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Users Want Matte LCDs While Glossy Screens Dominate
Barence writes "A survey of PC Pro readers suggests PC makers are out of touch when it comes to glossy vs matte screens. Almost three quarters of those surveyed said they preferred matte screens despite laptop makers moving almost exclusively to glossy screens. ... Why is the industry hell-bent on not giving customers what they want?"
The reason they don't give customer matte LCDs is because shiny screens look nicer on photographs and on showroom floors because they look perfect and pristine and oh-so-high-tech. The customer will go to the showroom (with their nice, bright, and diffuse lighting) or see the photos online and they'll think: "Wow, that's shiny, it must be new and sleek" and then whip out their credit cards.
When they take it home, they'll complain about the glare, but that doesn't matter to the manufacturers and retailers because they already had your money at that point and they know that you probably wouldn't go to the trouble of returning the laptop just because there's a bit of glare on the screen. Meanwhile, you're stuck with your crappy super-specular screen and you're going to go through any sort of mental gymnastics necessary to justify not returning it. And then, the next time you need a new computer, the same process will begin anew because we, as consumers, are idiots.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
The stupid thing with glossy screens is that they're completely unusable in the sun. Every year I spend half of the year in Thailand and want to get some work done by the pool, but it just isn't possible with a glossy screen. It's distracting and gives headaches. Now matte screen isn't that great in direct sunlight either, but even if you get some shadow for it glossy screen is completely unusable.
But other than that glossy screen really is better. The colors come out a lot nicer and more vibrant. So if you aren't like me who enjoys laying down at the pool watching beautiful thai ladyboys and drinking some beer while getting work done, just get a glossy screen. It's much better and nicer to look at.
What I've been wondering tho, since iPad 2 has glossy screen, does any of the Android ones have matte? iPad like device would suit me even better at the pool since laptop is still kind of a hassle to carry around and gets really hot in the sun. I was already going to buy an iPad, but people said it's unusable in sunlight too.
Users want to use matte, but are initially attracted to shiny screens which make the images displayed seem more vivid. So shiny sells.
1) PC Pro readers probably don't represent the general population.
2) There's always a difference between what people say they want, and what they actually end up buying when given the choice. They may actually want matte screens, but purchase based on different criteria such as "oh, shiney!" once they're actually on the spot.
3) I'm pretty sure device manufacturers are doing more robust consumer research than PC Pro.
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Because, people are stupid. They see shiny and their brains go into neutral.
This should have been news 5 years ago :(
I figured glossy screens were cheaper to manufacture in mass quantities, so they became the new standard. I have no idea if that's true or not. I too miss the matte lcd screens, even though the colors aren't usually as bright I find the screens are easier to look at in almost any lighting.
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I guess because it's more important for the screen to look sleek when it's off than to function optimally when it's on?
Better known as 318230.
But if the screen is already matte to begin with, you can't sell adhesive matte sheets for $20 a pop.
...and whatever dipshit that invented them.
The reason might be that consumers claim they want matte screens but they go and buy glossy screens. Manufacturers are probably substantially less interested in what these surveys say than what their sales numbers say.
I realize that shiny sells, but I still don't understand why I can't buy a 4:3 laptop these days. Everyone I talk to says he'd prefer one to the current wide-screen offering. Do people really only use computers for watching movies?
I just bought a new HP ProBook with 1366x768 resolution, but at least it has a matte screen.
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You can almost not find laptops with normal aspect ratio monitors any more. 10 years ago I bought a laptop with 1600x1200 resolution. Even desktop LCDs are vanishingly rare any more except in widescreen.
Yet people prefer widescreen for TVs, not for monitors, where it's inferior for almost every common task such as web browsing, email, or programming, where vertical space is critical. A laptop can't be easily used on its side!
Same thing: there is demand for normal aspect ratio laptops, but there are almost none available.
I have an HP notebook, its fast and reliable but the glossy screen is real bad. ;)
Perhaps if I sand blast the screen it will make it more matte.
Why in the world anyone would choose a 1920x1080 monitor over 1920x1200 is beyond me. I can't wait until the day those bastard TV "monitors" die.
*nt
Of course "matte" will win in a survey of people who read a PC magazine or frequent PC sites. They know what they want and why they want it. Survey people running around Best Buy looking for a new email machine and they'll want shiny because shiny = new and new = representative of affluence (but not class). Just look at the stylings of kitchen and bathroom fixtures, appliances, and wares.
Note that these less-knowledgeable shiny-mongers also think that their monitors are no longer good when their "computers slow down" (thus requiring them to buy new ones) and don't reuse those monitors for newer builds. They toss it out or give it away only to buy another.
They should have also asked of the audience, "How frequently do you purchase new monitors?" and "Where do you buy them?"
"Why is the industry hell-bent on not giving customers what they want?"
So they can sell you the version that you _do_ want in a year or two. Otherwise you might actually get happy with the computer you have and not buy another one for a while, they don't like that.
this further proves shiny stuff is what most people will buy regardless of what they want.
perhaps everything should have either a mirror finish, or be fluorescent blue/green/red/pink in colour for it to get a majority marketshare
Why give something to the customer for "free", when you can charge for a customer built machine with a matte screen?
I suspect the trend will be coming to the auto industry very soon - Oh you want four wheels? That'll cost ya extra.
