Wow! All of this hate for glossy. I've used glossy laptops for the last 5 years. With the exception of when I take them outdoors, I have never had issues with glare. Be it day, night, lights on, or off.
I just purchased a matte Asus monitor for my desktop (couldn't find a glossy for the same price/size/aspect ratio) and although it looks great, I find that it's not as crisp looking as I'm used to.
The real irony is that it's very difficult to find monitors that are glossy which will spend almost their entire lives indoors while laptops which have a higher probability to be used outdoors are seemingly always glossy.
I love my almost six year old Philips 170 LCD. I has a matte screen a better colors than any glossy screen found in notebooks.
I am just happy that majority of desktop screens are still matte.
Grated Text is more sharper, picture is more brilliant but I take matte over glossy any time.
I loved TFTs from the day they reached the consumer market not only because they were flat, but because there were no more reflections as I was used to from using CRT monitors.
As such, I just cannot understand the glossy hype. Just recently I HAD to buy a new laptop to work with, and because I desperately needed one I finally ended up with a glossy screen. Matte choices are quite rare these times.
And I HATE this glossy screen. Reflections everywhere - even indoors. You'd have to work in the basement with lights turned off to avoid refections.
Glossy screens won't necessarily display "better" colors. My current screen has worse viewing angles than a display I bought 5 years ago -- just tilt it one single inch back and colors will start to invert. You simply can't fix a crappy display by making it glossy.
But it certainly looks oh so new and shiny in the ads :X
Too many windows where I work - with a glossy display I could see *everything* in the room, especially the windows. With my blessed matte Dell I see nothing - I can't even tell if the window is open, no matter how hard I try.
I won't even consider a glossy one.
It seems like the whole industry, not just Apple has already gone off the deep end with glossy screens. Matte screens just simply can't be found these days especially at retail and I find that extremely frustrating and annoying. In addition, trying to figure out which laptops sold online are matte or glossy is even more problematic and difficult. Most online vendors simply don't tell you what type of display you're getting. I'm truly baffled why anyone who doesn't spend their entire computing life in a dark closet would purchase a glossy display much less be happy with it, but perhaps consumers just haven't figured out that a tiny improvement in color brightness does not justify the hassle of staring at reflections all day. Or perhaps they just buy whatever is in front of them. It's not matte displays that's for sure. Or perhaps I'm just the clueless one. Either way, I'll swear off computers entirely before I ever buy glossy.
I have yet to see a glossy screen thats usable in any environment other than complete darkness. Reflections are not a good thing and the ONLY way to eliminate them is to eliminate ambient light. Frankly, I'm shocked they've been as popular as they have. I've had several people whose only experience was with a glossy screen marvel at the experience of using my matte-screened Thinkpad.
If there isn't anything that will cause a strong reflection, Apple's glossy screens are amazing. This is especially true when viewing text on a white background, as matte displays always have some level of shimmer/fuzziness due to the anti-glare coating. This ranges from _horrible_ (Dell 2408WFP) to hardly noticeable (any decent screen), but I'm particular about text readability and still find a marked enough difference that I'm willing to put up with some reflections.
It's worth making a distinction between Apple glass glossy and the rest of the hoard. The latter, I believe, contribute to unrealistic colours and enrage photo buffs. As far as I'm aware, the former don't have this disadvantage.
Honestly, I don't understand why matte vs. glossy is such a polarizing issue. I use my glossy screens inside with reasonable lighting, and, although I do notice reflections (and wish, optimally, that they weren't there), I am happy to make the trade-off for crystal clear text.
What I'd really like to see is a matte screen without any anti-glare coat. Perhaps it would be a good middle ground between glossy and shimmery text.
Hey Anand! Can you get hold of new 15" MBP which offers the matte option? It is possible these would look better than the old MBP and fare better with the glassy[sic] screen indoors.
I'd only buy glossy if I wanted my screen to have the "benefits" of a rear-view mirror.
Matte is the way to go - especially on netbooks. Those little things are intended for out-and-about toting; putting a glossy screen on them is like pairing a GeForce 280 with an Intel Atom CPU. :p
I will never buy a glossy screen, be it a standalone monitor or attached to a laptop.
Unfortunately they do sell off the shelf. You can see similar consumer idiocy in the compact disk "loudness wars" where people think louder CDs sound better. Now all CDs are too loud (destroying their range) because people buy loud CDs instead of just cranking their stereo up D:
Wow! All of this hate for glossy. I've used glossy laptops for the last 5 years. With the exception of when I take them outdoors, I have never had issues with glare. Be it day, night, lights on, or off.
