LG making RGB LED-lit, 17-inch notebook LCD

LG Display on Thursday said it has started mass-producing the world's first notebook displays to be truly color-accurate. Using an RGB LED backlight versus the one-color backlights of other notebook displays, the 17.1-inch, 1920x1200 LCD pushes its color reproduction up to 105 percent, or about 40 percent more than a typical notebook display with a fluorescent backlight at the same size. The breakthrough should give AV professionals a display they can use for image editing and gamers a more vivid image, LG says.

The new LCD also boosts the contrast ratio by about 30 percent and thus creates deeper blacks than often partly washed-out notebook displays; as with other LED-lit models, it reduces the power use and cuts out the use of toxic mercury.

LG doesn't name the customers for the new screen, though the company makes displays both for LG's own notebooks as well as for third-party PC builders. One of the few to already use 17-inch LED-lit displays includes Apple, which uses them for custom-ordered MacBook Pro models with the higher-resolution 1920x1200 display.