Matte Screens: I Still Don’t Get It!
December 11th, 2008This is the controversy that has continued to fester ever since Apple ditched matte screens and embraced 100% glossy on the updated MacBook Pro lineup several weeks ago. At one time, you had a choice, at least on some models, of matte or glossy. But things have changed, and not necessarily for the better.
Except for the 17-inch MacBook Pro, largely a carryover from the previous model with minor changes, there is no option to get one of these products with Apple’s “Anti-Glare Display.” It’s either glossy or nothing.
Now as a practical matter, glossy can be a really good thing for most of you. Pictures appear sharper, brighter, and colors more saturated. Suddenly your Mac’s LCD display takes on some of the positive characteristics of a plasma TV.
And, no, this isn’t just a summary of the reviews I’ve read. It represents my personal experience, as owner of MacBook Pros with and without glossy displays. Indeed, I’m writing this column on the one with the glossy display (the other was sold months ago), and I’ve never felt any reason to regret my purchase decision.
However, the reflections can be the deal breaker for some. I realize that, for the vast majority of Apple’s customers, glossy is good news. Your eyes and your mind can usually tune out most disturbing reflections, or you just turn the screen in a slightly different direction. Sure, it may not be quite as easy with the 24-inch iMac or the new 24-inch LED display, but compromises in positioning are usually possible.
Now about the folks for whom glossy is a distraction: Maybe that’s also one of the reasons why LCD high definition TVs, usually with matte screens, have become far more popular than plasma despite the latter’s superior picture. Well, there is the fact that plasma can also consume a lot more electricity, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the deciding factor at the checkout counter.
In order to get a leg up on the competition, the makers of plasma TVs are incorporating various types of anti-glare coverings for their screens. My Panasonic has one, although I can still see reflections when the lights are on in our master bedroom, or the sun is streaking through the blinds. But, again, this is not a serious disturbance.
But why is Apple going in this direction? I suspect their sales figures show that glossy has gained far more traction in the models where matte was also offered. So finally they decided it wasn’t worth the bother, since building and stocking extra configurations increases manufacturing costs.
The current economic situation, however, could change things unpredictably for Apple. Early holiday sales reports appear to indicate that they are still doing surprisingly well, despite the sharply constrained budgets encountered by potential customers. Maybe they’re just buying the cheaper models; I don’t pretend to know.
For 2009, however, a significant downturn could ultimately force Apple to change direction in some ways. Take the cheap PC that Apple has heretofore rejected. They could substantially redesign the Mac mini, provide more powerful chips and larger hard drives inside, and perhaps reduce the price to $499 for the entry-level configuration.
Then there’s the netbook. Industry analysts are talking of rapidly growing sales in this product segment, if only because people can’t afford standard note-books, so they’re willing to compromise with a smaller screen, slower processor, tinier hard drive and perhaps fewer add-ons.
Apple, however, doesn’t believe in compromise. Even when they build a relatively low-cost product, it has the spit and polish of their expensive gear. The $49 iPod shuffle maintains the company’s reputation for elegant design and reasonably solid build quality.
An Apple netbook would not simply be a small, cheap note-book. I think that’s pretty clear, because that particular choice doesn’t represent any real effort at product innovation. Instead, I wonder if Apple wouldn’t consider building a grown-up iPod touch with similar chips, but sporting a regular hard drive, a much larger screen and perhaps a conventional keyboard to accompany the touch screen.
Such a product wouldn’t cost $399, which is a fairly normal price for a netbook. I’d expect something closer to $599, but that’s still far less than the legacy white MacBook, which lists for $999. More to the point, it would offer most of the advantages of the iPod touch plus the improved productivity afforded by the regular keyboard and additional screen real estate.
Is this what Apple is planning? More to the point, is there any possibility for an Apple netbook-style device in time for Macworld Expo 2009?
Well, it’s pretty clear to me that Apple already has netbook designs in their test labs, and would probably be able to give the green light for actual production with a few week’s advance notice, assuming there’s proper preparation on the manufacturing side of the ledger.
It may even be possible that the marketing campaign has already been devised, the TV ads taped, and the manuals printed and sitting in a warehouse ready to package with the shipping products.
Will it happen? More to the point, if you can be assured of one thing, it’s that the screen will definitely be glossy.
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Hi Gene.
I think the issue is simpler than you may think.
The earlier matte and glossy screens were a form of plastic screen. This plastic screen was one of the things that environmental groups got upset with Apple about. This prompted Apple to go to all-glass screens. As far as I know it is not possible to do a simple, and inexpensive, matte coating of an all-glass screen.
