Terrible glare even from Retina screen

I dislike reflections and all glossy screen because they are just hugely annoying when displaying any dark content even if one can adjust the lighting somewhat.
Among Windows Notebooks there seems to be a clear turn around. Samsung frist now Lenovo and Asus all offer many default matte screens. The Touchscreen Ultrabooks might kill that off. They should really invent some smudge resistant matte touch screen. OLED seem to be capable of suviving lots of pressure. There should be some way to put a cleanable matte surface on the top. All this glass is annoying. It is okay on small screens.

I think many people that work with there notebooks don't like glossy. The vibrancy just doesn't matter in most knowledge work jobs and the color accuracy freaks seem to prefer matte too. What matters is visibility and not being annoyed by sitting imperfectly for me.
The problem with reflections imo is just how annoying they are. Matte you see only what you want to see. Not the brand name of your T-Shirt where the spotify app (dark interface) should be.

I can never see the dust in the corners or are ever annoyed by it. The black levels can only be noticed in direct comparison but when you stare on a screen 8h a day it is reflections that piss you off but nobody notices a not as low black level. The difference in contrast is very limited. When you sit in the dark at a lan party there is virtually no difference. On a bright sunny day in the café yes there is a difference in contrast but on one screen you can work fine on the other you can see 10% of the content and need to squeeze your eyes to see anything.

The reason they don't add AR coating into the matte screen is the same idiocy most manufactures use glossy. AR coating shifts colors to blue or red at certain angles and people in stores wandering around would usually see this as a flaw or somehow bad. Glossy is usually used for the shiny factor, because it does look better in direct comparison.
The store experience is really annoying with these things. They should just make the best possible product and market it properly and than make a second product line for all the idiots that buy in stores the most shiny thing they can find.

dusk007 said:

[...] and than make a second product line for all the idiots that buy in stores the most shiny thing they can find.

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On the same note: maybe idiots like yourself, the OP and others could start buying matte screen notebooks from the very beginning, from other brands of necessary ( or older models from Apple that come with a matte screen ), than run around like teenage girls whining about the screen being "too shiny" for your needs.

The real idiots are the people buying devices / tools that clearly don't fit their needs ( even sadder is that many of them are quite aware of this at the time of purchase ) and then run around complaining. That's where the real idiocracy starts and not at manufacturing or top-management...

katewes said:

Which is precisely what I've done for my two MacBook Pro's, but I miss out on the latest Retina and its lightweight form.

I can't buy a matte for the iMac, because Apple don't have a matte/anti-glare screen for the iMac for 5 years.

I can't buy an Apple matte external monitor, and I bought a good matte external monitor it doesn't have a built-in camera like the Apple Cinema Displays.

I can't get a matte screen for the MacBook Airs, particularly the 2012 versions which are more mirror-finish that earlier Airs.

So ...

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I wonder how many petitions for a matte iMac there have been, I bet Apple will take action in year six.

katewes said:

I can't get a matte screen for the MacBook Airs, particularly the 2012 versions which are more mirror-finish that earlier Airs.

So ...

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Actually, I'm finding the 2012 Air better than previous glossy Apple screens, maybe because it doesn't have a stupid black, reflective bezel. Also there isn't a glass panel over the whole thing unlike earlier Apple laptops. I can't stand glossy screens as a rule, always had BTO antiglare but the Air screen isn't bad at all. Could be that the small size of the screen is minimising the reflection (11 inch), I definitely wouldn't buy an iMac or a cinema display.

This is UTTERLY frustrating!

Granted, there are people that do not mind or even prefer glossy screens.

But other people simply have serious health and productivity issues with glossy screens. Such people (millions worldwide) do not want less glossy, less reflection or less glare. They want a matte option. Even if more expensive. So, no extra cost for Apple here. People who want matte will pay for it. There also technological options to eliminate glare and reflection as shown on the posts at the link on the first post of this thread.

Options are good. Freedom to choose from is good. Is that so difficult to understand? The real problem here is that Apple is a de facto monopoly if you want a Mac. But Apple should get the message clear: no matte, no purchase.

Marx55 said:

Apple should get the message clear: no matte, no purchase.

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Even better: you should start buying what fits your needs best.
Apple doesn't care about the few who "need matt" and that's quite clear since they took the option out.
Instead of complaining, just go away and buy someone else's products.

Marx55 said:

Is that so difficult to understand? Apple should get the message clear: no matte, no purchase.

