33. Display Brightness, Contrast And Brightness Uniformity, Continued

Because histograms or standard deviations don't demonstrate spatial brightness uniformity as well as we might like, we decided to add an additional measurement for this article. Regular readers of THG may already be familiar with the graphics we use to present our TFT monitor tests, which appear below for the Pavilion dv8000z notebook we test here.

How should you read these diagrams? Each field in the diagram represents one of the 64 measurement fields, and indicates related brightness and contrast values measured for that field. Values among neighboring fields and high-value lines emerge from linear interpolation of measurements from adjacent fields. The various colors indicate parts of the display surface for which the measured values are within specific value ranges, as indicated in the legend. Colors shown do not match colors captured directly from the monitor.

The upper edge of the diagram represents the lower horizontal edge of the display. The opposite edge thus corresponds to its upper edge. The other two edges represent the left and right sides of the display, respectively.

Our diagram of spatial brightness uniformity of the dv8000z clearly indicates that it uses only a single light element for backlighting. Therefore, brightness levels diminish appreciably from the top of the diagram and downwards. Both of the display's upper corners deliver maximum brightness levels of between only 80 and 90 cd/m² (Nits).

The contrast diagram shows highest contrast in the middle of the bottom third of the screen, with values diminishing as the distance from this part of the screen increases.