hardware: viewing angle? problem?

[gabor]

hi,

i got my first laptop:

acer travelmate 800. it has a 15", 1400x1050 display.
i like it very much, but i have some problems:

1.
i found out that if i don't look exactly diagonally on the display, the colors are different. example:
i'm looking from bottom on the display: the colors are very dark.
as i move my head up, the colors became "correct", and as i move my head even more upward, the colors became very bright.

the problem for me is that i'm just unable to find a position, from where all the display would have exactly the same colors.
i use gnome, i have a panel at the top, and one at the bottom.

and from whereever i look at the display, the two toolbars don't have the same color.

i have a friend, and he's been using laptop(s) for a longer time (mostly DELL). he tells me that it's normal, i have to live with it.


i mean, i can work with it without problem, it's just making me nervous. sometimes i spend several minutes moving my head up/down, and turning the display to different angles ))) (but i can't find a perfect position).

could you tell my your experience with this?

2. on my crt monitors or on an lcd monitor i used, there were always 2 controls to adjust the display : brightness&contrast.

on this laptop there's only one (the one symbolized with an empty and a filled sun): and every time i'm adjusting it i feel like i should adjust the other one. any ideas what to do? i tried xgamma, but it wasn't what i want. any ideas/experiences?