How about the airline industry. A trip to New York will cost you $500. Oh you want to land safely once you get there? That'll cost you extra.
etc...
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
imac needs it or a midtower mac with a good cpu and good GPU.
Not a mini with low end cpu small slow 5400 RPM HDD and on board video.
It's the laws of physics, as they relate to sales.
Glossy surfaces tend toward deeper blacks. This in turn gives better shadow detail, wider gamut, and a steeper gamma curve (aka contrast ratio). Which in turn makes the image on the screen pop. Which in turn leads to better sales numbers.
Matte screens are, in comparison, dull and lifeless.
But in the "real world" of uncontrolled lighting, ceiling fluorescent strips, and glare everywhere, matte screens are easier to read and easier to use. People who have some experience with the devices want matte screens. People who are first buying the devices want glossy screens.
And therein lies the problem.
I'm sorry but the glossy screen is actually easier to use in bright lighting conditions. The reason for this is pretty effen simple: The glare is constrained to a very limited area and does not wash out the entire screen as those so called Anti-Glare have happen.
Sorry but if I get a laptop, I much rather have the gloss screen for just that reason because lighting is to damn erratic instead of being diffused like in the stinking showrooms.
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Reminds me of the widescreen fiasco, and something I tend to be slightly bitter about (regardless of the rectangle-ness of our overall view of the world, what isn't considered is that our accuracy of colour/detail/shape perception when we concentrate on something without looking directly at it, is proportional to the distance from our direct line of sight, so a square TV would be ideal in that sense).
Glossy screens affect even everyone who's aware of the problem, because purchasing say a laptop becomes much more tricky. When all is said and done, people have to be vote with their wallets if they don't like the pathetic "oooh- it shines! shiny-shiny-ness". Sanity will prevail, even if it takes a while.
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Does Dell use glossy screens now? I have an older Dell with a traditional widescreen(16:10, WSXGA+) that is matte, and it's great. The only glossy screens I've seen are the newer HP model types you see at Best Buy and Costco, but can't go there to check Dells
They also use mostly crappy 1366x768 pixel displays on 13-15" laptops where decent 1920x1200 pixel displays have been available for years. Apparently it makes laptops $300+ cheaper, but is the sub-$500 (i.e. throw away after 1 year) laptop business really even profitable when people pay more than that for an iPad 2? What's next, a low-resolution touchscreen display instead of a real keyboard (Nintendo DS style)?
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Just like Intel's GHz, most people only buy based on easily understood numbers. Bigger = better. By my understanding, glossy screens are cheaper to produce. Therefore, the user can pay less for their 17" screen. Same with 1080i vs 720p. Another grossly under-reported feature of LCD is the viewing angle. Poor quality screens on bargin laptops are unbelievably terrible. I find that these screens are impossible to configure such that the colors look correct on both the top and bottom of the screen at the same time. Refresh rate, dot pitch, they all get thrown out for that diagonal viewing area number. Don't get me started on trying to use office applications on a 16:9 screen. The vertical resolution is just... pathetic.
-d
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Glossy screens are needed to match the glossy plastic cases that most consumer electronics are packaged in these days. This is all part of the latest fad in product design. Remember when everyone was copying the iMac candy colors with translucent plastic bits and pieces a few years ago? Now everyone is copying Apple's current styling. It will fade away once people realize how unsightly that stuff is when it gathers dust.
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Skip the article and just look at the pictures.
Anti-Glare Matte Screen cover review
That is why the industry is also hell-bent on "educating" users that glossy is better. It is not. The solution is simple: Refuse to buy glossy.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Just wondering if the average tech illiterate knows what they are choosing by saying they prefer matte over glossy in a phone or online survey. A better experiment would be to present them with two options...laptops with matte screens and laptops with glossy screens...and see which they select.
Kind of like capitalism. Oh, wait, they're selecting glossy?
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when you want a matte screen do not buy a glossy one. problem solved.
Those fuckers in my office can't sneak up on me anymore.
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One is that glossy is brighter than matte. Matte screens do reduce the transmission of light. That is a reason laptops hopped on the glossy thing to early, more transmission means less power usage. Well in terms of things in the showroom, people like brighter screens. It is just now humans work. You'll prefer the brighter (or louder in the case of sound) of two otherwise identical objects.
Also glossy is easier to do right. It costs a little more money to do a good matte screen. Do it poorly and it can look way too grainy and so on. No, it isn't a big price difference but it is there and for cheap displays, pennies count.
What I tell people is if you care, get a high end monitor. They are better in all kinds of other ways too (like using a better panel technology that gives better colour and viewing angles) and with the pretty much sole exception of Apple, they are all matte. A Dell U2311 or U2410 are good choices for quality but not super expensive. Personally, I really like NEC's PA series. Serious cash, but they look great.
Why is the industry hell-bent on not giving customers what they want?"
As the title says, industry knows best. One can use nearly any product that has come out in the last ten years and see the same scenario.
Windows 7: No way to see every program installed on your PC in one location, twice as many steps to complete simple tasks, making Programs a flat file rather than seeing everything in one shot (sound familiar?).
Cars: getting rid of stick shifts despite better fuel mileage and better safety (ok, this is mainly due to laziness of Americans who want to talk on their cell phones while driving ghetto style), complicated radio "features", a myriad of bells (literally) going off at every moment to warn you of nothing of importance going on.
