The Gigabyte AERO 15 seen here is your usual gaming laptop, but with a twist — a color-corrected screen.
While Retina displays on Macs have become the gold standard for laptop displays, Windows machines have instead opted for absurd amounts of pixels or touchscreens — with inconsistent color reproduction and color gamut.
Razer is trying to fill this gap with their Blade THX edition and Gigabyte just brought in their entry with the new AERO 15. So, are color-corrected displays a gimmick, or do they help the editors and creatives who hope their laptop screens are displaying colors accurately?
Does a color-corrected display matter?
The AERO 15 doesn’t have a sub-par display, but next to a MacBook Pro it still looks pale, with a colder hue compared to the Pro’s warmer, crisper look. To the naked eye, the differences might be due to the Pro using a glossy, 15.4-inch 2880×1800 display that makes colors “pop,” while the AERO 15 is using a lower resolution 1080p, 15.6-inch matte screen.
The slightly longer answer: Creatives who have been using Macs for years have benefited from a color profile and screen technology tuned to be vibrant and accurate. On the other hand, recent Windows laptops haven’t paid the same attention to detail regarding colors, instead opting for absurd amounts of pixels (like 4K displays) or touchscreens.
The AERO 15 comes with a ton of pre-loaded software, much to my disappointment, but some of it is useful, like the Smart Manager app that controls most of the special functions on the AERO 15.
Within the “Smart Manager,” you can select the display’s native colors, control color temperature in Kelvin or switch to the X-Rite mode.
When you do, you’ll notice colors are slightly muted, with less contrast and what seems like increased clarity, sharpness and more subtle color reproduction. But remember, that’s all according to the naked eye.
I asked video editors and illustrators at TechCrunch, as well as friends who have similar display color needs, about what this means to them. I’ve often been told glossy is the way to go (as well as buying a Mac), and on a personal note, I agree. However, unlike the Retina display, you’ll be able to see under sunlight.
While I get Gigabyte’s approach was going for color precision and accuracy, I can’t imagine the creators who want a color-corrected display will find a 1080p HD, matte panel interesting. We live in a post-HD age, even if it just means having HD content on a higher-resolution screen.
Only PC gamers really swear by this standard, but that’s changing, as well. Full HD’s prevalence in PC gaming is thanks to the middle ground between quality, aspect ratio and performance. Here, the AERO 15 scores a 60 percent Adobe RGB color gamut with 890-:1 color contrast in its default color profile. Both are decent scores, but not for an editing display, by any stretch whatsoever.
However, activating the X-Rite correction closes the gap, but still leaves you with a slow 32ms response time (desktop monitors often score less than 3ms).
It makes me think how much better the display would be if, by default, it were a better display to begin with. Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.
The AERO 15 as a gaming machine
[Source”timesofindia”]