I just purchased a matte Asus monitor for my desktop (couldn't find a glossy for the same price/size/aspect ratio) and although it looks great, I find that it's not as crisp looking as I'm used to.
The real irony is that it's very difficult to find monitors that are glossy which will spend almost their entire lives indoors while laptops which have a higher probability to be used outdoors are seemingly always glossy.
I love my almost six year old Philips 170 LCD. I has a matte screen a better colors than any glossy screen found in notebooks.
I am just happy that majority of desktop screens are still matte.
Grated Text is more sharper, picture is more brilliant but I take matte over glossy any time.
I loved TFTs from the day they reached the consumer market not only because they were flat, but because there were no more reflections as I was used to from using CRT monitors.
As such, I just cannot understand the glossy hype. Just recently I HAD to buy a new laptop to work with, and because I desperately needed one I finally ended up with a glossy screen. Matte choices are quite rare these times.
And I HATE this glossy screen. Reflections everywhere - even indoors. You'd have to work in the basement with lights turned off to avoid refections.
Glossy screens won't necessarily display "better" colors. My current screen has worse viewing angles than a display I bought 5 years ago -- just tilt it one single inch back and colors will start to invert. You simply can't fix a crappy display by making it glossy.
But it certainly looks oh so new and shiny in the ads :X
Too many windows where I work - with a glossy display I could see *everything* in the room, especially the windows. With my blessed matte Dell I see nothing - I can't even tell if the window is open, no matter how hard I try.
I won't even consider a glossy one.
It seems like the whole industry, not just Apple has already gone off the deep end with glossy screens. Matte screens just simply can't be found these days especially at retail and I find that extremely frustrating and annoying. In addition, trying to figure out which laptops sold online are matte or glossy is even more problematic and difficult. Most online vendors simply don't tell you what type of display you're getting. I'm truly baffled why anyone who doesn't spend their entire computing life in a dark closet would purchase a glossy display much less be happy with it, but perhaps consumers just haven't figured out that a tiny improvement in color brightness does not justify the hassle of staring at reflections all day. Or perhaps they just buy whatever is in front of them. It's not matte displays that's for sure. Or perhaps I'm just the clueless one. Either way, I'll swear off computers entirely before I ever buy glossy.
I have yet to see a glossy screen thats usable in any environment other than complete darkness. Reflections are not a good thing and the ONLY way to eliminate them is to eliminate ambient light. Frankly, I'm shocked they've been as popular as they have. I've had several people whose only experience was with a glossy screen marvel at the experience of using my matte-screened Thinkpad.
If there isn't anything that will cause a strong reflection, Apple's glossy screens are amazing. This is especially true when viewing text on a white background, as matte displays always have some level of shimmer/fuzziness due to the anti-glare coating. This ranges from _horrible_ (Dell 2408WFP) to hardly noticeable (any decent screen), but I'm particular about text readability and still find a marked enough difference that I'm willing to put up with some reflections.
It's worth making a distinction between Apple glass glossy and the rest of the hoard. The latter, I believe, contribute to unrealistic colours and enrage photo buffs. As far as I'm aware, the former don't have this disadvantage.
Honestly, I don't understand why matte vs. glossy is such a polarizing issue. I use my glossy screens inside with reasonable lighting, and, although I do notice reflections (and wish, optimally, that they weren't there), I am happy to make the trade-off for crystal clear text.
What I'd really like to see is a matte screen without any anti-glare coat. Perhaps it would be a good middle ground between glossy and shimmery text.
Hey Anand! Can you get hold of new 15" MBP which offers the matte option? It is possible these would look better than the old MBP and fare better with the glassy[sic] screen indoors.
I'd only buy glossy if I wanted my screen to have the "benefits" of a rear-view mirror.
Matte is the way to go - especially on netbooks. Those little things are intended for out-and-about toting; putting a glossy screen on them is like pairing a GeForce 280 with an Intel Atom CPU. :p
I will never buy a glossy screen, be it a standalone monitor or attached to a laptop.
Unfortunately they do sell off the shelf. You can see similar consumer idiocy in the compact disk "loudness wars" where people think louder CDs sound better. Now all CDs are too loud (destroying their range) because people buy loud CDs instead of just cranking their stereo up D: