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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.
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. =(
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
Glossy is better for looking at scantily clad ladies. Makes them look like they do in them thar magazines!!!!! :)
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.
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.
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!
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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!
Tapping with two fingers on the touchpad is right-click on Mac notebooks.
If that happens you have bigger problems than lighting conditions.
Haven't you heard? There's this new fangled advanced "CRT" tech that's available in some places already:
;)
24 bit colour
Good colour gamut
Extremely good black levels
Good contrast ratios.
Really fast grey to grey transition times
Extremely low input lag (some say zero, but there's no such thing right?)
Cheaper than LCD at the lower resolutions (imagine that!).
Cons:
Higher power consumption.
Heavy.
But hey I'm, sure they'll fix the cons real soon now right? They've already solved the burn-in problems in the earlier models.
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.