beautiful colors on Thinkpad T430 using this ICC Profile 🏳️‍🌈⃤

A friend I have met via Freifunk Berlin sold me his Thinkpad T430. It is a great, robust and versatile machine and I use it almost daily with a posix-compatible OS. The colors of its TN panel are a bit bold on the blue side. There are devices to measure screen colors and there is software to correct and balance them. This process is called monitor calibration and usually results in an .icc file containing the custom color corrections. The GPU will essentially translate its color output according to the values read from the ICC profile, be it a standard or a custom output profile. A custom ICC profile can be applied to a graphical output device on every major (and not so major) OS. The GPU will be just as powerful as with a standard profile.

Back in 2012, notebookcheck.net has published a thorough review of the T430. They have also tested the machines panel and were kind enough to publish the ICC profile generated for it. Please look for the words “Download ICC File (X-Rite i1Display 2)" on their article page.

Once downloaded, apply the ICC profile to your T430 display. The ICC profile selection menu of your OS will show a new entry that reads Monitor_20.07.2012_1_01 if you did move the .icc file to the right place.

Overall impression is much nicer and friendlier now. Natural & vivid colors. It is worth it. Watch a video and compare.