Macbook Pro screen, what to get?

[Chaywa]

Ok simple question:

I'm buying a Macbook Pro, do I get the glossy screen or the normal one? I do video, photo, web and some gaming what are the pluses and minuses of the different screen finishes?

 

[miles01110]

Glossy presents a brighter, sharper image.

Matte is more true-to-life color.

If color is important, get matte. If you want things to look nicer on your screen (but not necessarily other screens) get glossy. Glossy tends to attract more dust, but that might be just because it is easier to notice.

And a word of warning: no doubt many users will post that "the glare on the glossy is a BIG negative." I have a glossy screen, and use it in high-light environments on a daily basis (including outside) and the glare is not bad enough to make me think twice about getting the glossy over the matte. I really like the glossy screen.

 

[maverick808]

And a word of warning: no doubt many users will post that "the glare on the glossy is a BIG negative." I have a glossy screen, and use it in high-light environments on a daily basis (including outside) and the glare is not bad enough to make me think twice about getting the glossy over the matte. I really like the glossy screen.

And I'll be one of them 🙂

I have both a 15" MacBook Pro and a MacBook. Both are 2GHz and both have 2GB RAM. I actually prefer the smaller size of the MacBook and initially intended to swap to using it as my main machine. However, I find the glare reflected off the glossy display extremely distracting - particularly when writing documents in Word or Pages or when coding. As a result, I've ended up using my MacBook Pro with it's matte screen nearly all the time instead of the glossy MacBook screen.

My point of view is that a glossy screen is fine for watching movies and browsing the web but if you are actually going to sit down and do some work (writing documents, editing spreadsheets or coding) then the glossy screen is just an annoying distraction due to glare.

 

[7on]

Glossy is easier to clean I've noticed.

But color work should be done with Matte. Though I'd rather use an external display for that work anyway.

 

[AlBDamned]

There are loads of threads on this if you just search for "glossy screen"...



[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/225093/[/url]

[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/223590/[/url]

 

[daneoni]

Glossy is easier to clean I've noticed.

But color work should be done with Matte. Though I'd rather use an external display for that work anyway.

Not from my experiences, glossy screens very hard to clean. A friend of my tried cleaning his with a damp cloth and literally started wiping off the coating

 

[miles01110]

Not from my experiences, glossy screens very hard to clean. A friend of my tried cleaning his with a damp cloth and literally started wiping off the coating

Well, no offense...but that was really dumb of him. A cheap lint-free cloth you can pick up at your average camera store or computer store works very well. Don't put liquid on the glossy screen!

 

[GreatDrok]

I have the matte screen

Ok simple question:

I'm buying a Macbook Pro, do I get the glossy screen or the normal one? I do video, photo, web and some gaming what are the pluses and minuses of the different screen finishes?

I didn't have a choice when I bought my MBP but if I had I would still have gone with matte. We have a Sony Vaio with a 13" glossy screen here which was bought at the same time as my MBP and the screen is terrible. It is *COVERED* in fingerprints. Every little touch leaves a big visible mark. My screen probably has marks on it too but I don't see them unless I really look for them. On the glossy screen they draw your eye to them.

 

[Toby Marsden]

Has anyone tried creating a monitor profile for a glossy MacBook Pro using a hardware calibrator like GretagMacbeth's Eye-One Display 2?

I love the look of the glossy screen, and I'm likely to be using a calibrated external CRT for critical colour work anyway, but it would be nice to see how much more accurate the colours can get by using a hardware device.

The glossy screens seem so much sharper and the blacks are more convincing. It's also closer to the more saturated HDTV look - and I can imagine clients being impressed by seeing a nicely saturated image as they don't always understand the nuances of calibrated colour anyway!

 

[thworple]

The fact that you say that you'll be doing photo and video means you you really should be thinking of getting the matte screen. As other have aready mentioned, it gives a much truer colour image than its glossy counterpart.