I am looking to buy a new notebook computer with a 17 inch screen which I use at work as my main computer. One of the things I am looking to decide on is whether to get a glossy or matte monitor. I have always had matte monitors. The glossy ones look really nice, and have higher resolutions. So who has real world experience with these monitors? How much does the glare off of lights bother you? Are you constantly adjusting the angle of your monitor to try to fix this? Any other suggestions for buying a new notebook?
I love my glossy monitor. I bought a gaming notebook computer and its one of the nicest monitors I have ever used. The glare can get bad but i rarely am in the position to notice. Its real hard to not get distracted when I take it with me on long car rides but other then that I love it. As long as I dont have an actual lamp or other major light source behind me the small glare i see is not an issue as long as i have something on the screen.
http://s27.photobucket.com/albums/c179/chrisbooth12/?action=view¤t=P1160042.jpg
There is a picture of my laptop. Yes I have bought a new desk and cleaned my room. You cant see much glare other then the flash. The smuges bother me way more then any glare you get.
I greatly prefer glossy. I have two glossy and one matte at home, and matte at work, and the picture is nicer on the glossy models. Maybe it depends on the types of programs you use as to what you’d think is better. At home I’m mostly either typing straight text; using music- & video-editing programs; watching TV shows/movies; or using art programs (Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.) Lordy do photos and TV look better on the glossy. But then again, I prefer my pictures printed glossy and many people prefer matte finish.
If you’re not used to glossy at all, go to a Circuit City or Best Buy and just look at the different ones. Some people really hate glossy for some reason whereas I don’t know of anyone who hates matte.
Also: I can’t remember ever having to adjust anything because of glare. During the day, I do keep the shade closed on the window right next to the monitor but I’d do that with matte too.
I have a glossy. It’s crisp, but also has a lot of glare and I have to do more tilting of the screen or positioning of myself in a room to see the display. If there’s a window behind me, forget it.
I just got a glossy-screened iMac after 4 years of a matte-screened laptop. I think overall that I do like the crispness of the glossy, but anything lit behind me gets reflected in the screen, even the spill of light on the wall from a nearby room. It’s not much a problem for me, I’m here by myself and can control the lighting, but it’s something to keep in mind.
I have both a glossy and a matte, and I (and my wife, who was the one that purchased the glossy) strongly prefer the matte. The glossy looks great when you pull the laptop out of the shipping box, but in practice, it’s such a pain to deal with. Unless you exclusively work in a dark room, you’re going to have reflection issues with the glossy. I’ve gotten used to it, but I’d rather not have to get used to it. I’m surprised so many people like it so much.
Okay, thanks for the replies so far, I’m not hearing the kind of clear cut answer the “Dope” is known for.
I’ll be a spoiler. My Dell “mobile engineering laptop” at work has a glossy screen, as well as super-high resolution. Both factors suck. Windows XP (and the majority of Windows apps) are super-horrible and/or inconsistent at respecting DPI settings, and as a result, everything on the screen is way the heck too small or grossly out of proportion. It’s only a 17" screen, with 1900x1200 resolution, I think. When in an office environment, the glare sucks big time from the fluorescents. I finally gave up and connected my Unix (matte LCD) monitor to it, and even though it’s lower resolution, it’s at the proper DPI and works better for me.
At home my two iMacs are non-glossy, and (the 24" especially) are simply the most gorgeous monitors I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, professionally or at home (although, I’m not a graphic artist, so some of those super-high end monitors are bound to be even better).
Well, you asked an IMHO question in GQ, so there’s not really going to be a hard and fast answer.
You pretty much know the facts:
Glossy Pro:
Crisp display. Great for DVDs and pictures.
Glossy Con
Highly reflective. Light sources behind you are going to be distracting.
Easily smudged. Any fingerprints or schmootz on screen is going to be obstrusive.
I’m not sure that the increased resolution is a feature of the glossy LCD. You can probably get higher resolutions in matte as well.
Thanks Balthisar, I was looking at the Dell 17" notebook, I will probably go matte.
You’re probably right, Finagle, that I got the wrong forum. The monitor is only offered in a higher resolution format as glossy. I have never seen a stand alone monitor offered as glossy. Probably more of a marketing thing.
Its a simple setting to lower the resolution as well as raise the DPI…
For the record, my Dell is a “Precision M90” if you’d like to cross-reference.
See, the thing is (as I said above), it’s not. Lowering the resolution causes fuzziness, since it’s not a native resolution. This isn’t a CRT with glowing dots; an LCD has a set number of pixels. Lower resolution (“non-native resolution”) looks like crap. Changing the DPI also doesn’t work properly in Windows, because the vast majority of applications don’t respect the DPI setting, i.e., they’re not resolution independent. In fact, Windows itself is not consistently resolution independent. This means that 12pt in some programs is 12 pixels, and 12pt in other programs is truly 12pt. It sucks big time. Trust me, I was thrilled with the high resolution screen until I started to use it.
My last laptop had a glossy screen (Dell e1405) and I never had trouble with reflection. There are some reflections but they aren’t as bright as the display itself, and I think I just learned to ignore them. The reflections are of course out of focus and at a very different distance; the human eye+brain is good at filtering out such things.
I have a glossy screen protector on my new laptop. As I type this, sunlight is hitting parts of my face through the broken window blinds, and I can see the reflection in the display. But it didn’t bother me, at least not until I started typing this reply and actively thought “is there something reflected right now?”
Come to think of it, one of my two displays at home (side by side, connected to the same PC) is glossy, the other is matte. Never really thought about it until now.
I’m running 1024x768 on a 21" monitor and it’s quite small enough. I can’t imagine running 1900x1200 on a 17" screen - it’s miniscule even on a 21".
I have one - made by Xerox. There were definitely more matte models to choose from though.
Matte all the way. Can’t stand glossies. Too reflective and prone to smudging.
Exactly.
Moving to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
When I bought my MacBook Pro and was weighing glossy vs. matte, the salesperson said, “Glossy makes everything look richer and better, but if you do work where color accuracy is important, go with matte.” I do, so matte it was.
Did he say why? The only reason I can think is that a matte finish makes the screen look fuzzy and therefore mix up the three colors. But I haven’t found that to be true in actual use - dot pitch (pixel size) has more to do with this issue than surface finish.