AVADirect Clevo P170EM: Has AMD’s HD 7970M Got Game?

Clevo P170EM 7970M LCD Quality

The one thing Clevo generally gets right with the P170EM is the display, with four different panels available (depending on the reseller). AVADirect shipped us two “90% gamut” offerings, one glossy and one matte. Since receiving the two notebooks, the matte 90% gamut LCD has been removed from the online configurator (possibly because it’s not actually able to hit 90% of AdobeRGB, as we’ll see in a moment). In an ideal world, we’d like to see options for high quality IPS displays added to the mix, but other than the MacBook Pro Retina, some enterprise class notebooks, and a few consumer models (e.g. Sony VAIO SE and HP Envy 15) there are not many IPS panels to choose from. I keep hoping that with the IPS panels used in tablets we’ll see more laptops go that route as well, but so far that hasn’t happened. Here are the results for the two panels; the glossy panel is an AU Optronics B173HW01 v4 while the matte panel appears to be a Chi Mei N173HGE-L11 or N173HGE-L21 (it’s identified as a Chi Mei HC9GK-173HGE).

AU Optronics B173HW01 v4 Glossy

Chi Mei N153HGE Matte

The results of our LCD testing are somewhat split. On the one hand, the AUO panel clearly has better colors; on the other side of the equation, the matte Chi Mei panel has better contrast and it doesn’t pull double duty as a mirror. The Samsung Series 7 also identifies its panel as a Chi Mei 173HGE, so either the P170EM panel is the L21 and the Samsung is the L11, or perhaps we’re just seeing minor variance between panels. Overall, I don’t need perfect colors on a notebook—and you’ll only get them if you have calibrate the display—but I do appreciate the matte surface so that would end up being my choice. Viewing angles on both panels are also similar, though the glossy surface tends to make things a bit more difficult unless you’re in a dark environment.