I will always take a Matte display over a glossy display until it is no longer an option. Glossy displays look great IF you have good lighting but lighting is almost NEVER in your control. At the office with the fluorescent lighting, in the classroom with the fluorescent lighting, or outdoors the glossy display is awful at any brightness setting besides 100%.

Wish Apple would have offered the matte display on the 15" Pro. As much as I like matte displays I'm not about to spend $3,000 just to have one with an Apple logo on it.

I have never understood why notebooks have gone towards the glossy finish. I too prefer a matte finish.

Glossy >> Matte

/thread

Because the laptop enter the "mainstream" and for most people the laptop is status item. It has to look good before it works good. Anyone that actually does any real job with notebook will select matte screen, especially if you value your eyesight. Would be funny, after some time someone will have a bright idea for quick cash by suing computer manufactures for ruing their eyesight.

BORING!!!!!!!

It is all a matter of personal preference. I like the glossy and would purchase it over a matte. However, if I would be using it in an environment that is less that ideal for a glossy screen, I would opt for a matte...as I hope others would.

Who gives a crap? Why are we comparing the mac glossy versus the mac matte? What a stupid article, glossy vs matte has been discussed a million times before no need to recognize it as anything different when a mac computer has it as well.

wow. sucks. i bet apple folk will say we don't understand and just how great it is. :->

i think your wrong. i find it very helpful. if someone now comes by and asks i can point them to the posting and i can warn them before they throw out their hard earned money. also the negative press puts pressure on apple to fix the problem.

Glossy is great, but not if it purposely has been created to be glossy.
Glossy screens have the absence of fuzzyness. they have a sharp contrast, but they also have reflection.
There's no way I'll buy a screen with an extra mirror like glass substrate in front of it, that will reduce the sharpness of the screen, and at the same time increase glossyness.
That's like adding 2 bad properties on top of each other!

Then again, Apple's never been my thing, so I couldn't care less what they will produce. It's just that some manufacturers abuse salespower. I hope many will have the common sense to turn back to regular pc's or laptops.

$50 for a matte screen? for something that should be standard!
where are the law suits?

Matte should be a no contest, as an owner of a MBP with a matte screen I know how much superior those screens are. I borrowed my buddy's glossy-screen laptop and after a few hours my eyes were sore and I couldn't figure out why right away... In bright places I can't see anything on glossy screens. Worst of all this looks-before-functionality disease is spreading to desktop monitors as well.

Hey Apple, Lenovo makes some great workstation notebooks, faster, more configurable and with matte screens for less

Because making a statement without any support ending with "/thread" always earns you an internet win, bravo.

Dogs >> Cats

/thread

Oh thank god, at first I thought I'd have to suffer through the glossy display. I sometimes help film outdoor activities for a friends company: we've done everything for little league games to a assistant film crew on documentaries in Africa. And we don't always have the ability to send the video back to a studio for editing before we determine if we need to redo a shot or do an entirely new one. Outside, when there is sun, glossy screens can make it really hard to do the job right. One of the staffers has the 15 inch MBP unibody, and whenever we use his we've been having to hold a tarp up above us and over the computer to block the sunlight.

Which is why most of the company kept its old MBPs when the new ones came out: we just needed the screens to work, and glossy doesn't work.

It SUCKS that Apple is going to charge more. But you know what sucks WORSE? That people will pay the extra. Maybe if people who really wanted matte simply refused to buy the computer until it was exactly what they wanted (they could buy refurbs or just NOT buy a Mac.... imagine that.) Apple would offer it for the same price.

"Dear Apple fans who don't want the extra sheet of glass - even though we don't need to put glass on your Mac and it will reduce production costs, we are going to charge you $50 extra because we know you're willing to pay it. Thanks for the extra money. We need all we can get."

Maybe, it costs more, I don't know. But it's stupid. Matte is most definitely better in some situations. I'm typing by a window on my glossy screen, and it's tough to see with the reflections from the outside. I would much rather have matte, but you just about can't buy a good matte screen anymore.

Pure marketing, as the glossy generates less scattered environment light than the glossy and ultimately looks richer for the darker colors. When monitors and TVs are viewed in the typically dark store corners, the reflections aren't as obvious but the color difference would be. Hence, manufacturers do what sells best.

I hated glossy from the beginning, as it requires that you're in basically a dark room with little to no light especially behind you. Otherwise you're basically in every movie or application, staring at yourself when the screen turns darker. Forget about "playing" outside too. Glossy has become a bit better over time with semi-glossy AR coatings but still I prefer matte even if my first ViewSonic was a bit aggressive and the scattered light brightened dark sections significantly under bright light. My current Samsung (XL20) is near perfect for a matte finish.

that's an old sales trick to get higher price, what you do is give what does not sell as default and ask for a slightly higher price for what people want. people fall for it all the time and pay more. dell does the same thing, they give you the drive that they need to get rid of as the default, and then they ask you for the full price for the one that they would really have given you, notice they don't give you credit for the memory, drive that you replaced.

haha holy buddy, if you hate toms F**k off, don't let the door hit you in the A**

I have no choice with my laptop, a HP dv4, but at least its display is halfway between the matte and glossy on the Macbook. In other words, its liveable with. I'd take a matte any day though.

I personally DO like glossy screens for the most part they look great(color). I never did notice the reflection once it was on. New matt screens look great too, but in the early days, matt finish looks washed out.

BTW part about the edge of the screen being a silver color is nothing new. HP did it long ago.

while(1)
echo "boring...";

Only a mac user would think not being able to see your screen due to reflection is a good thing.

I was skeptical of the glossy screen, having had matte screens for years. But when the new MBP 15" gave me no option, I took it—and I have never looked back. The glare indoors is never a problem for me because the screen is so bright. I appreciate the added sharpness of the display over matte. I haven't used the computer much outside, but my old matte screen never was useful there anyway, so I don't think I will ever go back to matte.

DJ

matte is the way to go for me! glossy is fine when you are working in the dark room all day. deffo not the case for me. compensating by brightness is not an option for me because its really tiresome for my eyes...
i dont see why the got to have shiny glossy screens everywhere. even on mobile devices like iphones etc. i use a matte screen protector on my ipod touch even though its screen is less brilliant but at least i see the content without having the brightness up to the max like a laser beam into my eyes...

MATTE+MATTE= FUCK GLOSSY ;-)) THIS IS THE ANSWER SEXY FUTURE GENERATION'S I LOVE MATTE ,ALSO NEW UNIBODY MACBOOK PROS SHITY ,HAVE SO MANY PROBLEM'S LIKE GRAPHIC CARD,HEATING,GLOSSY,KEYBOARD,SUPERDRIVE NOT SUPPORTING DUAL LAYER DVDS WELL ETC.. I LOVE MY REGULAR MACBOOK PRO

i think apple wasnt thinkin differently when they where doin this new mbp.
its designed to be a mainstream mbp. a mbp for posers.

for example i used my mbp to design and apple should know that designers would never use glossy its almost impossible for us to work with it.

by the way, the "matte version" its clearly an unfinished and a fast solution, i mean it looks horrible. why the alu frames?.

http://macmatte.wordpress.com/


More comments and please, complain to Apple!

May I suggest suggesting that they INNOVATE and make their screens easily adjustable to either matte or glossy in the Apple Stores before purchase?

Would solve a lot of problems, for Apple and customers.

I hate glossy displays, and I say that after working with both glossy and matte displays on multiple brands for quite some time. I think it's a bad move for Apple to push everyone to glossy expect the 17" models, and those look like crap because they kept the same aluminum frame design from the pre-Unibody models, which makes it looks like some in-between, Franken-model. If you work in a standard office environment or want to work outside in anything by winter gray skies, matte is the way to go. I'm not watching movies in a dark basement enough to make the 'clarity' of a glossy display worthwhile...

All laptop builders are missing it offering glossy screens. Everyone I talk to doesn't want them, but they have to accept them because that's all they get offered. I have been putting off getting another laptop because I cannot abide a glossy screen. The only PC manufacturer I know where you can still get matte on some models is Prostar. Interesting, you can go get a 50" matte LCD television but not a 13" on a notebook.

I think there's a contradiction here. Apple removes "pro" features like ExpressCard and replaces them with more "mainstream" features like SD slot. Then they justify glossy screens on the basis of increased color saturation and accuracy needed by pros? Meanwhile, the average mainstream user is sitting at Starbucks just trying to read their email through all the glare.