Horrendous dithering

Heya,

I've been getting this display issue ever since I purchased this laptop - at normal brightness (gamma, contrast and brightness at default in ATI CCC) there's some horrible dithering going on, both between whites and bright colors/grays, and between bright and dark colors.
By dithering I mean, instead of a gradient, I get these jagged pixelated edges, which are atrocious if I watch a movie, look at a photo, or play gaems.

Just wondering is this more likely a screen defect or a driver issue? If it's a screen defect I'd be quite happy since I can then RMA this laptop without restocking fee and buy something with an intel.