Washing machines and dryers: Internet connection (really? They're washer and dryers), an explosion of settings (most of which are never used).
Software: enough said. If there is a time consuming and complicated way of doing something, a programmer will find it. Games which cheat in single-player? Yup. There are numerous forums dedicated to games of all types where this occurs but the developers will deny everything despite evidence to the contrary.
The fact of the matter is, the industry doesn't care what people want. The industry will tell you what you want. Don't want some doo-dad or widget in your car? Tough. It comes standard. Can't find how to turn something off? Sorry, it's a "feature" (yeah Adobe, your X pdf reader is guilty of this with its permanent splash screen). Want something simple? Ha! You have two choices: nothing or everything. There is no middle ground.
What the user wants is irrelevant. You must take what you are given and be glad about it.
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I'm just happy that the glossy screen madness hasn't taken over the desktop PC market (yet).
My previous laptop had a glossy screen. I hated it. There was always an image of the stuff over my shoulder pissing me off. I had to close the window blinds to keep it from being completely unusable.
When I went shopping for my latest laptop I made sure to find out if the screen was glossy or anti-glare and made sure I got the anti-glare one. Now I don't have to close the blinds.
I noticed at the local Microcenter that flat-panels in their display have slowly been shifting toward more anti-glare. It might be because customers are seeing the overhead fluorescents reflected in the glossy screens.
I find that 600 grit carbide emery cloth works great to reduce the glare. -BOFH
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I'm guessing you do more TV watching than actual work. For a casual home computer user like yourself, that's fine. But let's be real: 1920x1080 has absolutely no place in the workplace unless your job is editing 1080 video.
The readers of a PC magazine is not the target market of PC markers. Sad but true. The mass market are customers that don't read a PC magazine, and I know nobody from that group of people who DON'T want a glossy screen.
Glossy vs. matte is a minor issue compared to the ever-widening aspect ratios. Except for watching movies, the usefulness of a screen is determined by its vertical size. The 4:3 aspect ratio is by far the most useful. 16:10 is dramatically worse. 16:9 is an evil plot to prevent computer users from doing their jobs. Yet, the LCD industry is increasingly cranking out displays that are wider and shorter. The pinnacle of laptop displays was the Thinkpad T60's FlexView (aka IPS) 1600x1200 display. It's all been downhill since then. Interestingly, though, Apple seems to have figured this out. The 4:3 aspect ratio IPS display on the iPad is gorgeous -- and the right aspect ratio. The iPad display is a classic example of what makes Apple successful -- they push component manufacturers to produce what consumers desire, as opposed to assembling the cheapest components into an cheap, inelegant commodity product.
Glossy screens reflect ambient light back at the same angle at which it hits the screen, which means when there is light shining on them they're next to useless. However, when there isn't direct light, they allow for much deeper blacks and higher contrast.
Matte screens, on the other hand, scatter ambient light and reflect it back at all angles, thus diminishing the amount of light. So when there's a light shining on them, you can still see the image on-screen. But this also means that all ambient light is reflected back, no matter the direction of the light as it hits the screen, leading to much weaker blacks and less contrast.
While consumers love the non-reflective nature of matte screens, they prefer the higher contrast and darker black level of a glossy screen much more, and are typically willing to sacrifice occasional reflections for better picture quality.
I do note, however, that there is a kind of glass that's (almost) entirely non-reflective. Head down to your local picture framing place (Michaels, for certain, has it) and take a look. Quite why this glass/coating isn't in use on LCD screens right now, I have no idea.
However, there may be a new option on the horizon: Japanese scientists have manufactured a "screen" for projectors that only reflects light beamed on it from a certain angle. So if you have a projector on the floor pointing up, it'll reflect the projector's light out into the room, but not the light from the overhead fluorescent tubes.
Well, maybe there's another use for those graphene panels, as they're supposed to be extremely strong, and virtually invisible.
What I'm slightly confused is why we really need a coating at all. Okay it protects it to a degree, but there's got to be a better material which doesn't scatter or reflect light. Heck, my glasses seem to do a much better job of avoiding reflections.
Maybe OLED or QLED will reduce the need for a coating?
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Same reason as LCD / Plasma... in store contrast appearance...
Even IF your job is editing 1080p video, 1200 is superior because you get room at the top and bottom for a scrub bar, and additional controls, without intruding on the image.
Computer displays should have stayed 1920x1200, but it's a lot cheaper just to make tons of 1920x1080 panels and use the same panels in both TVs and computer displays. Economies of scale.
I love my old Dell 2407WFP. 1920x1200 all the way, damnit.
Maybe I'm doing it wrong but I much prefer glassy over matte. The matte on my 30'' screen makes light colored areas look sparkly (I'm sure it has a term, but ???), I'm fairly certain this doesn't happen on glassy screens.
As far as the glare issue, not a problem - I can close my blinds.
In practice, most users find that width is more important than height. You have two documents. Do you place one beside the other, or one above the other? Most people put them beside one another.
The thing is, "Windows" has taught everyone to maximize one document at a time, and alt-tab between them, instead of actually showing two+ documents in, well, windows. So most people put one document front-and-center on the screen, with a soothing Office-blue background filling the extra space. The net result is, their shiny new 17" widescreen laptops now show them exactly half a paragraph more of their Word documents as their 14" CRT did twenty years ago.
