Glossy Screen = Shorter Battery Life....TRUE STORY

[mrwonkers]

MBP Glossy Screen = Shorter Battery Life When Used In Glary/Reflective Situations!!!

Hi all I have just returned my 2011 15" Glossy 2.2 MacBook Pro and have placed an order for the HR Antiglare version. I sold my 17" i7 Antiglare 1 hour b4 the official announcement of the 2011 MacBook Pros last week..Phew!

I thought I'd try the 15" as I found the 17" model to be a bit huge to lug about, I also thought I'd give this glossy screen a try..
BIG MISTAKE. With my 17" AG MB I could work outside or facing a bright window with the screen brightness set to 1 or 2 notches quite easily. This allowed me to get 7-8 hours of battery life without a problem. On the 15" Glossy though... working in the same situations I had to keep the brightness set almost at full or at full to try and block out all the reflections and glare. My battery life was easily halved doing this....What is the point of having a mobile portable computer that has to be used in optimum conditions or its screen effectively becomes a mirror? Please tell me....

I think visually the machines look better with glass glossy screen, but why choose form over function?
Apple is a company that is a little too obsessed with aesthetics, I love their products overall but come on....

I choose 7-8 hours battery life and the ability to work in most bright places without issue, as opposed to 3-4 hours [if ur lucky] battery life and a pretty computer with a mirror for a screen.....

I think its quite disgusting that we as customers should even have to pay extra to get a choice of glossy or matte......When Apple introduced glossy they let you have matte as an option at no extra cost, not anymore.....Oh how the worm has turned.

 

[lukta]

I honestly don't know why you people are taking your computers outside. You basically have a mirror on your computer so go somewhere where there aren't a hundred windows or just return the computer >.>

 

[Whitelightning]

If you've got a Matte display, the diffusion of light will cause shadows to make the Anti-Glare screen dark anyways, even if you turn your brightness all the way up... so you'd be getting shorter battery life anyways.

 

[entatlrg]

Apple is a company that is a little too obsessed with aesthetics, I love their products overall but come on....

good post, well said.

What is it with Apple's design flaws aka form over function, the super glossy screen is an excellent example, as is the very shape edges on their notebooks. So simple to fix and please the buying public but they ignore it.

 

[impulse462]

So what you're basically saying is, your battery lasts longer when the brightness is turned down. Right.

 

[dusk007]

So what you're basically saying is, your battery lasts longer when the brightness is turned down. Right.

What he is basically saying is that glossy sucks if you don't want to sit in a dark hole all day. You need a very bright screen and this in turn gives a terrible real world battery life.

I think the biggest plus for a AG is not the battery life but that you can in fact sit in a room surrounded by big windows with lots of sunlight that keeps you awake and happy and still use the screen comfortably.
Glossy is great for all those that like to hide behind curtains and go up in flames if they step out in too the sunlight. Vampires and such.

 

[Blu101]

....What is the point of having a mobile portable computer that has to be used in optimum conditions or its screen effectively becomes a mirror? Please tell me....

Not everyone "functions" in the outdoors. Don't be so ignorant as to think everyone else in the world is a clone of you. I and many others can't stand the washed out look of anti-glare screens, but you don't see me creating threads about it.

And if I wanted to work outside and started to run out of battery, it's called an extension cord. Won't solve every situation, but most people don't use their laptop in the middle of the Sahara.

I use my MBP in bright full of window rooms without any problems. Sure, my battery life is a bit lower because I turn the brightness up a bit, but not by half. Mid screen brightness is usually enough for my eyes to see everything. And thanks to Apple's great batteries, I still get a good 4-6 hours on a full charge, which is more than most of my friends' PC laptops, with 2-3 hour avg battery lives in the same scenario (and with anti-glare screens, brightnesses turned down).

Apple is a company that is a little too obsessed with aesthetics, I love their products overall but come on....

I applaud them for merging technology and the arts (check out the typical last slide of past Apple media events, the one with the street names at a crossing). It's about time ONE darn company in this world creates something aesthetically pleasing and puts an effort into beautiful industrial designs, instead of only focusing on making the cheapest products possible to make $$, which often end up being the ugliest (there's a reason why Ferraris cost more than Hyundais, other than more horsepower). To each his own, and that's why Apple offers both glossy and anti-glare, no need to cry about it. It's not Apple's fault that you bought the wrong screen type for your use and preferences.

 

[adnoh]

So what you're basically saying is, your battery lasts longer when the brightness is turned down. Right.

+1

@op, clearly you need an AG screen based on how you use you mbp. I have never taken my laptop outside and have never had a problem with glossy screens.

 

[mrwonkers]

What he is basically saying is that glossy sucks if you don't want to sit in a dark hole all day. You need a very bright screen and this in turn gives a terrible real world battery life.

I think the biggest plus for a AG is not the battery life but that you can in fact sit in a room surrounded by big windows with lots of sunlight that keeps you awake and happy and still use the screen comfortably.
Glossy is great for all those that like to hide behind curtains and go up in flames if they step out in too the sunlight. Vampires and such.

+1

It seems that most others who have replied just don't get or comprehend my OP....

