Unless one is using the display in a 100% pitch black room, contrast ratios are largely meaningless and over inflated by many manufacturers. It is obvious that you are neither into gaming nor into any kind of graphics work. Contrast ratio is critical for the accuracy and viewability of the images, whether still or motion.
A low contrast ratio means that there is a low difference between black and white on a given screen. While this may not mean much to some users, visualize it as attempting to project a presentation onto a white screen in a brightly-lighted room as compared to in a darkened room. The anti-glare coating on most computer screens automatically makes that base medium lighter, thus reducing contrast and making accurate rendering next to impossible. By using polished glass, you eliminate that diffusion and make the background as dark as the LCD matrix can go. Darken the matrix while keeping the whites as light as possible -- in other words, increasing the Contrast Ratio -- makes the image as precise as it can possibly be. The higher the ratio, the more precise the colors and sharper the image will be; up to the limit of the original work.
...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. I have to argue this point to some extent. In most cases, it is the diffusion layer that is the coating, not the gloss. Especially with glass screens, it is easier to leave it glossy than it is to etch it or otherwise create a diffusion layer, which coincidentally also reduces contrast by scattering ambient light.
In my own case, I use an iMac and can emphatically state that if there's any "neutral-density filtering," it is very slight, since looking at the display from a very high angle at very close range, you can actually see the image refracting off the back side of the glass; something you cannot see on a diffusion screen.
I won't argue that a high-gloss acrylic screen will be an issue since it is so sensitive to environmental factors that will damage the screen. An earlier poster commented particularly about this issue destroying a significant portion of his display. For obvious reasons this makes glass the much better medium, albeit significantly more fragile.
I use both a high-gloss and a matte screen on my iMac side by side. For gaming and photo work I put everything on the glossy screen for the clarity while my web browser and most texting goes to my matte screen where accuracy is less important and the intensity of the colors is more muted.
I think the thing is, vendors have started using more and more glossy screens because they hide a multitude of sins. You can use a craptacular LCD and have glossy coating on it and it looks halfway decent.
Look at the latest iMacs as an example of this. Absolutely sub-par screen...and they coat it with glass so it hides how bad it is. It's something like a 400:1 contract ratio screen with many other vices.
Obviously any serious graphic designers aren't going to stand for anything but a matte screen. Honestly, I think you need to research the displays used by Apple in their iMacs (though this article isn't centered around iMac but laptops instead.) I think you'll find that the contrast ratio on the new displays is far higher than you claim, more like 800:1 or higher.
The advantage to the glass screen is that, while you have to put up with some reflection, a clear glass screen does not diffuse the light and so reduces the amount of light the display has to generate in order to give a bright display. This also means that it doesn't catch background light and diffuse it towards you, forcing higher brightness and increased contrast to counteract the overall light haze. True, it doesn't look like glare, but it makes getting a clean image more difficult than polished glass.
In all honesty, the contrast ratio of a polished glass screen is so high that I can hardly see the difference between a black background and the black edges of my iMac's screen and yet the white of my windows is so bright that I actually have to reduce the brightness and contrast to reduce the direct glare from the page.
A serious graphic designer is going to use whatever screen gives him an image that best represents his target market, whether through video or through the printed page. I use graphics all the time in my own business and personally think the high-gloss screen gives me a much clearer image, though I admit that printing and televisions don't have nearly the contrast and clarity to match the scanned image. This does, however, allow me to detect and correct defects in the image that would degrade the overall quality of the finished product. In other words, as a Graphics designer, the high-gloss display gives me a better view than the matte.
I use a Logitec Cordless Optical Trackman on one of my computers and a Microsoft Trackball Explorer on my other. Both of these have decent-sized finger-driven optical balls and four buttons. My Macintosh has no difficulty using the cordless trackball and the precision of control is especially convenient, even though I am not a graphic artist in the conventional sense. The Microsoft trackball has a larger ball than the Logitec which could allow for finer precision.
Admittedly both of these are right-handed units, but since I started using them, I have had no wrist pains and am able to game reasonably well in WoW though I find it easy to drag icons out of the action bars during combat if I don't lock the action bars first.
As far as battery use is concerned, I've found the batterry lasts anywhere from 1 to 3 months depending on how heavily I use the mouse. I expect this will average about 6 weeks after I replace my Mac and Windows machines with a new Mac Pro in another month or so.
All in all, since I've started using a trackball, it is unlikely I will revert to a conventional mouse unless given no choice.
Slashdot Mirror
A low contrast ratio means that there is a low difference between black and white on a given screen. While this may not mean much to some users, visualize it as attempting to project a presentation onto a white screen in a brightly-lighted room as compared to in a darkened room. The anti-glare coating on most computer screens automatically makes that base medium lighter, thus reducing contrast and making accurate rendering next to impossible. By using polished glass, you eliminate that diffusion and make the background as dark as the LCD matrix can go. Darken the matrix while keeping the whites as light as possible -- in other words, increasing the Contrast Ratio -- makes the image as precise as it can possibly be. The higher the ratio, the more precise the colors and sharper the image will be; up to the limit of the original work.
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.
I have to argue this point to some extent. In most cases, it is the diffusion layer that is the coating, not the gloss. Especially with glass screens, it is easier to leave it glossy than it is to etch it or otherwise create a diffusion layer, which coincidentally also reduces contrast by scattering ambient light.
In my own case, I use an iMac and can emphatically state that if there's any "neutral-density filtering," it is very slight, since looking at the display from a very high angle at very close range, you can actually see the image refracting off the back side of the glass; something you cannot see on a diffusion screen.
I won't argue that a high-gloss acrylic screen will be an issue since it is so sensitive to environmental factors that will damage the screen. An earlier poster commented particularly about this issue destroying a significant portion of his display. For obvious reasons this makes glass the much better medium, albeit significantly more fragile.
I use both a high-gloss and a matte screen on my iMac side by side. For gaming and photo work I put everything on the glossy screen for the clarity while my web browser and most texting goes to my matte screen where accuracy is less important and the intensity of the colors is more muted.
I use a Logitec Cordless Optical Trackman on one of my computers and a Microsoft Trackball Explorer on my other. Both of these have decent-sized finger-driven optical balls and four buttons. My Macintosh has no difficulty using the cordless trackball and the precision of control is especially convenient, even though I am not a graphic artist in the conventional sense. The Microsoft trackball has a larger ball than the Logitec which could allow for finer precision.
Admittedly both of these are right-handed units, but since I started using them, I have had no wrist pains and am able to game reasonably well in WoW though I find it easy to drag icons out of the action bars during combat if I don't lock the action bars first.
As far as battery use is concerned, I've found the batterry lasts anywhere from 1 to 3 months depending on how heavily I use the mouse. I expect this will average about 6 weeks after I replace my Mac and Windows machines with a new Mac Pro in another month or so.
All in all, since I've started using a trackball, it is unlikely I will revert to a conventional mouse unless given no choice.