menu but l I finally have a usable setup.

                  I made a new post with more details here: https://ledstrain.org/d/2559-sony-kd-43x77l-tv-working-as-a-monitor

                  dev