Win7 addresses this with it's automatic split-screen arrangement option, but that will likely take ten years to really catch on.
I was just thinking, you sound like the person who used to run the underdog website :D
Also a purveyor of thailand, and also an eclectic computer user :D
And what about mice? I am confident that every single mouse sold makes the traditional click-click noise, and that seem like an absurdity to me when customers probably would have wanted mice that did not make any noise at all.
I had to import a mouse product to get what I wanted, with noisefree mouse-buttons that does not make *click* sounds when being depressed. Unfortunately, the product was cheap and flimsy plastic made in China and I had to clue the major parts of the mouse shell to stop making creeking noises when holding this flimsy mouse, but the nice thing is that the mouse buttons operated quietly, so I am still using this mouse even today.
Here's an alternative way to read that survey: 75% of PC Pro readers who felt that a survey about screens was worth spending time on wanted to whine about matte screens. Given the craptacular margins most laptop manufacturers have to live on, we'd see loads more matte screens if there were anywhere NEAR this number of *actual* people who were willing to pay for one.
I can't use a glossy screen in bright lighting conditions because it behaves like a mirror. My eyes focus on the distant objects reflected in the screen rather than the text. Very tiresome. Matte does wash out in the sun, but at least I can still focus on it.
"Why is the industry hell-bent on not giving customers what they want?" For the same reason they load new machines with mountains of crapware that ruins the user experience. To make a quick buck. Seriously, the industry cares less and less about making a decent product that does the job that it needs to and satisfies the customer, and more about the instant-gratification revenue. It's no wonder users are flocking to Apple in droves. Then again, I don't see any Macs with matte screens either. The only manufacturer I know of that you can still get a matte screen from is Lenovo.
I have mine positioned at home so there is no glare and it looks really good. Plus its easier to clean glass. I can appreciate how it could be different on a laptop display where you're out in different areas but mine seems good enough there as well.
-Xen
If you read the actual article rather than starting ranting about whether glossy or matte is better, you immediately see some problems. First, it's the readers of one particular magazine that was supposedly polled. How can we draw conclusions about the market as a whole from that? Second, it just says that readers were asked. Was that a self-selecting "online poll"? If so, it would have just as much statistical validity as throwing darts at a chart. Unless you have a random sample of the overall population that you're trying to draw conclusions about, you have no hope of coming to an accurate conclusion. This story isn't an effort to get at the truth. It's simply an effort to claim support for what its writer already believed. It's just plain flat-out dishonest journalism.
Try looking for a desktop monitor, as the market is growing vendors are blurring the difference between a monitor and a TV. Many monitors support HDMI inputs and are limited to 1080P TV resolutions. What has happened to 1920x1200 and higher pixel densities? Take a look at 20" to 27" monitors and they all have the same resolution so you no longer are gaining screen real estate, simply a larger picture.
Yup, it's indeed like several posts mentioned, done for marketing reasons, as they can sell more units since clueless idiots will buy it because it looks nice and shiny :(
I've been looking for a new laptop for quite a while and never could find one with the specs I needed (high-end) with a matte screen, and only recently I managed to find one, the Eurocom Neptune.
The currently popular styles in fixtures and appliances are brushed nickel, oil-rubbed bronze, and stainless steel -- all matte.
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Manufacturers aren't dumb. They don't produce things totally wrong just to satisfy their own urges.
A survey of technical people may say we want matte.
An analysis of sales probably showed that glossy screens sold better.
Manufacturers produce products for sale. If a survey said that consumers prefer black laptops, but they preferred to purchase hot pink laptops with sparkles, we'd all be running around with sparkly hot pink laptops, regardless of what the people said they wanted. It's a fun game to watch. It works in so many industries. People are frequently influenced by irrational things.
I'd guess that that glossy screens make people feel that they have the newer or cleaner model. People tend to like shiny things. The dull matte finish looks older or more worn.
I've spent plenty of time in computer stores, selecting the best specifications. While I'm doing that, I listen to the people around me. "Pretty" and "Shiny" are definitely what customers want. The next (for computer) is the "memory". I quote that, as most consumers consider the drive space and RAM as the same thing. {sigh}. People will lean towards a PC with a 500GB drive and 1GB RAM, over a 25GB drive and 4GB RAM. I've also noticed they get confused by TB drive sizes. 1TB is obviously smaller than 500GB (1 500). Flash memory sizes are hilarious. They don't judge size based on the storage size. They judge it on the sign that says "This will hold 500 songs" :) And back to the pretty factor, they'll go with a pretty 4GB USB flash drive over a plain looking 16GB USB flash drive. I've pretty much given up on helping random strangers in stores because despite their request for "help", they'll still buy fashion over function. The only way I can make someone buy the better devices is to purchase it for them (who then pay me the purchase price). I do that for friends and family only.
So, it's not our fault (generally people who would read here), it's the general consumer's fault. The manufacturers may even offer both what's favorable and not, but retail stores will only stock the items that sell well. It doesn't do any retail store any good at all to stock items that won't move. It wastes floor space, and will eventually have to be sold at clearance for cheap. Consider the WalMart effect. They buy in huge quantity. They only stock what will move, and they put substantial research into that. There's a science behind it, and they study it carefully, from what items to stock, to where to display it, down to the direction you walk through the store. Do most people turn left or right when they enter the store? Will they do high dollar impulse buys first or last?
