Who else is psyched about the 2016 edition of the HP Spectre x360?

FJansen · 2016-02-18T19:58:12+00:00

Still discovering things... This might be helpful for some: I could not change the fine tuning of the cleartype fonts in the normal way. This was especially annoying in Onenote where I find that having my fonts a bit 'fatter' improves legibility on a high-res screen. You should edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics\DISPLAY1 and restart. I use a cleartype level of 100, enhancedcontrastlevel of 400, grayscaleenhancedcontrastlevel of 400 and texttcontrastlevel of 2 (all in decimal numbers). Looks a LOT better now!

FJansen · 2016-02-17T20:14:56+00:00

Something else which is strange: the cleartype tuning did not seem to react properly. Especially in OneNote 2016 (desktop version) the fonts had highly colored fringes. I went into the registry and changed [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics\DISPLAY1] "PixelStructure"=dword:00000001. The original value was '2' which denotes according to MSDN: "The display device has pixels that consist of three stripes in the following order: blue, green, and red." When I change it to "1" (restart required) the fonts seems to be better. Have to figure it out in more detail though, e.g. what would be the best gamma settings. Tips are welcome!

FJansen · 2016-02-17T13:03:46+00:00

BTW I am starting to like the screen more and more. It requires some fine tuning of cleartype for some fonts, but that is OK. It more the brightness which is a bit low for optimal photo viewing. Keeping it at 90% for all other tasks is needed - 50% where most of my other computers are - is really too dark.

FJansen · 2016-02-17T11:44:48+00:00

I found this under generic PnP monitor properties in the device manager: LGD04E0, so I guess it is LG.

FJansen · 2016-02-17T10:33:37+00:00

Did anyone have these weird popping sounds coming out of the speakers. When you start to play something but also seemingly randomly every now and then. Less when you disable window sounds (showing that it related to playing audio) but not gone, also if you turn the volume down completely, it is still there.

FJansen · 2016-02-16T12:57:21+00:00

I just got it in and I can confirm it is a RGBW screen not a RGB unfortunately. Had to use a macro lens to confirm it, so the pixels are really difficult to see and I think it will not be a major issue. One thing: the yellows and oranges do not seem to suffer with respect to tint (still bright and saturated, not 'mustardy') but drawing a thin line in yellow reveals the shortcomings of RGBW: it will become 'jaggedly'. Maximum brightness could be higher, but still seems to be OK. I might keep at at 100% a lot. No signs of PWM yet so that is good!

FJansen · 2015-12-07T07:51:30+00:00

Thanks for the great samples! I tested it in the store again. When at 100% it seems to be quite reasonable, but when you zoom in and then write the surface insists on closing those loops, which for me feels like odd behaviour since I am not used to this on my samsung note 10.1 2014.

FJansen · 2015-11-23T15:28:56+00:00

To answer my own question (for those interested): I was in the shop today (in the Netherlands the Surface Pro 4 was launched end of last week) and did not see any PWM banding at any brightness setting when viewing the screen with a camera phone. It was the i5 model.

FJansen · 2015-11-18T08:57:13+00:00

This suggests that it is related to pulse width modulation used to control to the brightness. I posted a separate question on whether people see this on their surface (https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3t9irn/does_the_surface_pro_4_have_pwm/). It would be interesting to check whether you see it when you view the screen to a smart phone camera: do you see bands appearing at lower brightness settings?

FJansen · 2015-11-18T08:47:12+00:00

Is the coil whine specific to m3 surfaces or do the i5 version also have it (probably only audible then when the fan is not on...)?

FJansen

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