Blu101 thanks for your post I found it utterly hilarious and just about fell out of my chair with laughter, thanks I needed that

 

[kjos8035]

It seems that most others who have replied just don't get or comprehend my OP....

What's not to comprehend? Most appear to grasp the concept in the post completely.

Blu101 thanks for your post I found it utterly hilarious and just about fell out of my chair with laughter, thanks I needed that

So you're laughing with us about your post.

 

[Blu101]

Blu101 thanks for your post I found it utterly hilarious and just about fell out of my chair with laughter, thanks I needed that

I did the same thing when I read yours

These anti-glossy screen threads pop up ~every other week...and the bottom line is someone bought themselves the wrong thing and instead of a simple return and swap, they decide to share it with the world on a public forum and blame it on the company. Doesn't get any funnier than that...oh the world we live in..

Moving on.

 

[Whitelightning]

Having being particularly into deciding between glossy and anti-glare... it appears that people tend to move from glossy to the anti-glare, but not the other way around...

The anti-glare display is definitely better than the one on the 2010 macbook pro for sure.

 

[JoJoCal19]

Having being particularly into deciding between glossy and anti-glare... it appears that people tend to move from glossy to the anti-glare, but not the other way around...

The anti-glare display is definitely better than the one on the 2010 macbook pro for sure.

That's what I've noticed as well. I noticed A LOT more people switch from glossy to matte, which was made me give matte a second consideration for my upcoming MBP, when I was dead set against it and all for glossy. Someone even started a thread about who all went from matte > glossy. I don't think they got much feedback. I haven't decided yet but I really am considering the matte screen.

 

[Whitelightning]

Someone even started a thread about who all went from matte > glossy.

That was actually me.

It has been the single most difficult decision to make in deciding what to get as everyone I know has the black bezel.

After taking a few more trips to the Apple Store to compare, the AG one looks better and better day after day despite the loss of the black bezel. I think going with the AG seems to be the best way to go. I originally placed an order for the glossy, but due to going to best buy as well to check out the glossy display and seeing my face in a dark wallpaper... I think I may switch to the AG just because I can see everything on the display and the quality of it is not as washed out... just sacrificing a subtle poppiness with the glossy glass.

I just have this feeling that I'm going to get the glossy, then return for AG if I don't.

Looking at my iPhone 4, I guess it doesnt bother me as much as I am not staring at it for many hours... and the fact that its small enough for me to easily tilt the device to avoid any glare. On a full fledged laptop I will be using for a long time though... MIGHT create an annoyance...

Having put the MBA display (glossy) next to the MBP... there is a real clear difference in glossy and the extremes of glass glossy... I feel I may be going AG just to be safe, even though it doesnt have the black bezel...

 

[Canedrive]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I went to the Apple store today just to compare both screens on the 17". I was surprised after reading so many comparisons on here just how close they are in image quality and crispness. The silver bezel on the AG is also very thin and stylish in the flesh.

 

[JoJoCal19]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I went to the Apple store today just to compare both screens on the 17". I was surprised after reading so many comparisons on here just how close they are in image quality and crispness. The silver bezel on the AG is also very thin and stylish in the flesh.

So you don't feel the AG display gives up much of anything to the Glossy with regards to sharpness?

 

[JoJoCal19]

That was actually me.

It has been the single most difficult decision to make in deciding what to get as everyone I know has the black bezel.

After taking a few more trips to the Apple Store to compare, the AG one looks better and better day after day despite the loss of the black bezel. I think going with the AG seems to be the best way to go. I originally placed an order for the glossy, but due to going to best buy as well to check out the glossy display and seeing my face in a dark wallpaper... I think I may switch to the AG just because I can see everything on the display and the quality of it is not as washed out... just sacrificing a subtle poppiness with the glossy glass.

I just have this feeling that I'm going to get the glossy, then return for AG if I don't.

Looking at my iPhone 4, I guess it doesnt bother me as much as I am not staring at it for many hours... and the fact that its small enough for me to easily tilt the device to avoid any glare. On a full fledged laptop I will be using for a long time though... MIGHT create an annoyance...

Having put the MBA display (glossy) next to the MBP... there is a real clear difference in glossy and the extremes of glass glossy... I feel I may be going AG just to be safe, even though it doesnt have the black bezel...

Oh ok. I can't find the thread just yet in the sea of activity going on right now. I have the old school glossy screen (2006 MB) so it's not like I would have to get used to the difference of the new glass glossy screen vs matte. I too prefer the black bezel but I can get over that. I can't wait till I have the time to go back to the Apple store to compare them. This time instead of hopping from one table to another I'm going to have a staff member pull them both together so I can compare side to side. I'll even pull up images and stack one on top of the other to compare sharpness.

 

[Canedrive]

So you don't feel the AG display gives up much of anything to the Glossy with regards to sharpness?

I must have read the term "washed out" at least 50 times on here when glossy screen buyers talk about the AG. That wasn't my impression at all.

Video playback looked marginally more vibrant and cinematic on the glossy, but we're talking small fractions here.

Both screens were very sharp in my opinion.

 

[HacKage]

Have to agree over the "washed out" term that gets banded around. I have used both, and the colours in the glossy are a bit more vibrant, but as soon as there is any sunlight involved, any benefits you may have had are instantly gone because you can't see a thing.