this is an unbelievably useful and informative thread; thanks so much to you all. I just ordered a W520 with the FHD display, and I'm wondering: would I be better served by using my i1 display2 calibrator w/ dispcalGUI than the onboard pantone calibration system?

Thanks for any insight here.

The i1 d2 is a much higher quality device compared to the built in one.
No matter what calibrator you use, always use dispcalGUI, as it gives a much better result! So yes, the best result is by i1d2 + dispcalGUI!

thanks zsero! wow, I guess I shouldn't have wasted my money on the built-in calibrator. so I guess I didn't fully realize in purchasing this display-- this FHD panel is technically wide gamut (?), so one can (theoretically) see those punchier reds and such when properly calibrated? As a web designer, I'll be primarily focused on the sRGB color space anyway, but I'm just curious...

You already see the punchier colors, when not calibrated. You should calibrate to display the correct colors, not the punchier ones. As a web designer, your best bet is to:
1. Calibrate your screen with i1D2 + dispcal.
2. Use Firefox for checking the colors on a website, as Chrome still doesn't color manage.
3. For a last check, always check on a normal gamut (sRGB) external monitor!

ok thanks zsero. however, supposing I wanted to calibrate to a print standard and work in Lightroom within the ProPhotoRGB space, for example, I would in fact want to see those punchier colors that come with the wider gamut, no?

If you are in a color managed application with a color managed monitor, you'll see the correct colors, so you don't need to worry. The only problem is with web browsers, but if you use Firefox, you'll be OK.

Hi

Tried to use dispcalGUI (0.9.9.1) under Ubuntu with the i1 x-rite at the W701, but both monitor and measurements device are grayed out.

How to get the calibrator to be recognized ?

Have you tried asking on the dispcalGUI's mailing list? There are some linux Thinkpad users, who i'm sure can help you out!

thanks for pointing me there !

Hardware is the i1 x-rite at the Thinkpad W701 with a Nvidia FX 2800N.

When upgrading / installing ver 0.9.9.1 for 64bit, it was telling me that I got the wrong version. I'm running 10.04 Lucid Lynx in 64bit right now.
Installing the 32bt version did run smooth - strange !

already solved with the kind help of the author.
actually there wasn't 64bit installed on that machine.

rest of the problems occurred IMO because there was an old version of dipcalGUI already installed from the standard repository when I did install the latest version from the authors page.
Best to de-install any old version first.

runs smooth now and at first glance seems to provide even better results than with the X-Rite bundle software.

quick question: I'm using dispcalGUI with my i1display2 to calibrate the W520 panel and at the initial stage when the dispcalGUI takes a measurement of luminance and RGB values, is it ok to only adjust screen brightness and progress to the calibration and profiling as there doesn't seem to be a way to (manually) make adjustments for each RGB color channel, correct?

Yes, RGB adjustment is only for desktop monitors, where you have hardware control over the monitor's OSD. For laptop, just find the brightness once, remember it (like level 6) and then you don't even need to do the interactive step.

ok thanks zsero. I did some tests with the calibration of this screen, and I found the results of the built-in calibrator/software package to be pretty abysmal; frankly, I wish I hadn't even spent the extra money for it. anyway, I achieved a decent result with the i1display2 & dispcalGUI, only thing is the colors still seem a bit punchy/saturated, particularly the reds. are there any particular settings you'd recommend in dispcalGUI to get a better profile?

Have you tried this profile (just install it from dispcalGUI):
http://ifile.it/ynvfdsp

thanks zsero! I'll give it a shot. also curious-- what brightness level are you using?

Whatever is comfortable for a given environment! You only need to set a given brightness for the calibrator device, for normal use just use what feels nice. I'm usually around 5 on mine.