As I've noticed, they stock low dollar impulse buys ( $20) at the entrance, and cheap impulse buys ($10) at the register. In a Walmart close to me, the traffic path goes from the entrance to the right. You encounter the departments in the following order. I note departments on each side of the aisle together.
$20 impulse buys. HBA (health/beauty) and home decor.
Womens clothing and toys.
Sporting/fitness and womens/teens clothing. Stuck back in a corner from there is hardware and tools.
The newly designed electronics section with cell phones in the front, TV's hanging on the wall in the back in clear sight, and more home decor (bedroom).
Children's clothes and pet supplies
Pharmacy and food
HBA/fashion (makeup), and food.
Jewelry and frozen food, with fresh produce in the corner.
Mens and boys clothes, as well as shoes, housewares are buried in the middle of the loop. They aren't usually impulse buys, so they don't get the high visibility spots. People assume (correctly) that the department exists, so they will go off of the
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Every time I ever dared say matte screens were better on Slashdot I got flamed by people saying that "colors are FAR more saturated and vibrant with a glossy screen". Now there's a whole article saying glossy is crap and not one person is disagreeing.
No sig today...
Some people also still would like 4:3 or at least 16:10 screens, but it seems that every manufacturer is moving to 16:9 screens with ridiculously small vertical resolution...
Because despite the surveys, they're selling by the bucket load?
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I've been reading the posts above and I'm stymied that nobody seems to have figured out that you video card is equipped with a number of bit planes for matte-ness.
For example, in HTML, for a matte brown-ish color, instead of specifying "#cec5b4", you can specify "#cec5b4ffff", where the first "ff" is the alpha (opacity) value, and the second "ff" is the matte-ness.
Gee, I thought this was a website for nerds.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I'm convinced that the manufacturers have jumped on the widescreen bandwagon because it relieves them suffering higher component costs.
In LCDs, I suspect, one dimension ('length') is cheap. If you are making ribbons of glass, the length of that ribbon is virtually limitless. Keep feeding it raw material, keep the machine working correctly, and you get glass that you cut off at the other end. Paper machines work on this principle, except they generally roll the paper at the dry end.
Now, the other dimension, width, is where the real money is. Wider glass requires wider machines, with the attendant expenses of larger mechanisms, more maintenance, more difficult control, and all that. Paper machines suffer this also. You see this in printers and copiers as well.
So, widescreen panels are attractive to manufacturers because they can sell us 'bigger' which is NOT.
This leads, for instance, to the realization that 1 27" flat panel HDTV isn't nearly as big as your old 27" console XL100 CRT TV. Sure, it's wider, but it's not as tall. And losing either dimension leaves you with, well, less.
Darn. We been hoodwinked. And I want a screen that's taller, since I am portrait-centric in displaying documents. Not gonna happen.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
More to the point (for me) is a screen that doesn't burn my eyes when I read in bed in preparation for sleep. Matte helps for that too, of course.
Why hasn't pixel qi taken over the lcd display market? I want big ones for coding (desktop) and little ones for phone and medium ones for tablets and laptops.
Please?
In a brightly lit jungle of the big box store, all panels will have many lights shining on them and here is what happens:
1:Glossy screen is covered in bright reflections, buyer rationalizes that at home, they won't have bright lights so they will be fine.
2: Matte screen in comparison would have no reflections but light diffusion would rob apparent contrast, buyer does not make the same rationalization about lack of multiple bright lights at home. They just see the loss of apparent contrast.
All screens sucks in this environment, they just suck in different ways that to an improper conclusion that Glossy screens will be better in more controlled lighting environment, but Matte won't.
Then at home or other properly controlled lighting environment here is what actually happens.
1: Glossy screen: No matter what, reflections will be near impossible to control, while brighter in store they never go away.
2: Matte screen: without showroom lighting, they don't suffer the light diffusion issues robbing contrast and they are blissfully free of reflections.
Conclusion from the showroom is that Glossy would be better without showroom light, but it is actually Matte screens that really improve more in proper lighting.
There is a reason that ALL professional LCD displays are Matte. It is the best option in a properly controlled lighting environment, having both good contrast and freedom from reflections, it is just that on the showroom floor. Shiny has more zing and creates faulty assumptions.
I'm one of those people who finds glossy screens absolutely useless. Even in areas where viewing is "optimal" for a glossy screen, I still see way too many distracting reflections. I just speak with my $. I'll never buy anything with a glossy screen, ever.
Why would you throw it away after a year? It can still run all the apps you were using when you first bought it. Our ASUS netbook is still working fine over a year after we bought it.
But I do agree, those lousy low-res displays on a full size laptop are obnoxious. Even the thinkpad brand has succumbed :(
Why did everyone who hates glossy screens buy them and then bitch about it instead of just buying the matte screen and crooning? There was a time when almost every manufacturer offered glossy AND matte screen options. If 75% of the purchasers had been buying the matte screens, glossy would have gone the way of the dodo. Obviously, that was not what happened. Manufacturers did not perversely ignore 75% of the market, lose money hand over fist, yet insist on the glossy standard.
Glossy screens are not a problem as long as you are wearing a black turtleneck.
