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What is the deal with glossy PC laptop screens?

dpaanlka

dpaanlka

macrumors 601
Original poster
Nov 16, 2004
4,869
34
Illinois
Why are so many PC laptops shipping with ultra-reflective, glossy screens? This seriously seems like such an anti-productive thing to put on a display.

Is this to trick people into that think shiny is better? Is there any actual valuable point to doing this? Does anyone know?

I used one for about five minutes just now before I wanted to douse it in kerosene and set fire to it.
 
Personally, I prefer it.

I find it does look nicer (to me), and it is also a layer of protection from outside objects and the LCD's soft screen.
 
It is nothing more than a "shinny" thing that they say is great at protecting the LCD but they fail to mention that they are horrible with color correctness, viewing angles, and the huge amount of glare they add.
 
mustard said:
they fail to mention...the huge amount of glare they add
Click to expand...

The glare is just out of hand, especially in a setting where there are a lot of ceiling lights like in, say a classroom or library, warehouse, or outside! I can't imagine what using that outisde must be like.
 
mustard said:
It is nothing more than a "shinny" thing that they say is great at protecting the LCD but they fail to mention that they are horrible with color correctness, viewing angles, and the huge amount of glare they add.
Click to expand...

If you hold peice of glass infront of you, roughly 1mm in thickness, and rotate it about - is what you see behind it shifting colors, or reducing the viewing angle?

No. So there is no reason its application infront of an LCD would cause that.

The LCD itself will determine the color shift, viewing angle, etc, not the glass infront of it.

Glare is the only downside. If you plopped the glass over an MBP's LCD, the clarity, color, viewing angle, etc would not change.
 
Josh said:
If you hold peice of glass infront of you, roughly 1mm in thickness, and rotate it about - is what you see behind it shifting colors, or reducing the viewing angle?

No. So there is no reason its application infront of an LCD would cause that.

The LCD itself will determine the color shift, viewing angle, etc, not the glass infront of it.

Glare is the only downside. If you plopped the glass over an MBP's LCD, the clarity, color, viewing angle, etc would not change.
Click to expand...

Technically you are right the clarity and color of the LCD is not affected but what is viewed is altered by the glare from the glass. It would tamper with color correctness similar to on a standard LCD but magnified, and by adding a glare it limits viewing angles dependent on where the source of light is coming from.
 
It's sort of nice in some respects, particularly that everything looks sort of brighter, but I have to wonder how it would look on battery power under something other than the fluorescent lights in most tech stores...

I'd rather have my PowerBook display though. It's more versatile in the long run. But that's just me.

reality
 
My main concern is if your working in some sort of studio, or anywhere you need pixel perfect precision, how is anybody supposed to work for long periods of time with everything behind them reflecting?
 
I have an Acer with a shinny screen, as long as your in a fairly dim room (as i am almost all the time) it's pretty good and looks slightly sharper than the matt finish.

However, when in a bright office, or even outside it's kind of a pain to see complex things on the screen, largish text is ok. The matt screen on the other hand disperse this pretty well, but you still end up with big bright patches, instead of small very bright points :rolleyes:

Colourwise, excluding brightness (the acer is brighter, but thats irrelevant) the shinny screen is a little better with the blacks, but as with the above the difference when using it is so little it's very hard to choose


Personally i like matt screens, as in my normal environment theres is no noticeable reflections anywhere on the screen :D




Just read what i wrote, kinda makes sense, lol :rolleyes:
Oh, and the shinny screens show finger prints up like you wouldn't believe :eek:
 
When you look at it, before buying, you drool over the intense shininess and imagine how impressive everything will look on it.

You take it home and you realise that your desk lamp, ceiling lamp, table lamp, TV, reflect into it and make it tough to see the screen when you actually care about what's on it (as opposed to anything when you're curious about buying it)... argh!
 
Wasn't there a big push in the early 90s (IIRC) to adopt anti-glare screens in order to reduce eye strain? Have we come full circle?
 
dejo said:
Have we come full circle?
Click to expand...

It appears that some of us have forgotten how glare is bad. It doesn't matter how "to life" something may look - if you can see literally everything behind you, what good does that do?
 
When I first saw them I thought they were pretty cool. Then I used one for a little while and it really bugged me. There was way too much reflection, it made my eyes sore and don't let me get started on the fingerprints.
 
I find myself having to move my head around alot to see things that are "hidden" by the lights or other objects reflecting in the screen.

Also sometimes the light gets into my eyes, and then I have to squint - while looking at a screen 12 inches in front of my face!

Sheesh sorry but I can't believe people actually like this.
 
I absolutely hate the glossy screens of most new Windows laptops. They look so tacky. Apple's MacBook Pro screens are amazing, so much better then the iBooks and those Windows laptops...
 
dpaanlka said:
It appears that some of us have forgotten how glare is bad. It doesn't matter how "to life" something may look - if you can see literally everything behind you, what good does that do?
Click to expand...
Hmm. My Sony Vaio T2XP with xblack certainly doesn't cause problems with glare or reflections. I wouldn't prefer the coating if it did :) Perhaps different company's implementations differ in the resulting quality.

If all implementations were as bad as you suggest then quite rightly everyone would hate it :)
 
Its incredibly annoying. I use my mirror if I want to see a reflection of myself.
 
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