8 ms·

Amen to this. I've never understood the appeal of glossy displays. To me they're almost unusuable except under the most ideal lighting conditions.

cesare 17y ago
Glossy displays are cheaper to make (since they lack the anti-glare coating). Most consumers even prefer glossy vs matte (especially when they see them side to side at the shop) because the matte coating (obviously) reduces brightness and colors are perceived as less vibrant. Of course, as soon as you have to work with them (apart from viewing a movie in a dark room) you'll regret it. Cheaper + clueless consumer = market trend. The previous generation of MBP had both options. I bought the matte, and the price (IIRC) was the same. I believe that Apple didn't offer this option for these models from the beginning because the screen of unibody machines has glass in front of it and so the process to add the coating wasn't ready yet or it was much more costly.
- GHFigs 17y ago
  When you order the matte option, the whole glass panel and bezel are removed and replaced with an aluminum frame like the earlier models. It is not merely a coating applied to the glass, it's a different part entirely.
  - cesare 17y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. I didn't know it. So the matte doesn't have the glass? One thing I like of the glass screen is that it is probably easier to clean and in general more durable (except if you drop it on the floor, of course).
- aasarava 17y ago
  It's interesting that a lot of people feel that glossy screens look better in the showroom. When I'm in an Apple Store or a Best Buy or wherever, the overhead lighting is often so bright that all you can see on glossy laptop screens is glare and reflection. It's exactly because of this showroom experience that I've always avoided glossy laptop screens.
- pmjordan 17y ago
  It's odd, though - in some European countries, the glossy screens are considered ergonomically harmful and are therefore banned from the workplace. So you can't give your employees iMacs, smaller Macbooks, etc. to work on. You'd think Apple would be a bit keener to sell to businesses.
  - electromagnetic 17y ago
    Apple traditionally hasn't sold to businesses due to Big Corporations apparent desire to quash anything capable of spurring original thought in its workers. Business is packed full of contradictions from rules they've created for themselves, like using uniforms and team building exercises to help the workers feel part of a group, but positively crap themselves at the idea of their workers unionising due to feeling like part of a group. Consumers on the other hand are relatively simple, give them something bright and shiny and they love it. Essentially we shop like Magpies, people frequently buy the wrong product for themselves because it's the better advertised and branded product.
    - pmjordan 17y ago
      Sure, maybe not large corporations, but a lot of small businesses use macs, and on the desktop, you currently only have the choice between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, which is definitely suboptimal.
  - robin_reala 17y ago
    Got a reference for that? I hadn’t heard it before.
    - pmjordan 17y ago
      It's based on the European council's guideline 90/270/EWG. As far as I can tell, it's up to the countries to implement corresponding laws, and at least Germany and Austria have such laws.
      - robin_reala 17y ago
- michaelneale 17y ago
  Yes there is probably a name for the affect of things like gloss, or brightness in a shop causing increated sales (yet its actually an inferior feature). Its the same reason LCDs have brightness and colour cranked up in shops, stereos are played loud etc... Having said that, the glass on the unibody does look easy to keep clean.
javanix 17y ago
No kidding. They look nicer when the computer is turned off? Is that really worth the extra glare for people?
- axod 17y ago
  I don't think it's quite as clear cut. Matte never look black, more a sort of dark grey. Contrast+brightness on glossy seems better.
  - javanix 17y ago
    It seems better, but I'm pretty sure it's an illusion that comes at a cost of color accuracy. The glossy screen reflects more light before it hits the actual display, reducing the amount of light needed to be absorbed to give a true black, and also causing the color-matching issues described in the article.
jvdh 17y ago
The glossy displays on the MacBook pros are actually not that bad. They ramp up to such a high brightness that you can defeat any glare you throw at it. I've used my macbook pro in the full midday sun on my back with no problem. The matte screen on my 15" powerbook was pretty much unusable outside unless it was dark.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  I think this is likely more due to the change to LED for back lighting. What the problem is with glossy displays is that they act like a half-silvered piece of glass. If the brightness on the outside gets too high, they turn into a mirror and it's near impossible to see through. However if the brightness remains high on the inside, you can see through with perfect clarity. So long as the back lighting can get brighter than the fore lighting, the glossy screen can be amazing. It has a few problems, like glares (where reflections and such cause light levels to peak higher than the back light), however these are really only a problem if you have to max out your back light. Apple should be designing their laptop screens like they do their iPod screens. My brightness on my iPod is set to ~0% and inside it is perfect, even for most tv shows (no dark moody movies though), and outside I rarely need to put it up to 100% on the sunniest of days. This would be the ideal, but until laptops actually become ultra-portable I don't think this is a huge concern. I think it's a trend of the new-geek to want to be outside in nature when working, so hopefully some ultra-powerful back lights are going to be available on high-end laptops for use outside.
LegionSB 17y ago
Nonsense. You have it backwards. Matte screens really require the ideal lighting conditions. Easy test: take one of each, and go outside. Sunlight washes out a matte screen to the point of being impossible to use. Glossy screens reflect much of that light away, leaving the screen still legible. As someone that used to do a lot of work outdoors on a laptop, there's no comparison. Glossy screens are usable in FAR, FAR more varied lighting conditions. Too much direct light and a matte screen becomes completely useless.
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  This hasn't been my experience at all. My previous lappy had a glossy screen, and I simply couldn't use it outside, and it's one of the reasons I didn't buy an Apple laptop when I got a new one a couple of months ago (bought a Dell Latitude with a super bright matte screen that works great indoors and out). I think saying, "Glossy screens reflect much of that light away, leaving the screen still legible" is magical thinking. The reflected light goes into your eye, just like the light that's coming from the screen. A sufficiently bright glossy screen and placing the lappy out of direct sunlight could overcome this problem, but I'm pretty darned sure matte screens work better than shiny ones outdoors.
  - LegionSB 17y ago
    If by "magic thinking", you mean "a basic understanding of concepts like angle of incidence/reflection", then sure, magic. Or basic science. Your choice. Don't go by sketchy memory. Take one of each laptop - borrow a co-worker's, if necessary - go outside, and expose each screen to direct sunlight. Observe how the matte screen diffuses the light across the entire screen surface. Also observe how glossy screens (which, it turns out, don't come in parabola shapes, and as such aren't reflecting all incoming light to one point) aren't washed out like the matte. There's glare, of course, but you'll quickly see the difference. Given sufficiently bright direct light, matte glare is MURDER compared to reflective glare. Matte is ideal for office settings, but far inferior in sunlight.
    - SwellJoe 17y ago