I've always held Apple's cinema displays in high regard, but the fact that they now only sell glossy monitors is a joke. If there is any light in the room, you're looking at your work through an image of your face. I loathe Dell a deep rooted fiery hot rage, but right now, their Ultrasharp monitors are the only game in town for someone who needs a precise image that they can actually see. (excluding much more expensive high-end gear)
Because apparently the industry is copying Apple and we all know that Apple users... OOoooooh... Shiny...!
The colors are brighter, the blacks are darker. It's not all washed out looking (no doubt due to scattering of light at the front of the screen.
Plus, I don't need to buy a mirror.
If you are talking about choice, one small observation: some of us like glossy screens and its a hell of a lot easier to stick an antiglare filter on a glossy screen than it is to apply a glossy filter to an antiglare screen.
Yes - I like glossy screens and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Not because they look shiny, but because they work better - I've used both side-by-side and glossy stays readable in conditions that completely wipe out matte. Occasionally the reflections bug me, but not as much as a completely washed-out screen.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
The ambient light level in my parents basement is so low that glare and reflections aren't an issue.
Have gnu, will travel.
When I used to do video and film work years ago, we had something called matte spray or anti-reflective spray.
We would spray it on anything that was causing reflections during the filming. It was temporary, and could be washed off (I think with alcohol).
I just did a Google search for "matte spray" and I saw some permanent sprays that are used on photographs. I'd prefer something that I could wash off with alcohol if I didn't like it or if it got dirty. So it would take some research to find the removable stuff.
But that might be a quick, cheap fix, or at least something to try out.
(I would however check very carefully first to make sure it didn't hurt the screen and could be cleaned off if you didn't like it. But you knew that.)
P.S. Be sure not to use matte black paint by mistake.
Because these things are designed by pale creatures who don't get outdoors much, except to walk to the next dimly lit hipster cafe with fast WiFi.
Fortunately, business monitors and laptops are almost exclusively matte finish -or at least have that option- for brightly lit office space.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
A high quality IPS LCD has superior colours to a CRT in my opinion. Also has superior geometry, of course. That isn't to say it is in all ways superior. Contrast ratio is less, though high enough to be plenty usable.
I prefer my NEC 2690WUXi (the series before the PA series) to my old Lacie Electron22BlueIV.
The vendors want to charge us to put the cheaper and more desirable type of screen on the product.
Why give them what they want when they will pay you for the same thing?
I have a good friend who is a proud owner of a very large TV. He is also one of those weirdos who likes to watch everything squished. When I ask him why, his response is that he feels like he's not getting his money's worth unless every inch of the screen is in use. Black bars make him feel like he's just not getting full value out of his expensive, giant TV.
I don't really understand it, myself. I have a very hard time watching incorrect aspect ratio TV for more than a couple minutes (unless it's animation). If I'm watching squished (or pan & scan) content, I don't feel like I'm getting full value out of the content. I don't even notice black bars if I'm enjoying what I'm watching. Different people have different priorities, I guess.
Knowledge != Intelligence
It's also about battery specs. When a device is benchmarked for its battery life, it's at a certain brightness level. Since the lcd backlight is most of the power consumption of these new fangled devices, it make more sense to have a more efficient transmitter of light if you want to score better on this metric.
Matte LCDs have essentially have a polarized light-scattering filter which dims the LCD requiring more backlight for a given user brightness level. This matte light filter also tends to make the images more blurry (depending on viewing angle as the filter generates "moire"-like interference with the pixel elements) and have reduced contrast as well.
Glossy LCDs just have a simple optical coating that effectively pipes the light straight out from the LCD polarizer to your eye, or more importantly to the device measuring the screen's brightness level allowing them to have a lower backlight power for a given brightness level than the corresponding Matte LCD.
I'd mod you up if I had the points. This whole debate reminded me of what I saw at the Apple store last weekend. The 13" MacBook Pro comes only with a glossy screen. The 15" model (which is targeted more at the likely PC Pro reader)? It comes in matte.
My last laptop was a high gloss.. and most of the time I didn't notice (work in the dark).. but when you're in an airport or something with lots of light.. it's terrible. This reason is why I ended up NOT getting an HP 311 for my new netbook.. and why I DID get an 11.6" Lenovo x100e:
http://www.slashgear.com/lenovo-thinkpad-x100e-review-2972091/
(in red of course)
Talk with your cash.. Some vendors have obviously started to "Get it" and kick the marketers out of the design groups.. Let's hope more vendors do the same.
Tweeks
For the more expensive stuff, yes. The cheaper stuff, which is intended to appeal to the masses, is plastic and shiny.
Why is the best option always missing? A matte surface diffuses reflections at the expense of image quality, and "glossy" by definition, is the very essence of unwanted reflections. This is a choice between the lesser of two evils, and the outcome is meaningless. Matte isn't terrible, but no one should ever want "glossy".
A good anti-reflective film will be the clear winner in most circumstances.
DavidinAla hit it right on the head. This is why a basic stats course encompassing the basics of survey design and methodology should be a standard part of everyone's education.
Also, why is there such an assumption that people buy shiny screens out of stupidity?! Most stores I've been to have models with both types of screens of display -- users are able to see both, even pull up the same content side by side and do a comparison. I think tech users are a little savvier than many of the posters here presume.
And what on EARTH is wrong with shoppers using the "real world" yardsticks provided on in-store signage? When a less technically inclined family members asks me about storage space, this is always how I give MB, GB, TB, etc. context.
The cheap stuff is intended to appeal to builders (hence, "builder grade"), not the masses. The masses don't buy fixtures; they just keep whatever their house comes with.