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It's possible they get the message, but the loss in sales due to folks who follow this aren't big enough to change Apple's opinion. Not when they keep reporting record sales numbers in a market that is now shrinking.

It's also possible that Apple considers the cheap availability of AG film an adequate solution. As pointed out in this thread, a matte screen is just a screen with film over it. A glossy screen doesn't have the film. Buying the matte option on earlier models was really just asking Apple to pre-apply and bond the film for you. These days, if I want a matte screen, buying the film myself is not a bad way to go, since it can be replaced if it takes damage.

No don't go away.

Barna Biro said:

Even better: you should start buying what fits your needs best.
Apple doesn't care about the few who "need matt" and that's quite clear since they took the option out.
Instead of complaining, just go away and buy someone else's products.

Click to expand...

Continue to pressure and lobby it is our human right don't you all forget that. This dictator over here needs to keep his extreme capitalistic vote to himself it is really untactful really. Shame on you for quieting an obvious frustration among many unhappy loyal customers, shame on you! Protest all you like mankind because if we just sit back and accept these companies and their NO OPTIONS deal, then we will never improve our civilization, we have to continue to encourage full participatory democracy than let companies dictate what is standard. We pay good money in making decisions to buy, so if you want a matte screen option you SHOULD have the RIGHT to it, it costs companies NOTHING to provide that simple option.

Thank you.

You'll all get glossy and like it in the end. After your Mac's are 6 years old and no new options. Or the trend will be back to matte for entire line. Who knows? I can use both. Hate heavy AG coating and not a fan of total glass. Nothing is right. New LG AH-IPS desktop display's are looking good with semi-gloss, semi-matte though. The retina is much better than the standard glass for reflectivity. You should complain about the standard line. It is much worse. OP has it easy.

vpro said:

Continue to pressure and lobby it is our human right don't you all forget that. This dictator over here needs to keep his extreme capitalistic vote to himself it is really untactful really. Shame on you for quieting an obvious frustration among many unhappy loyal customers, shame on you! Protest all you like mankind because if we just sit back and accept these companies and their NO OPTIONS deal, then we will never improve our civilization, we have to continue to encourage full participatory democracy than let companies dictate what is standard. We pay good money in making decisions to buy, so if you want a matte screen option you SHOULD have the RIGHT to it, it costs companies NOTHING to provide that simple option.

Thank you.

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Ehh, *you know what* off. What's next? Complaining about why circles are too circle shaped instead of being square shaped? Senseless whining about something that wasn't designed to fit the needs of everyone is exactly that, senseless. Need a car? Then don't buy a bicycle, GET A CAR! ... and it has nothing to do with "opinions" or "right to express one's self", but with common sense.

I see you've been brainwashed well, you actually believe you have rights.

PS: Something you should / could think about: Here you are blabbering about "rights", but on the same logic, who are you to tell me that I am not allowed ( "don't have the right" ) to tell you / others to stop complaining when I consider you're talking crap? "Shame on you" for failing at philosophy and logics!

Friendly advice: If you want to "improve your civilisation", maybe start by buying the right tools for the right job, than complaining senselessly ( or failing at philosophy, logics, etc. while trying to prove what again? Yeah, right, nothing... ). Or, of course, you're "free" to continue complaining about the shiny box - you've recently bought - not fitting trough a circle shaped hole. The horror! Shame on you evil box factory for giving people the option to buy boxes when they clearly need balls... and KUDOS to you wise buyer for getting a box when you clearly needed a ball! Poor, poor disappointed loyal customers...

Canadians... pff...

hah!

Barna Biro said:

Ehh, *you know what* off. What's next? Complaining about why circles are too circle shaped instead of being square shaped? Senseless whining about something that wasn't designed to fit the needs of everyone is exactly that, senseless. Need a car? Then don't buy a bicycle, GET A CAR! ... and it has nothing to do with "opinions" or "right to express one's self", but with common sense.

I see you've been brainwashed well, you actually believe you have rights.

PS: Something you should / could think about: Here you are blabbering about "rights", but on the same logic, who are you to tell me that I am not allowed ( "don't have the right" ) to tell you / others to stop complaining when I consider you're talking crap? "Shame on you" for failing at philosophy and logics!

Friendly advice: If you want to "improve your civilisation", maybe start by buying the right tools for the right job, than complaining senselessly. Or, of course, you're "free" to continue complaining about the shiny box you've recently bought not fitting trough a circle shaped hole. The horror! Shame on you evil box factory...