cesare 17y ago

Glossy displays are cheaper to make (since they lack the anti-glare coating). Most consumers even prefer glossy vs matte (especially when they see them side to side at the shop) because the matte coating (obviously) reduces brightness and colors are perceived as less vibrant. Of course, as soon as you have to work with them (apart from viewing a movie in a dark room) you'll regret it. Cheaper + clueless consumer = market trend. The previous generation of MBP had both options. I bought the matte, and the price (IIRC) was the same. I believe that Apple didn't offer this option for these models from the beginning because the screen of unibody machines has glass in front of it and so the process to add the coating wasn't ready yet or it was much more costly.

GHFigs 17y ago
When you order the matte option, the whole glass panel and bezel are removed and replaced with an aluminum frame like the earlier models. It is not merely a coating applied to the glass, it's a different part entirely.
- cesare 17y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. I didn't know it. So the matte doesn't have the glass? One thing I like of the glass screen is that it is probably easier to clean and in general more durable (except if you drop it on the floor, of course).
aasarava 17y ago
It's interesting that a lot of people feel that glossy screens look better in the showroom. When I'm in an Apple Store or a Best Buy or wherever, the overhead lighting is often so bright that all you can see on glossy laptop screens is glare and reflection. It's exactly because of this showroom experience that I've always avoided glossy laptop screens.
pmjordan 17y ago
It's odd, though - in some European countries, the glossy screens are considered ergonomically harmful and are therefore banned from the workplace. So you can't give your employees iMacs, smaller Macbooks, etc. to work on. You'd think Apple would be a bit keener to sell to businesses.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  Apple traditionally hasn't sold to businesses due to Big Corporations apparent desire to quash anything capable of spurring original thought in its workers. Business is packed full of contradictions from rules they've created for themselves, like using uniforms and team building exercises to help the workers feel part of a group, but positively crap themselves at the idea of their workers unionising due to feeling like part of a group. Consumers on the other hand are relatively simple, give them something bright and shiny and they love it. Essentially we shop like Magpies, people frequently buy the wrong product for themselves because it's the better advertised and branded product.
  - pmjordan 17y ago
    Sure, maybe not large corporations, but a lot of small businesses use macs, and on the desktop, you currently only have the choice between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, which is definitely suboptimal.
- robin_reala 17y ago
  Got a reference for that? I hadn’t heard it before.
  - pmjordan 17y ago
    It's based on the European council's guideline 90/270/EWG. As far as I can tell, it's up to the countries to implement corresponding laws, and at least Germany and Austria have such laws.
    - robin_reala 17y ago
michaelneale 17y ago
Yes there is probably a name for the affect of things like gloss, or brightness in a shop causing increated sales (yet its actually an inferior feature). Its the same reason LCDs have brightness and colour cranked up in shops, stereos are played loud etc... Having said that, the glass on the unibody does look easy to keep clean.

