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Friday, April 11, 2008

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Dell Latitude XT Gets a New Screen and Gets Naked

- Rob Bushway

The replacement screen for my Dell Latitude XT arrived today. I was quite hopeful that it would address the gridding issue I've been talking about.

I am pleased to report that the new screen is quite the success. I do not see near the amount of grid that I previously saw. It is now only visible when the screen is off or very dim. Even when it is off, it is nowhere near as visible as it was before. Under normal brightness and working under fluorescent lighting, it is practically invisible. On the old screen, under the same conditions, all it took was a slight tilt of my head and I could see it.

Needless to say, I'm very, very pleased. So much so, that any thoughts of returning it have vanished.

This was the technician's first time working on a Latitude XT and he remarked at well it was built compared to other notebooks he's worked on. We worked together to figure out how best to take it apart and put it back together.

While the technician was here, I took the liberty of photographing the process. You'll get to see the XT as never seen before. Click the individual pictures to see higher res shots.

xt screen upgrade 005
The new screen - the wires coming out is the LCD and digitizer connector, plus antennae wires for WWAN and WLAN
xt screen upgrade 010
The battery removed, which exposes the SSD drive
xt screen upgrade 013
The plate just above the keyboard has to be removed in order to remove the screen
xt screen upgrade 016
The plate
xt screen upgrade 018
XT with the plate removed, ready for the screen to come off . Next to come off: the keyboard
xt screen upgrade 022
With the keyboard removed, some screws next to the spindle have to be taken out
xt screen upgrade 023
The digitizer / lcd connector - lift to remove
xt screen upgrade 029
Screen still not loose
xt screen upgrade 030
Finally removed the keyboard
xt screen upgrade 031
Antennae wires go underneath the motherboard
xt screen upgrade 033
The cap along the rotating grip has to be removed
xt screen upgrade 035
Then the screws removed  from the spindle
xt screen upgrade 036
digitizer is loose, but the antennae wires in the back have to disconnected
xt screen upgrade 037
With the digitizer loose showing the antennae wires
xt screen upgrade 038
Remove the memory slot cover to remove the antennae wires.
xt screen upgrade 039
Now we see the antennae wires for WLAN and WWAN.
xt screen upgrade 040
Another view
xt screen upgrade 041
Yet another view
xt screen upgrade 042
Full view of the back
xt screen upgrade 043
With the antennae wires pulled through back, the digitizer is finally loose
xt screen upgrade 044
Old screen / digitizer on the left, new one on the right
xt screen upgrade 045
Putting it all back together, pulling the antennae wires through first
xt screen upgrade 046
Another angle of pulling the anteanne wires through
xt screen upgrade 050
Only the WLAN get connected, the WWAN laying loose to the right. I don't have a WWAN card.
xt screen upgrade 051
With the wires pushed through, but the digitizer / lcd cable not connected yet
xt screen upgrade 052
laying down the digitizer cable to ensure it is not crimped
xt screen upgrade 053
Everything in place
xt screen upgrade 057
digitizer / lcd cable connected, screen reattached. At this point, I had to leave. But the tech just put all the screws and plates back together in the order they came off
   

Friday, April 11, 2008 6:16:40 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
there is a noticeable difference on the side by side shot indeed.
turn_self_off
Friday, April 11, 2008 8:05:43 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
I would really be interested in a test of putting coming Ubuntu Hardy on the XT :-) I think most of the readers are using Vista or XP but since the XT is the first official tablet with the ntrig digitizer board I wonder if needs special drivers or works with Linux already. And: nobody did it, yet.

So if you have a few hours to try it out. Maybe even compare boot time, check out 3d effects, etc ...

And how is the battery life in daily use?

If dell would just have build a slate, it could have been really slim. An easily swappable battery and an external charger station for a second battery would have rounded up the whole package and made me buy one instantly...
mfl
Friday, April 11, 2008 9:30:10 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
Rob: Wow! Great photo documentary and special kudos for using the proper plural form of "antenna"...!

mfl: It WOULD be nice if a few new slates hit the market, wouldn't it...?
Steve S
Saturday, April 12, 2008 5:53:57 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
Cool!
Toby
Saturday, April 12, 2008 1:23:56 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
Brings up the interesting question of "why the difference?" Maybe Steve has a thought on this. My thoughts go to a possible layer lamination defect in the original digitizer touchscreen.
Inkinsider
Saturday, April 12, 2008 1:31:46 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
regrettably neither the current version of Ubuntu nor Fedora boot on the XT yet at all.
Dell is aware, but at the same time reluctant to make it work until Ntrig releases drivers for Linux.

For now you can only bug and bump on the mailing list
slimjim
Saturday, April 12, 2008 2:12:24 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)
yeah, I have a email in to them to find out what was wrong with the original screen so we can help current and future customers avoid or live with this problem. hopefully, if it was a quality testing issue, they'll address it in the plant, too.
Rob
Comments are closed.


       





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