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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.
My newest laptop has a glossy screen for lack of a matte option, and while I don't hate it with a fiery passion, I do prefer the matte screen of my old computer. Unfortunately, Apple only offers matte options on MacBook Pros, and not MacBooks. =(
I bought a used big-screen last year. I quite liked it except for the glare.
After a while I found a local plastics shop that could sell me a large enough sheet of the anti-reflective stuff used in framing. And I mounted it to the front of the TV myself. That completely solved the problem.
You might be able to buy the laptop with all the other features you want, then go to your nearest framing shop and get their nice anti-glare "glass", and mount it to your display.
"We think people rightly feel that once they buy something, it stays bought," --Suw Charman, Open Rights Grp
I find a glossy display gives better blacks and dark colours,
That is the idea.
It's very easy to make a cheap LCD screen extremely bright - brighter than you would ever need (or could even tolerate). It is not easy to make a cheap LCD screen with a decent black level.
So these glossy screens act as a sort of neutral density filter. They lower the black level at the expense of some of the unusable white level on the other end of the spectrum.
But these filters are always being used to mask flaws (poor black level and contrast) in cheap screens. It is still obviously better to just buy a better screen capable of better black levels.
I have a laptop with a glossy screen and I hate it. I bought it because it was cheap. Next time, I'll spend a little more and buy a laptop with a decent screen that doesn't require tricks to get it to look good at the expense of glare.
At work, I have two non-coated screens and it's such a pleasure to work with them by comparison.
If you use a glossy screen, you will realize that it is superior in most cases.
With a matte screen, light from any vector to the user will create glare. WIth a Glossy screen, only light vector opposite to the user will create a reflection.
Glossy screens have much higher contrast and brightness, meaning you are much more likely to see them in poor lighting conditions, and at least you have the choice to orient your screen so you don't have reflections. With a matte screen, no matter what you do, you will have glare - eating into your already reduced contrast and brightness.
I'm not sure that glossy/matte has anything to do with viewing angle. Individual displays have differences in viewing angles, but the same display with different finishes wouldn't.
Mercifully I don't have to work in a cube environment with over-head flourescent lighting or anything, so the glossy screens look just fine to me. I also don't have huge bright windows at my back either. I guess those lighting issues would cause glossy screens to be somewhat annoying, but I just never seem to run into the situation where it's a problem.
And all my glossy screens (laptop, desktop, HD TV) have incredible and wide viewing angles.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Get your digital camera and put it on auto-exposure. Position it so the image from your screen completely fills the camera's view (kinda difficult on a 16:9 screen, but do your best). Display what you reckon to be a "normally" bright image on the screen.
Now measure the exposure time from your camera's light-meter.
Turn the screen off, place the camera in the same position as before and check the readings from the camera's auto-exposure display.
When I did this, the difference between my normally bright, ambient light image from the display and the light reflected off the display when it was turned off gave me a contrast ratio of 80 to 1
This value doesn't even give you the full dynamic range from an 8-bit display (255 to 1), let alone the 1000+++ to 1 that LCD TV manufacturers claim. On my glossy screen I could see distinct reflections through the viewfinder and these are what gave the laughably bad contrast ratio. I'll never beleive manufacturers specifications again, and I'll never, never buy another glossy screen.
Try this yourself, and see what results you get!
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Another big usage people are missing (no doubt because it doesn't occur to them/they don't get the opportunity) is working outdoors. It's amazing how thoroughly sunlight *destroys* any visibility on non-reflective screens; it's as if the screen wasn't turned on! Meanwhile, the glossy ones at least retain some visibility.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I work at a WISP, and do a lot of field service on wireless bridges, at tower sites and on customer rooftops. I find the glossy screens all but useless. I need to throw a jacket over my head and the screen to use it. Totally useless in sunlight of any type - and I know I am not alone in needing a laptop outdoors and on the road. Give me a matte screen any day!
Just a little FYI, I have a bit of family working for Panasonic and other LCD/high def makers. The reason that widescreen is the new big thing, is so that they can keep market prices high while offering the same or VERY SLIGHTLY more service (technical features) than before. It has nothing to do with HD, or being "more beautiful", its so that 5 or 10 years from now they can reintroduce the square as a "premium" and control market prices with absolutely no quality or feature improvement. It's the same way with TVs and why you continually find TV's around the same price on an inch by inch basis instead of prices going down as they should be.
The phrase for this should be plainly obvious: they're trying to scoop up the bottom line. The fact is, they have almost nothing to advertise on a monitor as a special feature, therefore "widescreen" has become the new special feature.
Well, given that all my web browsing goes through a proxy that can tie the traffic back to my employee number, I think you can appreciate that that's not my concern. Surfing pr0n at work means losing my job, and so is a rather expensive proposition regardless of the display device. :-)
Keep in mind, privacy filters slide out, so when I want a wide viewing angle, I can have one. I'm more concerned about airports, airplanes, coffee shops, etc. since there are actual professional reasons for why I really don't want to be shoulder-surfed by a person sitting across the aisle from me. Those also tend to be some of the worst lighting conditions, too, depending on whether the bozo across the way leaves his window open. I can at least control the lighting in my office most of the time.
Program Intellivision!
I had to switch away from CRTs because of eyestrain. The first laptop I had almost immediately stopped the eyestrain problems I'd been having, and going back to the CRT later when I was transferring files brought them back immediately.
I have a glossy laptop screen now and love it. I haven't noticed any of the "blown out" color people are talking about. The only issue I have is that I have a window behind me, and for a couple hours a day the sun is in the right spot to cause some reflection in the corner of my screen.
Mostly I just ignore it -- it makes me feel like an ambassador from Slashdot to the outside, sun-drenched world. We takes our self-importance where we can gets it, right?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
ThinkPad T61 $1700 (vs. $2050 macbook, with only HDD upgrade)
T8300
Vista Ultimate
2GB RAM
250GB Drive
Intel Pro 3945ABG
Bluetooth
Lenovo Webcam
A $350 difference... but you lose aesthetics (or gain business looks, depending on your POV), lose the integrated webcam, lose multi-touch, lose optical audio in/out, Firewire connectivity, lose MagSafe, and lose DVI out. (Note: I can't find information on the ThinkPad that suggests it has DVI or optical audio).
Have I missed anything?
I went from a Thinkpad p-series to a Mac Book Pro, and am very happy. Mainly because of the performance increase of switching from a heavily-patched 5 year old OS to a new 64-bit Unix-based OS.
But also, the hardware-software integration is much tighter, even when loading 64-bit Vista on it via Bootcamp. It's been said before: If you want a fast Windows machine, buy a Mac, and they're right.
The one downside is that you just can't beat the keyboards on the Thinkpad line -- while the MBP has a good one, there's no comparison with the classic IBM/Lenovo keyboard.
Chip H.
Glossy screens are among the worst things ever to happen to computing. I can't see what is on them, only reflections of every window, lamp and anything remotely shiny behind me. I have a Lenovo 3000 N100 laptop with one of those damn things, and wish I could find an anti-glare filter to put over it. There are not words strong enough to express how I hate glossy screens that would be acceptable in mixed company. Everything that springs to mind is obscene. Whoever came up with these things should be drawn and quartered.
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