I always purchased the matte option on my previous PowerBooks, and if there was a matte option available then I would have taken it when I purchased my new unibody MacBook Pro, but having used the all-glass screen for awhile now I am surprised at how few reflections I am noticing and, so far, none have been so bad that I couldn’t work around it.
-Derek
Yes, I’m aware there is also an environmentally friendly aspect to it, but certainly public acceptance has to be a factor. If there was customer resistance, Greenpeace’s admonitions wouldn’t account for so much.
Peace,
Gene
I would agree. In recent years Apple always had the glossy as the default and the matte as the build-to-order option.
However, there was quite a lot of customer resistance when the previous MacBook Pros came out and Apple still went ahead and got rid of it entirely with the unibody MacBooks.
-Derek
I prefer the matte screen, though I have no problem using either. My MacBook (black, previous gen) obviously has a glossy screen and it wasn’t annoying in any way.
That said, the matte screen on my new MacBook Pro (early 2008 15″) is a delight. Glossy is not a deal-breaker, but since I did have a choice, I went with the matte screen and do not regret my choice in any way.
I just purchased a left over MacBook Pro (early 2008 15″) rather than a new MacBook Pro because I prefer the matte screen over the glossy. The glossy screen is just too distracting for me.
I think Apple is making a mistake taking away the matte screen option. Hopefully, an environmentally friendly matte screen alternative will be developed soon and we can have a choice again.
I must be in the minority, because I just love the screen on my 2.53Ghz Macbook Pro. I don’t do photo-editing or anything like that, I’m a developer, but the instant on and the brightness make, to me, the screen gorgeous.
The computer isn’t that much of a slouch either!
John
Under ideal conditions, the glossy screen looks better than the matte screen.
You can attempt to adjust less than ideal conditions, when using a glossy screen.
There is nothing you can do to make the matte screen the equal of a glossy.
I have never understood the people who yearn for matte screens, and please don’t bother to educate me! I accept that some of you are different from me. Fine.
That said, I’ve been very nearsighted all my life and very, very conscious about clarity of vision, depth of color, etc. in my visual experience of the world. The glossy screen on my original MacBook provides a QUANTUM LEAP in visual accuity and beauty. Using a matte screen after this would be like looking at the world with a pair of panty hose pulled over my head.
It. just. looks. better. MUCH better, in fact. Usually I don’t even see any reflections at all, and when I do, I shift things around or change where I’m sitting so they go away.
Glossy does have better color, and more important deeper blacks. I don’t think anyone debates that. There are, to me anyway, two advantages to matte, and they are the lack of reflection, which isn’t that much of an issue to me, and just a softer look that while inferior in terms of accuracy, is less tiring to my 41-year-old eyes. I spend much of my workday looking at computer monitors, and I just feel a lot less eye strain when my screen is matte.
For all the photographers out there – thousands and thousands and thousands – where colour veracity is paramount and not contrast, Bring Back Matt Screens for goodness sake.
How do people think all those great photos and videos that look so good are produced? Clue… on matt screens.
Glossy = no highlight or shadow detail.
It’s really very simple, we have to have matt screens for best post production.
In the Mac using photographer fraternity, the audible groans are not very Mac friendly.
Do you get it now?
I understand your position.
The key question is whether Apple understands.
Peace,
Gene
A couple of resources for everyone:
http://www.apple.com/mac/green-notebooks/
and
http://www.nushield.com/manufacturer_detail.php?apptypeid=Laptop+%26amp%3B+Tablet+A-H&manufacturerid=Apple++
The second is a link to a manufacturer of all types of screen protectors. NuShield has a very good reputation, as do their products. They make matte overlays for (as near as I can tell) all Apple laptops back to and including the Pismo. Obviously the primary use for most of these is protection not glare reduction since most of the Apple products have had matte screens. I use a similar product on my iPhone and it is fantastic. It took me less than 3 minutes, starting with Google, to find the product that would fit my black Macbook. At $15, I am considering getting it. I absolutely don’t want to abandon the current display quality I have, but occasionally my Kindergartner and First Grader use the Macbook so some protection may make sense.
What I don’t understand is the knee jerk reactions to decisions that Apple (given their history) obviously considered long and hard before making. I can tell you that when I worked in Apple retail every time Greenpeace blasted Apple we got weeks of people coming in to complain and explain how they were off to buy some other PC which (had they done any research at all) was usually just as environmentally unfriendly or sometimes worse. Greenpeace, like many others, attacks high visibility targets to affect change. I have absolutely no doubt that Apple suffered for these attacks. Even if they hadn’t, though, the move toward environmental responsibility has been inevitable since the return of Steve Jobs. Given that one of the best known Board members at Apple is Al Gore, how can anyone expect less?