javanix 17y ago

No kidding. They look nicer when the computer is turned off? Is that really worth the extra glare for people?

axod 17y ago
I don't think it's quite as clear cut. Matte never look black, more a sort of dark grey. Contrast+brightness on glossy seems better.
- javanix 17y ago
  It seems better, but I'm pretty sure it's an illusion that comes at a cost of color accuracy. The glossy screen reflects more light before it hits the actual display, reducing the amount of light needed to be absorbed to give a true black, and also causing the color-matching issues described in the article.

jvdh 17y ago

The glossy displays on the MacBook pros are actually not that bad. They ramp up to such a high brightness that you can defeat any glare you throw at it. I've used my macbook pro in the full midday sun on my back with no problem. The matte screen on my 15" powerbook was pretty much unusable outside unless it was dark.

electromagnetic 17y ago
I think this is likely more due to the change to LED for back lighting. What the problem is with glossy displays is that they act like a half-silvered piece of glass. If the brightness on the outside gets too high, they turn into a mirror and it's near impossible to see through. However if the brightness remains high on the inside, you can see through with perfect clarity. So long as the back lighting can get brighter than the fore lighting, the glossy screen can be amazing. It has a few problems, like glares (where reflections and such cause light levels to peak higher than the back light), however these are really only a problem if you have to max out your back light. Apple should be designing their laptop screens like they do their iPod screens. My brightness on my iPod is set to ~0% and inside it is perfect, even for most tv shows (no dark moody movies though), and outside I rarely need to put it up to 100% on the sunniest of days. This would be the ideal, but until laptops actually become ultra-portable I don't think this is a huge concern. I think it's a trend of the new-geek to want to be outside in nature when working, so hopefully some ultra-powerful back lights are going to be available on high-end laptops for use outside.

LegionSB 17y ago

Nonsense. You have it backwards. Matte screens really require the ideal lighting conditions. Easy test: take one of each, and go outside. Sunlight washes out a matte screen to the point of being impossible to use. Glossy screens reflect much of that light away, leaving the screen still legible. As someone that used to do a lot of work outdoors on a laptop, there's no comparison. Glossy screens are usable in FAR, FAR more varied lighting conditions. Too much direct light and a matte screen becomes completely useless.

SwellJoe 17y ago
This hasn't been my experience at all. My previous lappy had a glossy screen, and I simply couldn't use it outside, and it's one of the reasons I didn't buy an Apple laptop when I got a new one a couple of months ago (bought a Dell Latitude with a super bright matte screen that works great indoors and out). I think saying, "Glossy screens reflect much of that light away, leaving the screen still legible" is magical thinking. The reflected light goes into your eye, just like the light that's coming from the screen. A sufficiently bright glossy screen and placing the lappy out of direct sunlight could overcome this problem, but I'm pretty darned sure matte screens work better than shiny ones outdoors.
- LegionSB 17y ago
  If by "magic thinking", you mean "a basic understanding of concepts like angle of incidence/reflection", then sure, magic. Or basic science. Your choice. Don't go by sketchy memory. Take one of each laptop - borrow a co-worker's, if necessary - go outside, and expose each screen to direct sunlight. Observe how the matte screen diffuses the light across the entire screen surface. Also observe how glossy screens (which, it turns out, don't come in parabola shapes, and as such aren't reflecting all incoming light to one point) aren't washed out like the matte. There's glare, of course, but you'll quickly see the difference. Given sufficiently bright direct light, matte glare is MURDER compared to reflective glare. Matte is ideal for office settings, but far inferior in sunlight.
  - SwellJoe 17y ago