Yet Another Antiglare vs Gloss Thread (17")

I was at the Apple store today. They had an antiglare unit out along with the glossy. Both were 2.66ghz. Luckily, they happened to be right across from each other on the demo desks, so I asked if I could stick them together and they said "sure, go ahead".

I'm NOT asking which is better. I've already made up my mind. I'm simply posting here what I personally observed over the period of spending ~15 minutes with each machine checking out the various pros and cons, with both machines side-beside. I couldn't get any pictures (didn't bring my dSLR), but I did manage to run them through a battery of tests (Aperture 2, Quake 4, Safari Browsing, etc).

2.66ghz 17" UMBP glossy Display Model: 9C99
2.66ghz 17" UMBP antiglare Display Model: 9CAC

1) Colors

The colors on the gloss looked much more vibrant then the antiglare. They didn't seem over saturated, but appeared to generally be more accurate then the antiglare, which seemed slightly washed out. I don't believe "pop" is the correct term to describe the glossy LCD, but everything seemed to have quite a bit more "depth" to it. Sort of how the icons on my iPhone 3G "appear" more colorful then those of my 23" Cinema.

I noticed no over saturation or obscure color issues that would make me say "blah". IMHO, the 9C99 glossy LCD is better then the 9CAC antiglare when it comes to reproducing colors.

2) Sharpness

Some people seem to suggest that the antiglare is sharper then the gloss. I do not believe this to be the case. At ~4ft from both screens (at the same angle, and same lighting condition)- the glossy screen looked quite a bit sharper then the antiglare. At ~1ft, they both appeared to be the same (though at that distance I can see the pixels, and, well, pixels look like pixels). The biggest issue I noticed while these units were side-beside was that the glossy screen took my eyes a second to adjust and "focus" in on the display and /not/ the reflections (which where there- but significantly drowned out by my black coat). This was not the case on the antiglare, my eyes immediately focused on the LCD surface itself and not the background commotion. This might give the impression that the antiglare is sharper then the gloss.

Personally, I think the glossy screen appears more sharp as there's no diffuse surface over the LCD. Light emitted from the screen travels outwards unaffected (since the surface is smooth), whereas I'm sure the etching on the antiglare tends to dither the light being emitted slightly. At ~4ft reading the /same/ Safari page (slashdot) on both laptops, with the Safari window the same size and position on the desktop- despite taking a second to let my eyes figure out what was going on with the glossy display and the reflections, I found the glossy display was indeed sharper then the antiglare.

3) Glare

Yeah. It's there.

I don't know what to say. As I mentioned above, I find myself focusing in on the reflections rather then the LCD surface behind the glass panel. You get used to it after a few seconds. I happened to be wearing a black coat at the time, so the reflections were greatly cut down by the black void my coat produced while standing infront of the glossy LCD. Frankly, the ambient lighting didn't bother me that much. While the screen was powered on at full brightness, it was very usable even with the screen angled to reflect the ceiling lights (which didn't appear /that/ bright in the reflection).

The antiglare is, well, antiglare. Same as the 30" Cinema sitting behind me at the time. No reflection. Eyes focus on the LCD screen image immediately. No problems there.

4) Light bleed

For this, I asked the salesman if I could drape my coat over the computer to block out the ambient lighting (my coat is at least 0.5" thick- a winter coat, with multiple layers of thick material... Believe me, nothing gets through that thing in terms of light). Obviously they said yes, so long as this wasn't some sort of disappearing laptop magic trick... So I threw up a solid black image on the screen and took a look at both the laptops.

The glossy display, despite being ridiculously bright in a nearly pitch-black environment, had zero color bleed. There was a slight, *VERY* slight effect at the bottom of the screen that disappeared if I angled the display slightly. I didn't think much of it. My Cinema LCD at home exhibits something similar.

The antiglare, was another story. I pretty much saw the exact effect posted elsewhere on this forum- large, wavy like shapes in the black background. When I inquired to as why this was occurring on the 9CAC antiglare display with the salesman, they hadn't heard of it or were aware of any such issues with the antiglare.

Regardless, glossy wins here. The screen was dark, and extremely uniform. The antiglare? Not so much.

5) Structural strength

This was a simple test. Pinch both corners of the top of the LCD, and torque it a *little* bit.

Evidentially, the antiglare torqued much more easily then the glossy did. The glossy screen had a serious "spring" to it- it still torqued, but it had a stronger "return" strength as it tried to straighten itself out. This feeling was not present in the antiglare, which just sort of torqued, and felt like it would continue to torque if I applied more pressure.

I'm assuming this is due to the very simple fact that the glossy has a glass panel bolted to the front of it, and the antiglare does not (just the aluminum border- and we all know how soft aluminum can be). Regardless, the glossy felt like it could withstand some abuse (short of dropping it), whereas the antiglare felt like a much more fragile display- like the display on the old MBP 17" units (the displays that were commonly known for bowing while latched, just because of the display hinge springs).

Either way, I can honestly say that /both/ laptops felt a hell of a lot better and solid then my last 17" MBP in terms of display rigidity.