Click to expand...

Options are always welcome, indecision, well - also natural. You're quite wrong about brainwashed - so wrong. You're the one excessively reacting, calling names and making an absolute scene my friend. To shut down people who have a God given right to voice and express their thoughts, feelings and opinions in a community setting, for dialogue sake, is just absolutely disgusting behavior and is exactly why the world is stagnant right now because you don't know which side of the fence you are on.

Where are you going with this? We're talking about consumer right to options we pay good money forward to becoming productive and creative citizens of the world.

"God given right to voice" ... I stopped reading there.

... sorry but I don't deal well with religious fanatics, loonatics and such.
For both our sake, please don't bother replying to my comment anymore. Best of luck!

Both screen types have trade offs but in the right conditions, the normal screen is better for absolute image quality. AR coating degrades it.

I'm guessing Apple choose image quality over all else for the Retina displays.

Archon said:

Both screen types have trade offs but in the right conditions, the normal screen is better for absolute image quality. AR coating degrades it.

I'm guessing Apple choose image quality over all else for the Retina displays.

Click to expand...

Exactly. I can deal with the reflections by positioning or dimming lights. The previous gen was too glossy but this retina is pretty good. I don't like the frosty look of AR.

Barna Biro said:

"God given right to voice" ... I stopped reading there.

... sorry but I don't deal well with religious fanatics, loonatics and such.
For both our sake, please don't bother replying to my comment anymore. Best of luck!

Click to expand...

Wow! Have you never heard of that thing called "a turn of phrase"? You're the one sounding like a fanatic if you take exception to that.

vpro said:

Where are you going with this? We're talking about consumer right to options we pay good money forward to becoming productive and creative citizens of the world.

Click to expand...

This really depends on how one defines how the market should operate.

In a free market, there are no "rights" when it comes to the market place, per se. However, the consumer and producers are both free to do what they want in an attempt to meet their personal needs. The idea here is that if a producer is producing something that doesn't meet a need, the consumers won't buy it. If the consumers don't buy it, then the producer needs to adjust or go out of business.

In this way, capitalism says that the consumers of goods have the ultimate vote. Specifically, they vote on what the market produces by voting with their wallets. And this applies to other production/consumption markets as well, such as processed steel, freight, and so on. This market still has consumers, although they are usually other companies.

Now, that isn't to say that feedback from consumers isn't useful or unimportant. But there's nothing written that says a specific producer must accept all that feedback.

And so the reality is that if you are looking to buy a good, and there is a lot of competition for similar goods, then you as a consumer of that good can make a couple choices:

1) Deal with the various trade-offs and pick the one that most meets your needs out of the many imperfect options.
2) Withhold your money from any of the producers of that good and wait until they meet your needs more closely.

This second option is a very real, and valid option. But for some reason folks don't quite seem to understand that. This second option is why whole markets sometimes don't take off for years/decades. The product is interesting, but not good enough for people to really buy into yet. Solar power and Wind power were that way for a while, and you can argue they still are.

While I am a supporter of regulation and taxation for the purposes of dealing with social, environmental, and other "non-monetary" costs of business that tend to get swept under the rug by a pure capitalist economy and human nature... what I describe above is crucial to having any semblance of free markets and letting individuals have power over what is produced. If there is a "right" to demand a producer do X, that's a command economy. If we care about efficiency of the economy, and its ability to adapt to new ideas, markets and swings, then a command economy is a bad idea for multiple reasons. And asking for this "right" is a very slippery slope in the long term.

I don't think it's realistic to buy a glossy screen and expect NO glare. Each screen has it ups/downs. I also kind of hated the way the matte spread the reflection all over the place. Grant it, yes, it reflected less and looked better overall outside, but it had its annoyances too. I personally think they did a pretty good job of reducing the glare, it's a good amount less than the regular pro (at least in my opinion). The viewing angle is just 1000 better though. For that reason alone I would only go retina. I HATE color shift when moving my head a half of an inch. Or you could do what I did....buy some PVC pipe and build a little frame about 1-2 feet wide and a foot and a half high and secure it to a backpack going down the edges. Then buy some felt and hang it over the PVC this way, as long as you're wearing your backpack and the computer is in front of you, no reflections will be able to get past the felt, thus ensuring you always have a perfectly even screen. You just need to think a little outside the box.

It wouldn't be as noticeable if Apple hadn't limited the maximum brightness so much.

katewes said:

Which is precisely what I've done for my two MacBook Pro's, but I miss out on the latest Retina and its lightweight form.

