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.

ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Anonymous Coward]

The ThinkPad T61's still use a non-reflective screen, and are now available in wide screen models.

Glossy is more like reading paper

[davide marney]

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.

Insist on non-glare

[gweihir]

Glare-type displays have better colors unter some conditions (dark environment), but will often be pretty bad. Their primary advantage is that they are cheaper to manufacture.

For the resolution, don't get something below your standards. If the product you want is really not available, then refuse to buy.

The problem with matte

[Piata]

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.

HP

[herbapet]

The HP pro series, business lvl, has matte screens. That's what im using.

Get a MacBook Pro

[cjsnell]

Available in non-glossy by order. Some Apple stores may even stock the non-glossy versions.

Apple

[Telvin_3d]

Well, for what it is worth, the MacBook Pro line of Apple laptops have the free choice of glossy or matte displays. Not sure if that would be your cup of tea, but at least one vendor is giving the option.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[csimicah]

2nding the T61. We have trouble finding high-end laptops that don't come with subwoofers and Splinter Cell stickers; our new T61 fits the bill exactly and has a matte 1920x1200 screen.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto Acer's TravelMate 8200/8210 notebooks, which come with a 1680 x 1050 pixel matte panel. Backlight brightness is a little sub-par, but in *most* other respects these are pretty darned powerful and well-designed notebooks.

MacBook Pro has both options

[Ohio Calvinist]

I bought my MacBook Pro about 7 months ago, and when I did, the clerk asked me which I wanted, saying they had every configuration in that line with either option (though the store was sold out of glossy in the 15' 2GB/2.8GHz model at the time of purchases, which was OK since I wanted non-glossy.)

I never really thought about it, but they said that glossy is popular for folks watching a lot of movies or gaming (I know I'm going to get some replys for insinuating that one can game on a Mac... ;)) on the device. The clerk said that for word processing, internet, and design work that most folks prefer the non-glossy one as the color can be misleading. I don't know if that is true (or why/why not), but sounds belivable.
 
When I have spec'd Dell or HP for work, I've found that usually you have to search for non-glossy ones, and it is usually a seperate model number, not a selectable line-item option on a machine. I usually had to select the box I wanted based on the machine size/style/monitor, then customize the internal specs like CPU, RAM, disk.
 
The Apple method (machine, then monitor) made more sense to me, but it isn't exactly a direct comparison to evaluate a retail and online experience.

There are tradeoffs to both types

[wodgy7]

This page has some good diagrams explaining what happens to light in "matte" (anti-glare) versus "glossy" (anti-reflective) screens:

http://www.screentekinc.com/pixelbright-lcds.shtml [screentekinc.com]

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.

Sorry, I love the glossy screens

[SpryGuy]

My laptop has one (I had to choose it as an option), and it gives much richer colors and blacker blacks, and I don't have any problem reading it in any light at all. I'm not sure what problem people have with glossy screens, but I go out of my way to get them. When I got a wide-screen HD TV, I got one with a glossy screen (and got a huge boost in contrast by doing so at no extra cost).

Maybe it takes some getting used to, and maybe there are some lighting situations that cause issues that I just never seem to run across, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Just my two cents.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[emag]

I managed to scratch a Sun-branded Trinitron about 10 years ago, carrying it from one office to another in a parallel hallway. At the time, it never occured to me to take my ID badge with the metal clip off my neck, so with it between my chest an the tube, I ended up with a nice 2" wavy scratch in the middle of the screen...

Re:Not an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're saying is true of a matte screen, but not a glossy one.

A glossy screen (like a mirror) reflects ambient light directionally, so the glare from a light source will be super-bad if the screen is aligned so that the glare is reflected into the user's eyes, but minimal otherwise. Matte screens reflect as much light but scatter it in all directions, so the worst-case glare is reduced but the best-case glare (in any particular environment) is increased.

The matte screen also (to some degree) scatters the light from the screen itself, which is why the images from a matte screen are not as sharp.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[truthsearch]

WXGA = Wide XGA

But I very much prefer people say the numeric resolution these days. I'm not interested in keeping up with the acronyms.

