Specifications
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Technical white paper | HP ZBook 17 G2 Mobile Workstation
issue is caused by the contrast ratio dropping dramatically, something related to the viewing angle of the screen that
refers to the degree which you can view the display from an angle without image degradation. When you tilt a TN mobile
workstation display up and down, the screen will gray out. Similarly, when you look at the TN screen from angles to the
left and right, the colors displayed will shift, as shown in Figure 1 below. On the other hand, an IPS display has much
less shifts in contrast ratio and color shift when viewed o-axis. The maximum viewing angle an IPS display can have
is 178 degrees. However, that is with a contrast ratio of 10:1 versus a head on contrast ratio of 1000:1 and thus is not a
good number to go by. You want a monitor that looks good at the angles you will be working at, and it is important to
understand that while maximum viewing angle is measured at a 10:1 contrast ratio, the viewing quality is very low and
the quality of the display at usable angles should be more important.
Viewing angles for mobile workstations are usually measured in a left/right/down/up format. This means they have
an angle measurement for each viewing direction. A standard viewing angle (SVA) is 40/40/15/30. This means you can
view it 40 degrees to the left, 40 degrees to the right, 15 degrees down, and 30 degrees up while still having adequate
color and detail. The next step up, wide viewing angle (WVA), measures in at 60/60/50/50. The ultra-wide viewing angle
(UWVA), which is also available on our HP ZBook 17 displays, measures at 85/85/85/85. Below is a good gure to visually
explain the dierence and eect that viewing angle has on a display. Viewing angle is important if you have multiple
people looking at one display since they need to see the screen clearly at dierent angles.
Figure 1. The eect viewing angles have for IPS and TN displays
Refresh rates
The refresh rate of a display measures the amount of times the display is updated every second. A higher refresh rate
means decreased blurring and ghosting eects when using the display. Ghosting is the eect when an image or video
moves on your display and leaves a faint trail. This eect is most often seen in videos on older displays and can be
horribly distracting. Having a good refresh rate, commonly around 60 Hz (60 images/second), means that video playback
and display use is smooth.
Bit depth
Bit depth refers to the amount of colors a display can show. The most common display bit depths are eight- and ten-
bits per RGB channel. In the case of eight-bit per RGB, each pixel on a display can show 256 shades of red, 256 shades
of green, and 256 shades of blue. The next step up, ten-bit, can show 1024 shades of red, green, and blue. The biggest
dierence between eight- and ten-bit depth is the number of discrete shades of gray that can be displayed. Ten-bit depth
is often needed for tasks like photo editing, animation, and designing. In these cases ten-bit depth displays oer over one
billion colors and allow users to have an even more color-rich display. The dierences can be seen most obviously when
working with gradients in Photoshop, such as the shading of a sky or ocean.