X1 Carbon Gen 6 - HDR WQHD (2560x1440) Display Query

[steve_4802]

Hi All,
I recently setup for my son an X1 carbon i5 16GB that's fantastic and it runs the latest LTS Linux Mint beatifully. Loving the setup, I will now, for myself, buy the same laptop for my own personal use. I don't change things out frequently so will get the top spec i7 16GB model.

When recently doing post processing of photos on my son's X1 Carbon G6 with 1080p display (one of the main things I use the laptop for) I noted I did miss the display from my old 2013 15" macbook (which I also have LM on).

The laptop will be connected to displays sometimes, but usually I find it more convenient to sit in the living room with my wife if I am ever doing any post processing. I'm an ex wedding photographer so I do appreciate the challenges with using laptop of varying brightness and non calibrated screen. However, it's just personal photos and the main thing is what is easy and what I enjoy. I post process with (Another) Raw Therapee; it's awesome!

So, the question, I'd like to get the X1C G6 with the glossy 2k 500nit display. This looks to be a fantastic screen and, after my glossy macbook, I'd rather this over the anti-glare 1080 screen. However, I'm concerned for the compatability of the 2k screen with Linum Mint. As far as I can see such screens have historically been troublesome with ubuntu / LM. However, I can find little on how it performs with the newest LTS versions (based on 22.04) and also that seem to have Wayland by default.

Will such a display play well with LM? Will it likely be buggy or not work with many apps, such as Another Raw Therapee?
Will it run much slower than the 1080p screen? Might be relevant for raw editing so I'm not waiting 3seconds for images to load.
Will the battery life be much worse? This seems mixed, but if I could squeeze 6 hours out of it (with a new battery) I'd be happy.

Another alternative would be to get a newer X1C with 4k display, should that be faster and work better? That said, I'd rather the Gen6 as it has a microSD slot so I won't need an adaptor from my DSLR.

Eager for feedback before I go ahead and buy it. The 1080p is a safe and proven bet. But given my use, I'd really value the better display if it will play well with LM.

Cheers,
Steve

[SMG]

However, I'm concerned for the compatability of the 2k screen with Linum Mint. As far as I can see such screens have historically been troublesome with ubuntu / LM. However, I can find little on how it performs with the newest LTS versions (based on 22.04) and also that seem to have Wayland by default.

Can you give us a bigger hint about what you are referring to with regards to being troublesome?

What exactly does 2k mean as far as resolution and at what frequency does the screen run?

What I find most people find troublesome is they don't realize just how small everything will be on that high a resolution screen. So in order to be able to read what is on the screen, they adjust with fractional scaling (thus not running the screen at its native resolution). That has been known to bring up variable results.

[fnair]

I have a 7th gen X1 Carbon, with a 2k (2560x1440) display. Mint works perfectly on it and I love it. As far as the screen goes, 2560x1440 on a 14" screen makes everything very small on screen. Up to Mint 20.x, you only had the choice to scale the interface 100% or 200%. At 100% everything was too small and at 200% everything was too big, so I chose to run my laptop at 1080p resolution instead of 2k, which provided the right size interface. So... for a while, I felt I should of gotten a 1080p screen, has that was the resolution I was running my 2k display, instead of its native resolution. (Felt like a waste)

Mint 21 changed this, as it now allows you to also scale the interface to 125%, 150% and 175%. So this allows you to run the display at 2k resolution and get the interface at the size of your liking. You do run into an odd app once in a while that doesn't take into account the interface scaling and displays at the native resolution (so it's small). But all in all, it works great.

Chris

[steve_4802]

Outstanding, that answers most of my questions, thanks.

Chris, have you tried multiple displays? Curious how Mint 21 copes with external 1080p displays and the 2k (1440p) laptop screen, all at once. Or similarly, say external 4K displays with the 2k laptop screen.

The current setup testing my son’s 1080p x1C uses a 1080p laptop screen with 1080p displays so I haven’t tried mixed reolutions yet and it has been problematic (very laggy) when Ive tired different resolutions for external displays previously, though this was with Lm20.

Thanks again for the reply. If I can be reasonably confident it will work with external 1080p or 4K displays then I’ll start the 2nd hand hunt for the X1C gen 6 with the fancy laptop display.

Steve

[fnair]

Hi Steve,
I had actually never connected an external screen to this laptop. I just tried connecting it to my 4k monitor. Works well. Easy to organize the screen positions, resolution, scaling, etc. What is neat with Mint 21 is that it lets you set different interface scaling for each screen, so you can set each individually to your liking. I ran the external monitor at 1080p as well as 4k, with the laptop at 2k (and 1080p). All worked fine. For 4k, I was limited to a 30Hz refresh rate, which might be a limitation of the HDMI cable I was using. Using both screens did seem to make it a little more choppy than the integrated screen alone, especially with scaling other than 100% applied, but nothing drastic that should be a problem for editing photos.

Chris