Re:has anyone tried their own conversion?

[L4t3r4lu5]

The surface isn't just ground, but also polarised. It helps reduce the diffusion of light passing through the matte coating, but doesn't eliminate it.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Mr Z]

Ah yes. As I recall, the Sun Trinitrons have an antiglare coat that can scratch relatively easily compared to straight up glass. It also tended to make fingerprints glow practically neon under certain fluorescent lighting conditions. (And people wonder why half the fluorescent bulbs are turned off in my office.) As for the glossy laptop screens, I'm thinking about getting one of those 3-M privacy filters. Those have a matte finish, and should hide the glossy from the glare. I'm hoping that's the one saving grace of glossy--less light loss before getting to the privacy filter.

Re:Apple

[bugnuts]

That is exactly what I came here to post. Here's a link to the specs. [apple.com]

It's only available on the macbook pro, but that's what the OP would need anyway, because of the screen size.

I remember when my gf (no, really) called me from Apple to ask which screen to get and I insisted on the matte... she apparently had to hassle the "genius" there because she had already picked one out that included a glossy screen.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Cecil]

I think those are technically T61p's. I just got a fully-loaded T61p with the 15.4" 1920x1200 widescreen a week ago and it is wonderful. I'm loving it so far.

So I third the T61 recommendation.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[morgan_greywolf]

MacBook Pro [apple.com]. You can even run Windows on it. Doesn't come with Splinter Cell stickers or subwoofers. And they give you the option of glossy or matte.

I mean, if you're willing to shell out the dough for a T61, you might as well get a MacBook Pro and at least have the option to run MacOS X.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Octorian]

Seems like a load of crap invented by laptop manufacturers who thought it would be better to confuse buyers with acronyms than meaningful numbers. Of course I'm probably half-wrong, and there is some sort of reason for all of this.

Regardless, just print this [wikipedia.org] out, and post it on your wall.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Mr Z]

I've always found these inscrutable, personally, and they also don't seem to always be exactly set in concrete. Wikipedia has a secret decoder ring, [wikipedia.org] thankfully, and points out some of the inconsistencies [wikipedia.org] on individual pages where different resolutions have been referred to by the same name.

This is worse than the HD folks mixing 2^10 and 10^3 units in the drive capacity computation.

Re:Matte = glare from all angles

[Anonymous Coward]

This is borderline moronic. It's like saying "You can only see things directly behind you in a mirror." No. The mirror reflects all vectors from any incident angle, creating a reflection of the entire field behind you. There could be an entire space-shuttle in a mirror.

Glossy displays are like mirrors. Every light behind you, no matter how pitiful, blasts your retina.

Matte screens at least attempt to deal with it by putting a difuser in front. This is like putting a piece of paper in front of a mirror. The sun will still blast through, but at least you can't see every single horrible detail behind you. Sometimes you just want to see your screen.

Dell Latitudes

[cyanics]

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.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Surt]

W usually means widescreen: implying formatted for the display of HD content. Note that when you go from 1024x768 to 1280x800 you gain more in the width:
1280/1024 = 1.25
800/768 = 1.041

Usually a W format screen is 16:10 so that 16:9 HD can be displayed inside a window with a titlebar without any stretching.

Re:obligitory post

[kinabrew]

Tapping with two fingers on the touchpad is right-click on Mac notebooks.

Re:Try an experiment

[hankwang]

Get your digital camera

I have a website where you can upload your screen images and have it calculate with higher accuracy what the contrast ratio is: lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast_ratio [lagom.nl]. I tried this myself with dozens of screens (in a dark environment), and nearly all recent laptop screens have a contrast ratio of around 1:100 - 1:150 in a dark environment, a bit dependent on the viewing angle. Glossy or matte doesn't matter. I didn't check the effect of ambient light on the contrast ratio.

This value doesn't even give you the full dynamic range from an 8-bit display (255 to 1),

It doesn't work like that; the standard sRGB brightness-versus-pixel value response curve of a standard computer monitor means that officially, the brightness ratio between 1 and 255 "should" be more like 3000:1.

let alone the 1000+++ to 1 that LCD TV manufacturers claim.