And even almost-low-end appliances come in stainless steel now.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
because the idiot manufacturers don't sell many options without the fucking things.
I DETEST them, one of the worst fads the tech industry has cottoned on to, thanks Apple or Sony for first pioneering this shit.
Sometimes the manufacturers don't even make it clear on the product listing on their web sites, if I ever purchased a laptop with a glossy screen accidentally, I would return it to the supplier as defective.
Since when has what we want make much of a difference? Manufactures will put out what they want us to buy, and we will say thank you, may i have another.
With all the virtual monopolies, where else we gonna go?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sometimes I think this is as much of a holy war as VI versus Emacs.
There is a *lot* of demand for glossy monitors. Read the forums.
But... Go to Best Buy. Nothing but matte. Go to Office Depot.
Nothing but matte. Go to Office Max. Nothing but matte. Go to
Staples. One very low end TN glossy, everything else is matte.
The matte screens are all washed out with milky white fog.
Blacks are not black. Colors are not saturated. Text is very
hard to read. Glossy provides blacks that are black, colors that
aren't milky, text that is easy to read.
Aside from the very low end TN at Staples, the only other glossy
monitor I've found is the Apple 27". Absolutely beautiful,
but word is that the LG panels have quality control issues.
I don't want to pay $1000 for a monitor and get stuck with
yellow tint and backlight bleed issues.
Do *all* LG panels suffer from quality control problems?
The Dell ST2220T has a couple of excellent reviews, but
the units may have been cherry picked.
Oddly, I noticed that a lot of laptops had glossy screens.
So in an home or office setting where you can control the
lighting, nearly all monitors are matte. But portable
laptops, which will likely be used in a variety of settings
with a variety of lighting, come with glossy screens. Does
this seem backwards to anyone?
There are a lot of models of monitors, and a lot of models
of laptops. Lots of people prefer matte, lots of people
prefer glossy. Why can't they make a good selection of each?
Same deal with 1920x1200 vs 1920x1080.
And how much do they really save with 6-bits plus dithering vs
real 8 bits?
What other brick & mortar stores carry glossy monitors?
(A monitor is one item I want to actually look at before buying,
given what I plan to do with it.)
Almost as obnoxious as glarey monitor screens is shiny bezels surrounding them, even if black. --Bruce
Why in the world anyone would choose a 1920x1080 monitor over 1920x1200 is beyond me. I can't wait until the day those bastard TV "monitors" die.
Oh, that's easy. The 1920x1080 one has the same diagonal inches, it's Full HD, and it's cheaper! What's not to like?
Are you adequate?
The PC Pro survey says that professionals prefer matte screens. This doesn't mean that the dilettantes don't like glossy.
I'm in Marketing, and we've done extensive research into the matte Vs shiny laptop screen, and I can tell you...... .....OH LOOK SOMETHING SHINY!!!
I honestly don't care if the screen is matte or glossy as long as they stop stealing my vertical pixels. A small part of me dies in side every time I hear, "check out my new ultra high resolution 1080p screen".
The shiner and sleeker it is, the faster it will become perma-riddled with fingerprints, acquire visible scratches and look terrible. Then you buy a new one. This is especially popular on mobile devices. For reference, see any generation I-anything.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
One thing I've noticed is that despite almost all laptops having glossy screens these days, I have yet to encounter a desktop LCD which is glossy; they're all matte.
I think this news is a reflection (excuse the pun) of people becoming more aware of the issue. I bought "returned" "new" laptop with a glossy screen. I sort of thought that matt would be better for glare but the choice of the returned laptops is limited so I went with it. I now realise from using it how terrible it is in any sort of light. (works great in the dark) So in the future I would demand matt and complain if the option weren't there. This is probably the same deal with everyone. It wasn't that long ago that buying a laptop became normal instead of a luxury/high-end purchase. Experience takes time. As for the manufacturers preferring gloss, that is probably because the shiny sells and it takes longer for manufacturers to react to trends. They will change in a few cycles.
Stupidity is its own reward.
I prefer 1080x1920 even mode lines of code.
Why not just sell umbrellas with the laptop? That solves it.
It's because "In certain light environments glossy displays provide better color intensity and contrast ratios than matte displays." (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossy_display). This is also the reason a vendor provided when I asked him the same question about three years ago.
People who know the difference want matte.
If I spend 5 minutes to explain the difference, a noob wants matte.
People in a store have no idea what to look for, and the glossy screen has brighter colors and has yet to display small scratches (which we all know the get and display way more clearly) and is set up in a way so no annoying reflections are in it.
So, yeah, no surprise here.
Absolutely and totally hate glossy screens. Give me a matte anti-glare any day.
I have been looking for a small-ish notebook (12") for some time now with decent battery life, a real processor (no netbooks!), a matte screen with decent resolution and a price that I'm willing to pay (e.g. I'm willing to spend in the $1000 range or a bit more). Obviously, I'm in the minority because I have literally found nothing that meets these requirements. It's either got poor battery life or it's an insanely expensive corporate model north of $2k. I would seriously consider a 13" MacBook Pro or 11.6" MacBook Air, but the unavailability of matte screens is a deal killer for me. I simply will not buy a laptop with a glossy screen. I need to be able to use the laptop outdoors without the whole screen being unreadable due to glare. Even indoors, I do not want every light in the room to be reflected back at me through my monitor.
