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.

Comments

Not an issue

[Junks Jerzey]

I read all the bashing of glossy screens and even started to repeat the propaganda. But in reality, it doesn't matter. The glossy screens tend to have better contrast and be easier on my eyes, and glare isn't an issue in practice. You do tend to notice glare in a store, looking at a big row of laptops, but it's a total non-issue for me.

Bigger issue than glare

[LehiNephi]

I'm a little ambivalent about the glossy vs matte issue, but I have a bigger issue with notebook screens: It's either very hard or relatively expensive to get a laptop with a 4:3 aspect ratio screen. Widescreens are good for two things: movies and (some) games. They're no good for web browsing or viewing documents. Anything less than 1920x1200 is too narrow to fit two windows comfortably side-by-side, and you sacrifice vertical resolution to get the widescreen.

Unfortunately, it seems that the manufacturers have decided that normal-aspect-ratio screens, along with docking connectors, Windows XP, and optical drive slots that can take a secondary battery, are a feature that only business users might need. Accordingly, those features are only available on the drastically-more-expensive business market laptops.

Re:Bigger issue than glare

[dfghjk]

"...and you sacrifice vertical resolution to get the widescreen."

No you don't. A widescreen is created by taking a normal screen and adding width to it. A 4:3 version of that 1920x1200 screen you refer to is 1600x1200. There's no loss in vertical resolution at all.

If you are comparing diagonal screen size then that's a different matter, but it's your failure to understand what's going on that's the problem. Widescreens do not inherently sacrifice vertical resolution.

Re:Bigger issue than glare

[nmg196]

> A widescreen is created by taking a normal screen and adding width to it.
> A 4:3 version of that 1920x1200 screen you refer to is 1600x1200.

No no NO! - Look at the prices. At any given price point, you get LESS screen area for your money with widescreen monitors:

Instead of 1280x960, you typically only get 1280x800 on a similarly priced wide-screen. Your screen is about the same width but you've lost an inch or two of vertical space! On laptops, this is even worse because it means you get black plastic strips where you would previously have had ACTUAL screen area. If they're going to be black bars when playing movies, I would far rather they were virtual black bars that were ONLY there when viewing movies, rather than physical plastic bars caused by the fact that they've shrunk the screen vertically to make the laptop look more modern! The Dell XPS series is a good example of this. A 4:3 screen would have fitted perfectly, but instead I've got two one inch black strips glued on where my screen should be.

Re:Glossy is more like reading paper

[jyoull]

*nod*. I don't wear glasses, and was recently "forced" into a glossy screen because the rest of this laptop was exactly what I wanted. I perceive it as brighter and cleaner than the several non-glossy displays that preceded it. This surprised me as I thought I'd hate it. But on the balance i am not at all unhappy, after an adjustment period of maybe a week or two. For a while I had both laptops and the "old one" seemed dim and less sharp. I agree with posters who have written that reading dark text on white has a sense of "text on paper" on the glossy screen, while the matte screens look like computer displays.

Hey, anyone remember 16-color EGA? :)

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[ahabswhale]

Sorry but that's simply not possible. Phosphors fade over time. It's not debatable because it's a fact. (Feel free to google it.) If you haven't noticed it, it's simply because it's happened over time but I guarantee you that if you bought a brand new copy of that exact same monitor, the difference would shock you. The only way what you're saying could be true is if you have a monitor from 1993 that you rarely use, otherwise, it's just not possible. A work monitor that's used for 8 hours a day will have dramatic color loss in 5 years.

It's also a myth that CRTs simply have better color. The truth is that photographers and graphics artists had to use high-end CRTs to get accurate color representation (just like they have to do with LCDs). The typical CRT had poor color representation and even the high-end ones required frequent recalibration to maintain color accuracy due to the fading of the phosphors.

So, I will admit that expensive, high-end CRTs (top 1% at best) have better color than LCDs, this really isn't true for the vast majority of the population. Most users, including /. users, don't even know how to color calibrate their monitors.

Mac users =! Douchebags (well, not all of us)

[InadequateCamel]

Please don't lump us all in with those drooling troglodytes. Some of us switched platforms for good reasons and are perfectly honest about the flaws inherent to our system. I've convinced many friends/colleagues to switch but I've probably dissuaded just as many because there was no real tangible benefit to their switching.

There's a lot of Mac hate out there too my friend. It's just that the neophytes who feel morally/socially superior because they have the same white laptop as every other person in the coffeeshop are much louder.

(Disclaimer: I am writing this on a MacBook at a coffeeshop)

P.S. If youget modded as flamebait it might have something to do with the "Mac fangirls" tone of your post.