6) Backlight

Easy. Crank both LCD's to full brightness.

The glossy screen looked no brighter then the 15" sitting next to it. It wasn't blindingly bright under the store's ambient light, definitely on par or brighter then the demo 30" Cinema. The antiglare, however, seemed to lack the backlight strength that made the glossy "look good" under the ambient overheads. It looked slightly washed out, and quite a bit dimmer then the gloss or the 30" Cinema. Side beside, it was *extremely* noticeable.

So just to recap...

Glossy Pros:
- Vibrant Colors
- Stronger backlight
- Higher structural rigidity
- Glass protecting the soft LCD surface

Glossy Cons:
- Reflections
- Eyes might tend to focus in on the "sharp" background reflections

Antiglare Pros:
- No reflections, eyes focus instantly on the LCD

Antiglare Cons:
- Washed out colors
- Dim backlight
- Less structural rigidity
- Directly exposed LCD surface, could be prone to damage or scratching

I'm going with the gloss. No doubt about it.

If you can't make up your mind, go see one in person. Staring at pictures on the internet isn't going to show you much, since you're looking at pictures of a monitor on /another/ monitor... Sort of redundantly useless, if you ask me. Frankly, the glossy can be angled to produce a brutal reflection, or it can be angled properly- like you'd be staring at it if you were using the laptop, in which case the reflections are definitely bearable.

Hope this helps someone. Gloss isn't as bad as everyone seems to be attacking it.

-SC

> What I can't work out is, if it's basically the same screen...

It's not the same screen.

The antiglare is a 9CAC, made by Samsung.

The glossy is a 9C99, made by LG (?) or Samsung (can't remember). They are very different screens.

I believe the glossy screen is "gloss" all the way through- glass panel, AND the outermost layer of the LCD screen... Whereas the antiglare lacks the glass panel completely, and the actual LCD screen itself is etched to diffuse reflections. Two completely different parts.

> MacBook Air or MacBook Pro OR iMac...

Macbook Pro. It's the most upgradable of the three, and it's portable.

If you don't need portability, get an iMac. Just don't expect to update the HD in that thing without some /serious/ troubles (whereas, it's easy on the UMBP 15/17" units). They are more powerful then the UMBP though in some cases.

-SC

What little light that does get through the glossy is basically uniform. The screen is pretty darned black.

The light that gets through the antiglare, as I saw on display today, was *not* uniform and had several large, wavy like things that were clearly visible on a black image. IDK if this applies to all antiglares, or only some.

I'm not sure why Apple released the matte screen the way they did. I would have rather preferred they just swapped the gloss glass overlay for an overlay that's etched, rather then pulling out the entire panel and replacing it with a thin aluminum border.

-SC

> Tell me in your very scientific color comparison did you happen to use any calibration hardware to see if there was any trouble calibrating the glossy screen?

I didn't have my i1 with me at the time. I would assume that there could be issues calibrating on a reflective surface.

> Do you even know (did you test?) if the colors you were viewing on screen were accurate to the digital file, how about the tones? How about angle of view?

Again, I didn't have my dSLR on me, nor did I bring along my calibrator (an i1, part of the i1Xtreme kit). I couldn't exactly ask the apple store to kill the lights, and standing around for 30 minutes occasionally draping my coat over the laptops was pushing my nerd factor pretty high at the time. All I said was that the antiglare looked washed out compared to the glossy. For that fact; the Cinema looked better then the antiglare (it was /quite/ a bit brighter).

> Great another Apple Fanboy who wants to make a loud post without any supportive matterial other than it looked better in the store. At one point people respected Macs now they just snicker, & mainly because of posts such as yours. thanks

No problem mate. I'm just trying to be helpful. And I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to post another snide remark on some random Apple forum. I'm sure the reason why people snicker partly has to do with this sort of attitude. I'm simply offering my opinion, people can make up their own damned minds. I had a chance to compare both models side by side today, so I did. And I took the time to post my (possibly) crude findings. If you don't like Apple's current offerings, don't post here. Go buy something else and complain on the equivalent fanboy forum.

I haven't seen you contribute to this forum in a similar method. You're in danger of falling under the definition of "troll".

> Basing a computer buying decision from this post would be woefully ill-informed.

Then what would be informed? Going and seeing the laptops in person would be informed. If you have any information that you'd like to share otherwise, please do.

If I'm completely mistaken here, and you have evidence that proves my accused buffoonery, please speak up. I'm only trying to help people here make up their minds. I've waded through the floods of "antiglare versus glossy" posts, and sofar I've seen no definitive observations or "scientific" evidence that suggests one display is better then the other. I was only trying to offer my decisions based on what I saw with both laptops infront of me.

This thread is in danger of becoming another monkey-flinging-poo fight between "Pros" and "Noobies". I'm not going to provoke either side. If people want to ask questions, I'll try my best to answer them. If you're not going to contribute to the thread at hand, don't post at all. Period. There's a reason why a lot of people can't get the answers they need on Apple equipment these days, it's because the forums are clogged with meaningless, non-helpful posts.

-SC