Apple made a decision. I like it, you don’t have to. If you don’t like it you can still choose to live with it or not. If you decide to live with it, then a little research and a trivial amount of money will easily mediate the decisions’ impact on your life. This is not true of features like FireWire that are cut out all together, but the amount of attention that the glass screen decision has garnered is overblown. This is the age of the Internet. Using it reveals answers to all sorts of problems, including glare on the screen of your MacBook.
How many photographers do post-production on a laptop display?
Actually I had quite a few photographers as Genius Bar clients who used portables for their post production work. True, most preferred desktop machines but for those who needed portability and didn’t have a publisher’s budget the Pro portables were very popular. This is particularly true of independent photographers doing work for local businesses and wanting to then take the results to the client site for approval. Ardaz has a valid point.
Incidentally, I don’t know if the NuShield, or other similar overlay, would help or hinder the results for a photographer. I suspect it would help, and I suspect someone out there knows. I would think that given the truer blacks and what appears to my amateur eye as generally better contrast these new screens would do very well indeed if the glare could be eliminated.
Even on a matte screen every LCD made for graphic display comes with a hood.
Frankly I’m tired of the bloviating coming from shade tree graphics mavens about
how bad glossy screens are for reflections. That’s why you control the light source
and then put a hood on the screen.
I didn’t necessarily like the glossy screens when I first saw them but then I realize that
they just have more pop and consumers want pop.
Glossy sharper than matte. A laugh at best.
When you get white streaks on parts of an image that you wouldn’t looking at the same image in real life, information is lost, clarity is stricken, and given the right colors, you may not be able to read things with white streaks on them. Maybe people who wear glasses don’t recognize the difference between glossy and matte since there is some natural glare from wearing glasses. But those of us lucky not to wear glasses, notice the difference right off. And it just doesn’t cut it. Darker blacks? Sure if you exclude all the white glare coming in at random points. Accurate colors? What happens when you brighten a certain shade of red? It becomes pink. Oh and a certain shade of pink, magenta. If you want accurate colors you go to matte with an even backlighting that is right at the same temperature as natural light. And if you need light on a desk in front of a display, invariably, you need a desk lamp on its side to be able to read things more clearly. What happens to that light when it is put on the side of a glossy display? It glares! Unless you never put something down to read outside the computer screen next to your computer and lift your head to look at the computer screen, you need matte screens. As a photographer, this is paramount.
I don’t get the glossy vs. matte debate either. My most recent laptop was purchased last spring. I had a choice between glossy or matte and chose glossy. By far, the glossy display is better. Crisper text and more vibrant color. For those complaining about glare, really, just adjust your display slightly or change your light source. This is a trivial matter for most. I have no issues with glossy. Yes, I do photography work, etc. But, really as others have mentioned, if you’re relying on your laptop display for color calibration, you have other problems. Compare the color on a Cinema display as compared to any laptop (matte or glossy) and you’ll see a huge difference. This is the 8bit vs. 6bit display issue. Laptops use 6bit displays as they use less power and have a faster response time.
gopher wrote:
And you’re claiming that external light has no effect on images rendered on a matte screen I suppose? In bright sidelight I see much more “fading” (I don’t know the technical term) of what’s on my screen on my G4 iBook (matte) than on my Macbook (glossy). Of course my Cinema Display is better than either of those.
I go back and forth between glasses and contacts. Normally i wear contacts. I respectfully and completely disagree.
Absolutely.
What kind of lighting are you trying to edit photos in, anyway? Are you even aware that over 5 years ago Apple was taken to task by the imaging community at large because they went from CRT to LCD, for largely ecological reasons? The argument (which was probably correct) was that CRTs provided truer colors than LCD. I have been told as recently as a year ago that many publishing houses still use them for precisely that reason. Of course the screen surface is made of, you guessed it, glass and is prone to glare from any sort of sidelighting. I used to be a courier and would routinely deliver to printing companies and photography studios. Image editing in those fields was always done in a darkened room on screens with cardboard hoods. Always. Reading anything not on the screen was done in a corner of the room away from the editing workstations. When I worked at Apple I had a frequent Genius Bar customer who would come in with his matte screen PowerBook and set up such a hood which he purchased for $5.00. With a pair of scissors and a ruler he could have made the thing for $0.75 but that’s another story.
