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Laptops Screens, Glare or Matte?
An anonymous reader writes "This weekend I spent half a day surfing the web looking for a new laptop.
I just want (to be able to switch to) 1650x1280, or at least ...x1024, and a *non*-Glossy Display . To my surprise I found out that many vendors leave me not that much choice: ...x800, and glossy, i.e., higher-reflective type screens seem to have become the promoted defaults. Should I give up on my non-glossy wishes, or should I start flaming vendors?" I still can't understand the glossy screens. They make my eyes hurt almost immediately in any sort of ambient light, and do nothing in low light. Glossy laptop screens are like TVs on the shelf in the store with their colors all whacked out to look brighter. Once you get them into the real world, you realize that the colors are just wrong.
The ThinkPad T61's still use a non-reflective screen, and are now available in wide screen models.
No doubt this is hugely a matter of personal preference, but after using a glossy screen for 3 years, my preference is definitely for glossy. True, one must get used to positioning the screen to avoid reflections, but this becomes automatic very quickly. The experience of a glossy screen is far easier on my eyes, and the higher contrast feels much more like reading on paper.
For the record, I'm officially over the hill, and have used glasses all my adult life.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I have a glossy laptop and a matte LCD. The problem with the matte screen is it can make things appear grainy.
The glossy screen has a much sharper image but the reflections are annoying.
That said, bad colour exists in both desktop LCD's and laptops. The only real deterrent for this is to spend a lot of money to get a colour accurate display.
Well, for what it is worth, the MacBook Pro line of Apple laptops have the free choice of glossy or matte displays. Not sure if that would be your cup of tea, but at least one vendor is giving the option.
http://www.screentekinc.com/pixelbright-lcds.shtml
With matte screens, emitted light is more diffuse, a disadvantage (less color accuracy, potentially more long-term eyestrain). With glossy screens on the other hand, you have the disadvantage of specular reflections, which some people may find distracting. At any rate, the conventional wisdom that glossy screens are just a fancy way to sell computers to unwitting masses is uninformed. There are engineering tradeoffs both ways. I personally find the diffuse light transmission of matte screens more tiring than specular reflections, but it obviously depends on the person.
My laptop has one (I had to choose it as an option), and it gives much richer colors and blacker blacks, and I don't have any problem reading it in any light at all. I'm not sure what problem people have with glossy screens, but I go out of my way to get them. When I got a wide-screen HD TV, I got one with a glossy screen (and got a huge boost in contrast by doing so at no extra cost).
Maybe it takes some getting used to, and maybe there are some lighting situations that cause issues that I just never seem to run across, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Just my two cents.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
What you're saying is true of a matte screen, but not a glossy one.
A glossy screen (like a mirror) reflects ambient light directionally, so the glare from a light source will be super-bad if the screen is aligned so that the glare is reflected into the user's eyes, but minimal otherwise. Matte screens reflect as much light but scatter it in all directions, so the worst-case glare is reduced but the best-case glare (in any particular environment) is increased.
The matte screen also (to some degree) scatters the light from the screen itself, which is why the images from a matte screen are not as sharp.
I have both a Dell d830 and d620 which have non-reflective screens. The D830's native resolution is 1920x1200. I think you haven't been looking around enough, there are plenty of options. However, you typically have to look towards the business-class models for non-reflective (corporate cubical farm) models.
Tapping with two fingers on the touchpad is right-click on Mac notebooks.
I have a website where you can upload your screen images and have it calculate with higher accuracy what the contrast ratio is: lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast_ratio. I tried this myself with dozens of screens (in a dark environment), and nearly all recent laptop screens have a contrast ratio of around 1:100 - 1:150 in a dark environment, a bit dependent on the viewing angle. Glossy or matte doesn't matter. I didn't check the effect of ambient light on the contrast ratio.
It doesn't work like that; the standard sRGB brightness-versus-pixel value response curve of a standard computer monitor means that officially, the brightness ratio between 1 and 255 "should" be more like 3000:1.
I don't have much experience with LCD TVs, but if they are based on the same LCD panels as monitors (likely the case up to 24 inch), you won't get much better than about 800:1, unless the TV dims the backlight during dark scenes.
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