Solved Ugly display quality - is it the UHD 620, why can't use GPU?

[LightVedi]

Hi,
I just bought a laptop for light video editting and the display quality is shockingly bad for video and image fidelity, even on external display (compared to my 10 year old laptop which uses the GPU for display adapter), so I suspect it's because the new one uses the UHD?Is this to be expected with a UHD display adapter?Can I switch to using the GPU as the display adapter? If not, how common is it that laptops force using UHD over GPU? And how can I tell before buying, to avoid this problem?

I tried googling, but no luck.

Computer:
Acer Aspire 5 (A515-51G-53V6), Intel i5-8250u, Nvidia MX150, Win 10

Problem:
Display looks like it was recorded to VHS and then ported back to digital, regardless of what screen I view it on. Video and images have intense garish colors, high contrast, edgy sharpness, poor color mixing. And when using digital TV as external display, text and windows have edgy sharp lines and edges. (None of this is the case with the old laptop with GPU display adapter)

- - - Here's What I have tried:

1. updated the drivers for the GPU, and the UHD (and windows itself)
2. adjusted Intel color settings on the Internal Display, External Display, and the TV picture settings (I spent hours doing this, it's somewhat better now on both internal display and the TV, but "she's given it all she can cap'n, and she can't give no more"
4. checked to see if the GPU can be used as the display adapter, but it seems the UHD is the only option
5. opened media player application by right clicking and selecting "run with Graphichs processor" - looks the same
6. opened BIOS/UEFI to try to switch the display adapter manually (but it doesn't mention the display there at all)

 

[SpywareDr]

Return it for a refund or replacement.

 

[managed]

Check the 'Bluelight Shield' setting (from the online manual :- https://global-download.acer.com/GD...7.1774108309.1543451411-1733945581.1543451411)

 

[LightVedi]

Managed - Thanks so much, that helps somewhat, it reduces the "purple-red" skin problem in movies on some people (Harrison Ford in "Force Awakens" for example). The display still has the underlying issue, but this was really good to find out. I also tried another setting next to the Blue Shield, called "Color Intelligence", but it didn't seem to be much use, it just made things brighter.

SpywareDr - Thanks, I might do that. I selected it for a few oddball reasons so it's hard to let go of (lowest TDP for the performance needed to edit HD video quickly, screen is less hard on my eyes due to being TN not IPS, and PWM is either non-existant or high frequency, plus better cooling than the comparable Asus, and within my budget)

As an update, I did more googling and learned that newer laptops are almost all Muxless, meaning the GPU has to feed output through the Internal graphics before going to the screen, it's hard wired. Older laptops had the GPU hooked up to the screen, or were Muxed, so you could switch between GPU and Integrated. If what I'm seeing is due to Intel integrated graphics, I'm surprised more people don't complain about this, it's hideous. But maybe IPS hides it better, so people just assume TN's are the problem, but my 10 year old Dell with TN and GPU-only display has much better color fidelity than this, and movies look good on the TV when played from it. Admittedly, this newer laptop is brighter, has higher resolution, has more intense color ceiling (saturation), and uses way less power... but the colors just look terrible. It's hard to explain, but they don't mix well. If I thought this was what TN's were always like, I'd avoid them like the plague too.

The only ways I found to avoid Intel integrated graphics pre-processing the display/screen on a laptop are to get:

1. G-sync laptop , since Intel integrated can't handle G-sync (so the screens have to be directly plugged into the Nvidia GPU)
2. AMD (I'm looking at Ryzen 2800H with Vega 11 since it's a low TDP system capable of editing video)
3. 120hz screen laptop (Currently Intel integrated can't process 120hz so the screen is directly plugged into GPU)
4. Clevo laptop, which are reported to be Muxed (so screen is hooked up to both GPU and Internal graphics, and can switch without feeding through internal) but I can't confirm which models, or if current ones still have this capability.

 

[LightVedi]

So it turns out the problem goes away when I use an external display as the only display!

So it's the laptop screen, not the UHD. But for some reason, it sends the ugly signal to the external display when I use two displays on the "clone desktop" setting.

I haven't tested whether the problem persists when set to "extend desktop". If it doesn't, I might keep it, and just use a monitor when editing or watching movies. It was so cheap for the specs, and the cooling is good compared to other laptops with entry-level GPUs.

And if I don't keep it, I'm glad to know that not all computers with UHD look like this (would be surprised if they did).