Matte Screen Protector degrades Retina Display quality

[01jamcon]

Just a quick heads up to others buying matte or 'privacy' screen protectors (mine is from PhoneDevil, they're really good quality btw), the ones made for the older iPhones will really dampen the sharpness and pop on the new Retina Displays on the iPhone 4. Also, the cutouts for the speaker and home button just about fit, but the front camera becomes fuzzy because its covered.

I'm willing to sacrifice these for now since I have no one to facetime with and I'm a bit OCD about fingerprints and scratch protection which are dealt with. I'm just hoping a manufacturer produces an updated iPhone 4 version which won't have such a noticeable effect on screen quality. Damn you Apple for your making me accustomise to such an amazing screen so quickly

 

[sammich]

Matte covers are like polarising lenses. They block light going in particular directions. That's why it appears darker and a little blurred/less crisp.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Yeah, I learned this the hard way today. I bought some iFrogz screen protectors and they look like crap. I also bought a Belkin grip view case and its quite nice, so the phone will be protected until I can find a clear screen protector. I really like the one I have for the iPad, which is a super-think protector with the pull-off stickers on both sides... you pull one side off, lay it on the phone and work out the bubbles, then pull the other side off and you have an invincible, thin screen protector.

 

[Figbash Acrobat]

Well, duh! What he said:

Matte covers are like polarising lenses. They block light going in particular directions. That's why it appears darker and a little blurred/less crisp.

And even if it wasn't like a polarizing lens, you're still layering something on top of the glass, which will always diffuse or refract light. It may appear clear, but it's still an obstruction. I actually like the matte protector I had on my 3G, for a while anyways, because it did hide fingerprints. But it didn't have this type of clarity and definition so it wasn't much of a loss, just less smooth than glass.

This is probably a big reason why apple stores pulled the screen protector films, not just the iPhone 4's supposed "gorilla glass". I'd avoid them if you can stand the prints and you're not too wreckless with it. The glass is pretty durable.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Well, duh! What he said:



And even if it wasn't like a polarizing lens, you're still layering something on top of the glass, which will always diffuse or refract light. It may appear clear, but it's still an obstruction. I actually like the matte protector I had on my 3G, for a while anyways, because it did hide fingerprints. But it didn't have this type of clarity and definition so it wasn't much of a loss, just less smooth than glass.

This is probably a big reason why apple stores pulled the screen protector films, not just the iPhone 4's supposed "gorilla glass". I'd avoid them if you can stand the prints and you're not too wreckless with it. The glass is pretty durable.

Sorry, some of us (and many of the hundreds of thousands of new iPhone owners) probably aren't that trained in the science of film protectors.. I've owned several clear protectors for iPhones and none of them have ever caused any issues with the screen.

This was the first time I tried an anti-glare film and it was a mistake.

 

[01jamcon]

Well, duh! What he said:



And even if it wasn't like a polarizing lens, you're still layering something on top of the glass, which will always diffuse or refract light. It may appear clear, but it's still an obstruction. I actually like the matte protector I had on my 3G, for a while anyways, because it did hide fingerprints. But it didn't have this type of clarity and definition so it wasn't much of a loss, just less smooth than glass.

This is probably a big reason why apple stores pulled the screen protector films, not just the iPhone 4's supposed "gorilla glass". I'd avoid them if you can stand the prints and you're not too wreckless with it. The glass is pretty durable.

Yer, its not unexpected, but its just in comparison to being on a 3G, the screen protector made much less of an impact. But the much higher resolution of the iPhone 4 ends up being blurred by whatever the material is that makes the protector matte.

 

[sammich]

Yer, its not unexpected, but its just in comparison to being on a 3G, the screen protector made much less of an impact. But the much higher resolution of the iPhone 4 ends up being blurred by whatever the material is that makes the protector matte.

The effect is like a grille, the matte cover is a series of short 'walls' that up and down your screen. It blocks some of the light that doesn't go in a direction that isn't straight up and out. If the 'bars' in the grille are a significant width of a pixel then most of the light from some of the pixels are degraded/inhibited, giving a poor view.

There should be new covers out soon enough.