I can't buy a matte for the iMac, because Apple don't have a matte/anti-glare screen for the iMac for 5 years.

I can't buy an Apple matte external monitor, and I bought a good matte external monitor it doesn't have a built-in camera like the Apple Cinema Displays.

I can't get a matte screen for the MacBook Airs, particularly the 2012 versions which are more mirror-finish that earlier Airs.

So ...

Click to expand...

Why can't you buy the Apple selections you want and add an Anti-Glare layer on top? Instead of Apple doing it, just do it yourself, or get it done professionally. It ends up to the same thing.

JohnDoe98 said:

Why can't you buy the Apple selections you want and add an Anti-Glare layer on top? Instead of Apple doing it, just do it yourself, or get it done professionally. It ends up to the same thing.

Click to expand...

why? because its logical.

some people just enjoy hearing themselves complain about stuff, hanging out on "porsche boxster" forums complaining how theres not 8 seats in it, and some people have families and how unjust it is to not offer the customer options. You say "dude, just buy an SUV" and they answer "but i want a porsche with 8 seats, why should i have to buy an SUV"

flipnap said:

why? because its logical.

some people just enjoy hearing themselves complain about stuff, hanging out on "porsche boxster" forums complaining how theres not 8 seats in it, and some people have families and how unjust it is to not offer the customer options. You say "dude, just buy an SUV" and they answer "but i want a porsche with 8 seats, why should i have to buy an SUV"

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Ah, the inevitable car analogy that doesn't quite fit the situation. That would work if people were asking for 27 inch laptops but a matte option happens to be something fairly basic, it's not exactly an out there request.

Most designers I've worked with prefer matte screens, and don't feel like going back to black smocks because of all the reflection. I remember when Apple designed their products to appeal to pros, not just kids who like shiny stuff to run Angry Birds on.

these responses crack me up big time

JohnDoe98 said:

Why can't you buy the Apple selections you want and add an Anti-Glare layer on top? Instead of Apple doing it, just do it yourself, or get it done professionally. It ends up to the same thing.

Click to expand...

have you done this yourself before, do you know how ugly the results are? definitely NOT the "same thing" na uh no not one bit ! I like the response above a whole lot: "I remember when Apple designed their products to appeal to pros, not just kids who like shiny stuff to run Angry Birds on."

a company spends so much time and money into designing something they claim to be the ultimate in 'all in one', they sure fall short and flat at giving consumer options and pro options like something as simple for them as 'anti-glare'. now YOU, have to go out and get what YOU NEED, so you're adding weight, bulk and carrying around extra cords and adapters etc etc etc, nice...

thank you.

vpro said:

have you done this yourself before, do you know how ugly the results are? definitely NOT the "same thing" na uh no not one bit ! I like the response above a whole lot: "I remember when Apple designed their products to appeal to pros, not just kids who like shiny stuff to run Angry Birds on."

a company spends so much time and money into designing something they claim to be the ultimate in 'all in one', they sure fall short and flat at giving consumer options and pro options like something as simple for them as 'anti-glare'. now YOU, have to go out and get what YOU NEED, so you're adding weight, bulk and carrying around extra cords and adapters etc etc etc, nice...

thank you.

Click to expand...

Some in this thread have given arguments to explain why Apple pulled the option out. In the past offering a Matte option and a Glossy option was possible since both screens looked pretty much as good as each other. The only difference was one regarding personal choice, what do you prefer. However, so far as I can see, with these new Retina screens there is simply no way to make them in Matte and keep them as good as the Glossy ones sold now. As soon as you throw on some form of Anti-Glare sheet you will mess with the sharpness of the screen and it'll look terrible compared to the uncoated ones. I won't rehash why, reread the comments of others in the thread. So in short this isn't Apple dumping pro's, it's Apple dumping tech that could no longer keep up.

So the simple answer, why no multiple options? Well, so far as I can see is because Apple is setting a new standard for it's screens, and Matte can't meet it. Disagree? Them please offer us some arguments and less whining.

TY

who's whining here?

[/COLOR]Them please offer us some arguments and less whining.

TY[/QUOTE]

It is a continual discussion I don't think anyone is whining here. There is no discussion there are only people speculating and shutting people down for expressing anything around here. No one really knows why apple does what apple does. As long as people have money to spend there will be happy consumers and there will be unhappy consumers. Keep it coming. Thank you.