I don't have much experience with LCD TVs, but if they are based on the same LCD panels as monitors (likely the case up to 24 inch), you won't get much better than about 800:1, unless the TV dims the backlight during dark scenes.

Re:Try an experiment

[SEMW]

The manufacturer quoted contrast ratio will be measured in a completely dark environment. The point is to measure the ratio of light emitted from a while pixel to a black pixel; not the amount of ambient light around the measuring equipment.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Idiomatick]

Man someone suggests a mac gets modded up and a guy pointing out a flaw gets modded down. Of all the groups in /. Mac fangirls are the WORST at following the rules. There is no -1 disagree. I hate how things get slanted since maccies cant follow that.

That said I find it hilarious that you compared it to the macbook pro. So I think you should really go compare them.
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&node=home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/systemconfig.runtime.workflow:LoadRuntimeTree?sb=:00000025:00000311:&smid=1F106632CBC24D2CBD23DF19644D3694

First thing you will notice is that the most expensive t61 starts at around 900$ cheaper than the cheapest macbook (so its not a viable alternative). Next when you customize the lenovo so that it has the same specs as the macbook you are still 700$ cheaper than the mac. And that comes with vista which you will otherwise have to pay for.
 
So please PLEASE at least read the stats and do a quick comparison before you speak. A product being 50% more expensive for the same specs is an EMBARRASSMENT. Don't brag about it.
 
This post will get modded flamebait by a horde of angry mac users. Hopefully the message reaches atleast a few people.

Love my Matte 1680x1050 on my Sager NP2092

[nevermore94]

I decided early on I wanted at 1680x1050 display on my new 15.4" laptop to resolution match my 22" 1680x1050 that I use for work. I looked at Dells and other big brands, but I ended up getting a Sager NP2092 with a 1680x1050 screen that they only offer in matte and I love it. With such high resolution on only a 15.4" screen it is just beautiful, "liquid" was the first word that popped into my mind when I seen it.
You can check it out here http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np2092-custom-laptop-built-compal-jfl92-p-2347.html [xoticpc.com].

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Anonymous Coward]

Get the facts right yourself. Just checked lenovo.com and apple.com, and see the following:

*CHEAPEST* T61: $881
*CHEAPEST* MacBook: $1099

That's closer to $200, not $900. And no, not a drooling mac fan here. I use an X41.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in total agreement that Mac fans tend to be some of the biggest trolls and jerks around, but I'm not sure how you got your numbers. I followed the links you provided and found the following:

Entry-level Macbook Pro, all standard options: $1999

Lenovo with: T8300 CPU, Vista Ultimate (feature-wise, it really is the most comparable to the Macboook since the Macbook ships with iLife '08 included), 2x1 DDR2, 160gb drive (the only 200gb drive on the Lenovo includes encryption and is /way/ more expensive due to that, so I figured I'd leave it off, but this does skew the price a bit more in favor of the Lenovo than a totally true comparison), Integrated Bluetooth, everything else default. Total: $1,621.20 (after $261.80 savings it claims).

So the actual price difference is closer to 400, or maybe even 300 given the hard drive difference and the fact and the macbook has an integrated webcam which runs another $72 on the lenovo.

So while there is a price difference and you definitely are paying a premium for the apple, it's not nearly as bad as you suggest.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[MMInterface]

He was comparing it to a Macbook pro so his facts are straight. After stating that he just referred to is as a Macbook which may have confused you. If you think a different comparison should be made thats fine.

"That said I find it hilarious that you compared it to the macbook pro. So I think you should really go compare them. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&node=home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro [apple.com]"

Matte is useful in light

[^_^x]

I only get matte. I don't want a mirror/print magnet.
More than that though, I want a transflective screen on a laptop. I have an XO (OLPC) now and it's great being able to read it easily outdoors. I'm amazed no one else has tried this (other than ridiculously expensive conversions I've seen.)

