AVADirect's Clevo W860CU: Mobility 5870 vs. GTX 285M

Decent LCD Quality

Though you can't spit without hitting a TN panel in a notebook these days (or even on the desktop for that matter), the panels in the W860CU are, at least at first glance, exceptional. The 1080p resolution in a 15.6” screen is very attractive and surprisingly quite legible given this reviewer's history of poor eyesight. The only gripe would be that the screen is glossy, but this is a minor one in the grand scheme of things. Our standard, more formal tests on the Clevo W860CU's 15.6” LCD screen were run using ColorEyes Display Pro.

The W860CU has a few things going for it in terms of LCD panel. First, it's a 15.6" 1080p display; some users would probably like a lower resolution panel, but plenty of gamers would much rather get a decent quality 1080p display. The LCDs look crisp and sharp, and they're definitely above average compared to most laptop LCDs. Delta E results are average, and color gamut is nothing special either. The contrast ratio does manage to get above 600:1, which is another positive on the display. Last but not least, the maximum brightness of 320nits is also good; we generally recommend a setting of 200nits for casual use, but there's nothing bad about a display that can run brighter for those that want it.

On the not-so-great side of the scale, the panel uses CCFL backlighting instead of LED backlighting, so power use is going to be higher than some of the other LCDs. This is basically a good quality LCD panel using technology from a couple years ago… and sadly, compared to most current LCDs the quality is actually higher. RGB LED backlighting is now the highest end option for laptop LCDs, but it's still very expensive and given the choice between low contrast LED backlit panels and an older CCFL like that in the W860CU, obviously the CCFL panels still have some good selling points.