MacBook displays

In My Humble Opinion
1

I love my PowerBook G4, but I’d like to get something a little bit faster and with a little more memory; so occasionally I look at the MackBook Pro.

I see that the MacBook pro offers a choice of a matte screen like the one I have now, or a glossy screen that is said to render better colours. I want to use it for video editing, so the glossy screen is attractive. But I’ll get a large display when I get serious and I’m concerned about glare when I’m out and about with the laptop.

What are your opinions on matte vs. glossy screens?

2

I’ve only had two laptops - an original TiBook G4 and a year-old MacBook. (Okay, I had a PB 100 and a PB 5300, but those were transitional laptops and don’t count).

Unfortunately, my TiBook (with a matte screen) is of such an old vintage that its display looks like complete crap compared to my MacBook (glossy), so the MacBook wins hands-down, but that’s primarily because the backlight on the TiBook is so weak.

So, although I like my MacBook display and haven’t ever been distracted by glare or the reflection of my hands (or whatever might distract one), I can’t say it’s got anything to do with its glossiness. Maybe it’s just so bright that the reflections pale in comparison?

I dunno. Just my opinion: the MacBook is a very good value. What you’re giving up wrt the MacBook Pro is the separate graphics card, possibly the OLED screen, the backlit keyboard and generally faster specs. (Hmm. Maybe I want to trade up). The thing is, my TiBook was so beautiful that I hardly ever took it anywhere; when I popped for the MacBook, I specifically went for low-price & size so I’d be more apt to bring it with me. Thus it’s more useful to me for what I use it for.

My BIL is a professional video editor and loves his 17" glossy screen MacBook Pro. However, at work, he uses nothing but CRTs – he’s obsessed with them because of the colors.

[windows]
I got Parallels for free (as can you), and added $104 for Windows XP, but the only thing I use it for is checking Perl scripts & Java apps for cross-platform compatibility and for loading maps into my GPS. In other words, boy is it cool and completely useless for me to have Windows running in a virtual machine!
[/windows]

One thing that another friend got a little pissy about was that replacing the hard drive on his MacBook Pro involved some major surgery. On the regular MacBook, I just removed the battery, unscrewed a panel, and pulled a plastic tab to slide the drive into the battery compartment. Five minutes! Of course, prior to that I spent about five hours backing up and preparing the drive and researching ways to reload my Windows partition without killing it. If you get a larger drive preinstalled, this may not be important. It just seems strange that a company that obviously knows how to make these things painless goes through some sort of process that removes that from their design.

3

I chose the matte screen for my 15" MacBook Pro, and I do not regret it for a minute. I was concerned about the glare from the glossy screens–I could see glare on the ones in the Apple store. Most of what I do is typing, web surfing, SDMB, etc., though, so color rendition is not as important as something that is easy on the eyes.

4

I’ve looked at both and frankly I wasn’t impressed at the colors being that much brighter on a gloss screen. I’ve also had problems with work laptops with glossy screens not being as easy to use out in the field, though admittedly most of what I do is looking through text documents and the occasional PowerPointless presentation. I’d go for the matte screen, personally.

I currently use a G4 PowerBook and the next portable computer will be the MacBook Pro (not for a while yet, though; at over three years and counting, I’m pretty satisfied with the PowerBook); the MacBook is okay if you want compact, but not quite as easy to work on and the integrated graphics unit may limit it for what you want to do. On the other hand, I know a few coders who prefer it over the Pro because of its more compact form.

Stranger

5

I could have written that. I feel the same way.

I’m not even considering a MacBook (non-Pro), since the Pro is more suited to what I want to do.

Your post reinforces my thoughts on the displays.