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520

Enough with the blue LED's already!

520 points posted to Monitors and Displays, Laptops by chewd Jan 15

A small, sharp, pinpoint of blue light is absolutely the worst thing you could possibly do to your night vision! Theres a reason the panel lights in aircraft are always red, red light does not leave retinal artifacts that impair night-vision.

I know blue LED's are trendy, everythings got them these days. And bluetooth has "blue" right in the freakin name. But those of us who use notebooks for work, and work at night, find blue LEDs very irritating.

Blue being a very short wavelength is very penetrating. You can light an entire room with one blue LED, whereas red being a long wavelength is ideal for indicators & such as it does not carry as much.

Give us the option of changing the color of the LED's either through BIOS, software, or even physically replacing them (or just replacing a colored lens). Maybe it would be possible to let us turn down the brightness a tad.

It would be nice not to have to cover my new laptop with little bits of tape.

sugarbear
Jan 15		 You are right about the blue light at night.
chewd
Jan 15		 Yea citroentech, ive actually been covering them with fingernail polish.... still I would rather not have to.
phubert
Jan 16		 oops... should have promoted... "Give us the option" is the part I SHOULD have read...
jdelidc
Jan 16		 boy do i feel stupid right now. i did the same thing
phubert
Jan 16		 DELL! DELL! DELL! SITE EMERGENCY! Too many votes accidentally going astray with NO WAY BACK!!!
yardsale
Jan 16		 this is a good idea
yardsale
Jan 16		 itd be event cooler if we could change the LED to anycolor we want in the system prefrences or something
phubert
Jan 16		 Right! RED for "everything's FINE" make sure no one else touches you machine! :-D
cosmichellion
Jan 16		 I dig the blue but it would be nice to change the color if you chose too. Kind of like what Dell did with the front part of the chasis on XPS desktops starting with Gen 3. You could select the color coming through the front by changing it in the bios.
chewd
Jan 16		 Or howbout a hotkey combo like what is already done with screen brightness?
Fn pageup & pagedn could increase or decrease LED brightness.
yardsale
Jan 17		 i like chewds idea we should be able to do it with Fn + something, i dont wanna go to BIOS everytime i wanna change the color
aikiwolfie
Jan 18		 The thing is, it's bad for your eyes to sit and stare at a PC screen in a darkened room. Why are you all sitting in the dark? Which PC/notebook models are you guys talking about. I can change the LEDs on my XPS 700 from the BIOS. They can be OFF, Blue, Red, Green, Diamond, or Yellow I think? But at any rate I can change the colours or turn them off.
yardsale
Jan 18		 we want things on inspirons to dell just puts stuff on the XPS and leave the inspirons behind
aikiwolfie
Jan 18		 Because XPS is the premium product. If Dell puts all the stuff from the XPS on the Inspiron then the Inspiron will just be another XPS. Of course it really wouldn't hurt Dell to consolidate some of it's product lines.
chewd
Jan 19		 XPS is too flashy. Id love to have the performance hardware of an XPS in a plain-jane notebook. That glitzy case is a major turnoff for me. I need a professional-looking machine, not some lan-party toy.
yardsale
Jan 19		 but someof us can caryy around a huge 17" 9lbs XPS and we need this stuff on inispirons to
cosmichellion
Jan 19		 Well, even the XPS m1330 and m1530 laptops currently do not have any flashy LED options. We're stuck with the blue LED's on these just like the inspirons and other laptop lines. I know the XPS gaming specific notebooks have LED's but I'm not sure if those can be adjusted. Even if color change options aren't made available to all lines, it should be standard that they have an on/off option for those that want it.
aikiwolfie
Jan 19		 All the opinions in this thread so far reflect the fact Dell has too many product lines and needs to start consolidating them. One notebook line, one desktop line. The only changes are the physical size and hardware specifications.
yardsale
Jan 19		 ya they need to make some changes and pull them selves together
zanlok
Jan 28		 I like the "look" of the blue. However, I would definitely like a way to customize all LED's on my desk to OFF. I actually cover up LED's sometimes with that poster stick-up stuff :)
zanlok
Jan 28		 And, about the designs: yes for me, too. Is anyone actually paying a higher price for all these different designs? Dell should invest less time in form factor designs and more in actual, functioning technology. I generally tend to only want to actually pay more for better hardware - ie: for better performance!
winoffice
Feb 29		 Because it says "Enough with the blue LED's", I have to demote this.
sugarbear
Mar 1		 I have a Dimension 9100. It has a soft green light on the front. It`s not to big or to bright. It certainly isn`t a glareing type of light. Perhaps Dell should go back with a tradional light behind the button.
sugarbear
Mar 1		 My mother in laws new Inspiron 530 has the blue lcd light. It`s really really bright and distracting.
chewd
Mar 8		 jericho: i wouldnt say we're getting worked up about it, its merely an annoyance is all. Its a fact of nature, and the way our eyes work, that a pinpoint of blue light is verry effective in creating retinal artifacts which impede night vision. I really dont think that the people designing these devices with the trendy blue LED's are taking that into consideration.

Please be aware that not everyone uses their laptop in the same way you do. Truckers use laptops for GPS routing, Pilots use laptops for flight planning, when i was working airport ground crew i used my laptop for flight tracking, etc etc etc. There are many situations where people use their laptop in a darkened environment and are in a position where reduced night-vision could be very hazardous. I'm merely pointing this out for people who may not have considered the effect that the blue light has on our retinas.

They dont really serve any purpose anyway, how does a blue LED communicate anything that a green or red LED couldnt communicate? The only reason they are used is because it is trendy and flashy.

And i dont mind if they DO use blue LEDs, i just wish they would realize the penetrating effect of blue light & tone them down so theyre more of an indicator & not glaring. A blue LED puts out about 10X as much ambient light as a red or green one of the same wattage, designers should keep that in mind & compensate for it.
umberto
May 22		 Blue LEDs are completely awful. Dell lost a sale by putting these on the XPS laptops; I went with Lenovo instead.
umberto
May 22		 Also, this should be obvious, but the only color that should be used is green. Amber is okay for activity, but any light that stays on should be green. No exceptions; certainly no blue LEDs.
sugarbear
May 22		 My DVR has a lot of blue led lights across the front. It`s far brighter than the computers. I have had to put colored tape over them to mute the brightness.
zanlok
Jun 2		 The bright blue just has to be targeted at techie teens. But every laptop in bestbuy seems to have them these days. Gr..
phubert
Jun 3		 But I'll take blue or green over red ANY day...
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