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Because a 42" will have the same black bars, and you might as well just get a 37"..which has the same black bars..so you might as well get an ipod video. The answer is all in movies being different aspect ratios. HDTV is 16:9, so if you're watching HD TV programming there will be no bars (assuming they arent showing clips of NTSC stuff, then you get pillarbars on the sides). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image) [wikipedia.org] explains in more detail. The upside is on a widescreen display you'll get LESS letterboxing on movies, but unless they either crop it or stretch it you won't get it full screen.

Re:obligitory post

[pipatron]

With a ThinkPad, you'll end up using the trackpoint 100% of the time you need to move the pointer. Yes, it's that good.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Ruger]

Lenovo has a ton of info about their screens in their "Help me decides"...like these tidbits:

SXGA: Super eXtended Graphics Array
Resolution: 1280x1024
SXGA+: Super eXtended Graphics Array Plus
Resolution: 1400x1050
UltraLight XGA TFT: Ultra Thin Screen w/ Standard Extended Graphics Array
Resolution: 1600x1200
UltraView + EasyTouch XGA TFT: Widescreen Touch Screen w/ Standard Extended Graphics Array
Resolution: 1600x1200
WSXGA+: Widescreen Super eXtended Graphics Array Plus
Resolution: 1680x1050
WUXGA: Wide Ultra eXtended Graphics Array
Resolution: 1920x1200
WVA: Wide view angle
WXGA: Widescreen XGA
Resolution: 1280x720,1280x800, 1280x768
WXGA+: Widescreen Extended Graphics Array Plus Rsolution: 1440x900

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[penguinstorm]

In any case, antivirus is free for personal use if you use AVG. If not for personal use, it's probably covered by some non-retail price site licence.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[Anonymous Coward]

The ThinkPad is 25% larger by volume and weighs half a pound more.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[ibookdb]

Set your refresh rate high on the CRT to reduce the eyestrain.

Re:obligitory post

[plumby]

You jest, no? It's the worst pointing device in the world and achieves nothing but getting in the way of the surrounding keys. Thankfully they can be removed. Each to their own, I guess.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[mr_matticus]

The T61 is 6 bits per pixel, too. There are no 8bpp notebook panels.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[shutdown -p now]

Have I missed anything?

Yes. TrackPoint.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[bhtooefr]

Actually, 1920*1200 (that's... WUXGA?) does NOT share the same actual aspect ratio as CGA.

CGA was 4:3.

How did it do it?

Non-square pixels.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[ahabswhale]

*sigh* I mean the term "fade" in the perceived user experience rather than the technical term. In any event, you have it wrong too because CRT technology is based on the phosphors fading extremely quickly, many times per second as the scan gun runs across the screen. So, phosphors do, in fact, fade.

That said, I'll just quote what the IEEE says about CRT longevity:

"The longevity problem comes from the fact that the light-emitting efficiency of the phosphor coating decreases over time -- that is, when a phosphor is stimulated by a photon, it releases less and less light."

This leads to washed out colors. Anyone who doesn't notice this effect has to be blind because it's blatantly obvious to me and please note that I resisted getting an LCD TV for as long as possible (and bought one of the last models of large screen Sony CRTs made) so don't think I'm some kind of LCD fanboy. I'm not. However, the reminiscing over CRT is a bunch of hogwash.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[LKM]

He's probably saying that you can install XP SP2 on the Mac, boot with the Leopard DVD, and it'll install all the drivers for all the hardware in your Mac, even the built-in webcam. If you buy a PC laptop, they tend to come with a preinstalled Windows full of crapware, or a clean Windows. So if you want a clean Windows + support for all hardware, you have to go hunting for drivers.

So yeah, in many cases, running Windows on a Mac ends up being a better experience than running it on a Windows PC.

Re:ThinkPads still use non-reflective screens

[countach]

Macbook pros are available with matte screens, and as many reviews have testified, they are the best machine for running windows, because you can install a fresh windows (no stupid vendor shareware and crap) and all the drivers are available on a separate disk. Such simple pleasures are denied to many "Windows" laptops.

Having said that, I ordered my macbook pro with glossy screen, and I've never had glare problems. In fact, many people believe, myself included, that matte screens that disperse the light actually make it harder to find a position with no glare. And I hate the dull look of the matte macbook pros in the shop, I don't know why anyone would want that.