The sad truth is, glossy screens are a way to use inferior LCD panels and get a brighter display, without actually using better quality LCD panels. Don't even get me started on the proliferation of TN panels and 1080 pixel resolution in consumer displays. We should all have IPS or better technology, not age-old TN. Out of 4 computer displays I have at home, 3 are IPS and only one is a TN, and that's only because the TN is quite old and just hasn't been replaced with something better yet. None of my displays are glossy, and it took some time to find a good 24" IPS that did not have a glossy screen and the dreaded 1080 pixel vertical resolution.
backlight flooding is the issue with black bands.
but it's a non-issue, really. 1920x1200 is better, if not only for the fact that it's better to create 1920x1080 stuff on it - and you can fit the progress bar and still see the whole thing.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I was recently looking to replace my aging but still mostly usable thinkpad t43, with a 4:3 screen. I was so disgusted with the limited resolution on modern laptops (1333x768?) I decided not to buy at all and hold on a bit longer. I do not watch films on my laptop! I have this thing called a huge plasma tv for that!
When I bought a glossy screen, I wasn't happy that matte was no longer available,
but now I definitely find the glossy one easier to read at in a lit environment
and I'm glad to have it.
Sure, there are mild reflections. All screens have reflections.
But the matte one is grey-to-white from the ambient light, no deep blacks. There's much less contrast.
No visible contrast at all if there's a bright window behind me.
The features I need to handle a screen full of text are:
- Contrast
- Minimum glare.
With the two screens I have, I found there's way more glare on the matte one than the glossy one, even though
the glossy one's glare is more specular.
That means in bright light, I can move my head to see things on the glossy screen, whereas on the matte screen
I can't see anything even if I move my head.
For people who want to read in bright light, you should be looking for its *transflective* behaviour.
You won't see that in the shop, you have to take it outside.
The LCD's maximum brightness, and therefore contrast, is puny compared with reflected sunlight,
so it's basically invisible. The transflectivity reflects sunlight pixel by pixel.
My (glossy) laptop is barely visible in medium sunlight. But, surprisingly, in brighter sunlight I can read detailed text
clearly because the pixels switch between non-mirror and mirror reflecting the sunlight. Same with my phone.
My (old, matte) laptop is completely invisible at any level of sunlight.
It could simply be that my glossy screen is newer though.
I haven't had the chance to try both surfaces with the same underlying LCD.
Because displays are specified as length of diagonal, wide-screen, for the same screen area, gives a specification 1" greater than 4:3 for normal screen sizes. Consumers are dumb and buy it.
Not a screen. Why do you think netbooks took off so well during the recession? They are cheap. .. not shiny. Matte might have a preference but both the consumers and acccountants dont want to pay for it.
Today in business trends it is all about aggressive cost cutting and everything is a commodity.
http://saveie6.com/
1. Glossy Screens DO look better. They allow more light to come through the screen because matte finishes diffuse light. This means that if all other things are equal the display on a glossy screen will appear brighter, more vibrant, and at a better contrast ratio.
2. If most customers really made a point of buying matte finish screens they wouldn't have become obsolete. This isn't a case of a screen type that is rare because it's expensive to make. This is a screen type that is rare to find because it came out years ago and increasingly the actual marketplace opened itself more and more to glossy screens. If this was a screen that was new to the market it would be different, but years ago matte finishes were still being done and today they aren't, because at the end of the day when someone has to actually buy a computer screen they opt for the ones with glossy finishes because as I pointed out in point #1 they look better!
3. The big problem with glossy screens is glare. This can easily be overcome by finding a spot to place the screen so that you don't have light shining onto the screen. The big problem with matte screens is that colors are less vibrant and in general the picture looks flatter and less alive, that's a technological limitation of matte screens that cannot be overcome.
4. The people that are complaining about this probably have no idea what they are talking about, and I base this on 10 years working retail. I for example work in a shoe store, and periodically maybe twice a year, I'll get a guy in with a size 15 foot, who will become irate that we don't have a size 15 in stock. They usually start complaining that we're a shoe store and we should at least have 1 15 in stock for him to try on. I understand his point, but what he doesn't realize is that to make a 15 (or any size shoe that a company has to make new) requires a new last to be built and all in all that drives production up about $50,000, because you're basically having to create a new piece of hardware for every size shoe that comes out, and prototyping it etc. Now what motive does a shoe company have to make a 15 if I see thousands of customers a year and only 2 of them are size 15, if it costs $50,000 to make the last? You'd need more than 100 years to recoup the cost of manufacturing! Now I know it's not the same thing, but my point isn't that monitors are equal to shoes, my point is that monitor manufacturers HAD matte screens and they didn't do very well, and it must be somewhat cost prohibitive to reintroduce matte screens, otherwise they'd have done it. Likewise if there was good money in mass producing size 15 shoes every shoe company would do that too. My gut instinct tells me that if a monitor manufacturer broke the numbers down people would have to conclude that they'd do the exact same thing, because I'm certain that there isn't a lot of money to be made by making matte screens... or else we'd see more matte screens.
At all. Just give me back my 16:10 aspect ratio. I'd accept 4:3, too, but I honestly prefer 16:10. 16:9 is just an abomination.
Glossy screens are fine, though.
Pool's Closed; due to aids