The rMBP actually has a plastic screen!

[donster28]

I might be late in the news here but I just realized that the glass on the Retina MacBooks are actually plastic!

I had a chance to do whatever I wanted on a non-working screen, that my friend is replacing, and I was surprised to see deep marks left by poking/pressing my fingernails on the screen! The marks showed signs of slowly repairing themselves in a bit of time, but some seems to have remained. This is on 15-inch Retina late-2013.

 

[christarp]

Why are you pressing your fingernails on the screen? I feel like glass would add unnecessary weight to the device.

 

[RianT]

I might be late in the news here but I just realized that the glass on the Retina MacBooks are actually plastic!

I had a chance to do whatever I wanted on a non-working screen, that my friend is replacing, and I was surprised to see deep marks left by poking/pressing my fingernails on the screen! The marks showed signs of slowly repairing themselves in a bit of time, but some seems to have remained. This is on 15-inch Retina late-2013.

I read a teardown by iFixit a while ago, where they tore down the 15" rMBP display. They did mention something about the display being the LCD screen itself, not an LCD screen in a casing. So maybe that's why...

 

[FuNGi]

It's glass not plastic. The coating and glass can scratch (and pit) though.

 

[w00t951]

Why are you digging your fingernails into your $2000 laptop's screen

 

[kappaknight]

Why are you digging your fingernails into your $2000 laptop's screen

"I had a chance to do whatever I wanted on a non-working screen"

Do you even read, bro?

 

[donster28]

"I had a chance to do whatever I wanted on a non-working screen"

Do you even read, bro?

Thanks for clarifying for me.

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It's glass not plastic. The coating and glass can scratch (and pit) though.

That's what I thought at first, but believe me, it's plastic!

 

[donster28]

I feel like glass would add unnecessary weight to the device.

I agree with the weight issue if it was glass. I still remember how heavy my first unibody MacBook Pro was. And that definitely had a glass on top of the LCD.

 

[FuNGi]

Thanks for clarifying for me.

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That's what I thought at first, but believe me, it's plastic!

Nope. It's glass. As seen on Apple website:"The Retina display doesn’t sit behind a layer of glass, it is the glass." Also you can see how it cracks and shatters by searching images.

 

[Lachhh]

believe me, it's plastic!

No.

As a previous poster already stated, Apple themselves advertise it as glass. iFixit and countless others have taken the thing apart, don't you think that if it wasn't made of glass as advertised, it wouldn't have been discovered and decried in a femtosecond and Apple would be sued for false advertising? You'd also hear about it on every tech blog from here to Antarctica.
Seriously, stop spreading FUD.

 

[donster28]

No.

As a previous poster already stated, Apple themselves advertise it as glass. iFixit and countless others have taken the thing apart, don't you think that if it wasn't made of glass as advertised, it wouldn't have been discovered and decried in a femtosecond and Apple would be sued for false advertising? You'd also hear about it on every tech blog from here to Antarctica.
Seriously, stop spreading FUD.

You are entitled to your own opinion as I am. Having tried an experiment most people don't have the opportunity to do so revealed this fact to me. But I am not here to convince you.

Oh and thank you for keeping my thread active.

 

[Lachhh]

Having tried an experiment most people don't have the opportunity to do so revealed this fact to me.

and thank you for keeping my thread active.

You're welcome.
This is too good to miss.

 

[donster28]

Image



You're welcome.
This is too good to miss.

I'm glad you didn't miss it.

 

[Tubamajuba]

You are entitled to your own opinion as I am. Having tried an experiment most people don't have the opportunity to do so revealed this fact to me. But I am not here to convince you.

Oh and thank you for keeping my thread active.

But it's not his opinion... it's a fact. The material in front of the screen is glass, end of story. Not all glass is manufactured the same way, so that's probably why it doesn't react the way you might expect it to.

 

[donster28]

But it's not his opinion... it's a fact. The material in front of the screen is glass, end of story. Not all glass is manufactured the same way, so that's probably why it doesn't react the way you might expect it to.

It could be softer glass?...who knows.

 

[Tubamajuba]

It could be softer glass?...who knows.

Could be. Or, we're just so spoiled by the Gorilla glass on our smartphones that we forgot what normal glass is actually like

 

[donster28]

could be. Or, we're just so spoiled by the gorilla glass on our smartphones that we forgot what normal glass is actually like :d

:d

 

[Vanilla35]

You're welcome.
This is too good to miss.

But it's not his opinion... it's a fact. The material in front of the screen is glass, end of story. Not all glass is manufactured the same way, so that's probably why it doesn't react the way you might expect it to.

It could be softer glass?...who knows.

This situation is most likely very much like that of the iPad Air. Just like this, some people noticed that the screen felt more hollow and flimsy on the iPad Air, compared to the previous iPad 2/3. Giving a less audible thunk when tapped, feeling like it has more give, etc. People immediately said, does the iPad Air have a plastic screen? The rMBP more than likely has a very thin layer of glass, that might scratch much more easily, or be made of a different material since I have also heard they basically have the LCD open now. I'm assuming that means it's been fused with a very thin layer of glass, which would be what you're messing with.

 

[johndellis]

OP is not insane, but not 100% correct either.

All LCD's are made of a couple of pieces of glass with some tech-awesomness sandwiched between.

Older unibody macs had a sheet of actual glass placed in front of the glossy LCD.

The newer Retina Displays do not have the glass sheet in front of them. What you see and touch is the display itself.

Now, somewhere between your eyes and the inside of the Retina Display is a sheet of glass. But glass is not necessarily what you touch when you touch the screen.

Anti-reflective (think of a Dell latitude) displays have a sheet of light diffusing plastic stuck to their surface to diffuse the light hitting the screen from the outside. This is what makes it 'anti-reflective'.

It appears that the Retina Display has either 1.) A sheet of clear plastic something stuck to outside of it or 2.) a thick anti-glare coating that is sprayed on and polished.

Sure enough, if you touch your finger nail to the screen and press with even medium pressure, it makes a permanent impression. Silica glass will not receive impressions and retain them. You can scratch material away from glass but not compress the matter and have it stay compressed like that.

I did this myself to my brand new rMBP 15, in the black bezel area and sure enough, it leaves an impression.

So, do I care in any way that it might or not be "glass" that I am touching when I touch my screen? NO! These are the best screens I have ever seen and I haven't seen anything else come close.

See pic.