Yes, you get blacker blacks from a Mac with a glossy screen than you do a Mac with a matte screen. When I was at Apple we saw the introduction of the “optional” glossy screen and looking at them repeatedly side by side this was always the case. You also get much more even distribution of your backlighting from LED than from the CFL tubes that have been used in every Apple laptop screen until about 2 years ago and most of them until this past October. This natural variation in traditional laptop backlighting creates far more variation in the original image than current LED technology and there’s nothing you can do about it. It has NOTHING to do with matte v. glossy. Unless you have a LED lit screen you will see this in the corners of virtually all notebook screens and in the centers of many. Compare that with a little reflection that can easily be blocked with a buck’s worth of cut poster board. You mentioned light temperature to match natural lighting? Easy to do, but you have to calibrate for it regardless of what display you are using. Again, the matte v. glossy surface is completely irrelevant to a function of the controlling software that generates the image. You want true colors? Again, calibrate your screen. If you believe that matte v. glossy makes a difference in color without taking the time for serious calibration you are fooling yourself.
My current working environment has me sitting with my back to a window using a glossy MacBook and a second monitor that is matte. Anything I need to do involving small detail work I put on the larger screen which happens to be the matte one. Trumping that, though is anything that has to do with verifying colors. Those tasks I always do on the glossy screen even if it means I have to swing it a little to reduce reflections from the window. The contrast is better. The blacks ARE truer. The edges of anything are MUCH sharper. If my boss would pony up for a Cinema Display like the one I have at home that would be better. Having compared it directly to the new 24inch glass model that just came out, though, I would get the newer one any day of the week.
As stated, I know of many former clients who are photographers and who produce excellent product on Powerbooks and Macbook Pros. Every one of them does their editing in a darkened room, some of them with the addition of hoods around the screen. If you are color correcting photos in a brightly lit environment you had best not be charging me for it. Otherwise I’d just as soon pay the kid at the local high school doing the work with Adobe Elements in his spare time. Incidentally, the local community college offers photography and digital editing classes. Rule one, don’t edit on a computer in a brightly lit room.
The difference between matte and glossy is one of reflected light and scattered light. Glossy screens reflect outside light much more, but outside light can be blocked. Matte screens diffuse generated light much more which causes a reduction in sharpness that cannot be corrected for once the screen is assembled. Both screen types suffer from color wash out in situation of bright side lighting. If you are worried about accurate colors you MUST use a properly calibrated screen in a light controlled (dim or dark) environment and ideally a hood around the screen regardless of whether it is matte or glossy.
I am a shutterbug, not a photographer. Even I know better than to edit my photos in a brightly lit room. If external light is your problem then you really don’t get it. In practical usage terms there is little drawback to glossy and what is there is very easily mediated. The worst environment I have ever seen in terms of screen glare is an Apple Store, and having worked there for over 2 years day in and day out I am an authority on that. White walls, glass panels and VERY bright overhead and side lighting everywhere on the showroom floor. Walk past them at night and they seem to glow into the darkened mall. Yet Apple has continued to successfully sell huge quantities of glossy screened products in those very stores. If glass screens are demon spawn as some would make them out to be, this would not be the case.
All issues above have their points, but the real issue is a safety (occupational safety) one. Some of us are old enough to remember the saga with CRTs , reflections/glare caused eyestrain and damage and then eventually manufacturers got around to coating with non reflective coatings from the factory.
Unless our eyes have evolved in the last 20 years then about 25% of the population will suffer some form of eye trouble (mostly reversible) (eg watering soreness blurred vision to varying degrees when glare is present and viewing for a long time ie at work. Most home users do not work like at work ie 8+ hours a day so the issue does not come up as much.
In the workplace depends upon the jurisdiction of course this would be, is and was unacceptable.
Hope that helps
All the points about critical post production work re darkened room/ reduced ambient lighting are of course true and part of the professional retouchers basic tool set. My point purely refers to the mobile photographer – and that means almost every photographer not tied to the studio, needs a solution that is predictable… which glossy screens are most certainly not in varying lighting conditions. We(not predominantly studio) photographers working for news and media companies and countless photo agencies around the world, favour matt screens because the retoucher has far less work to do on our files, which means more probability that our work will be used. if you are sending in stuff that needs loads of attention to bring it to ‘their’ standard, it will be binned. My newspaper gave me an glossy HP once and then complained when my picture quality fell off. I thought it was ok but then I couldn’t tell if it was close enough to being right, using the glossy screen. Over the years I’ve seen almost EVERY glossy laptop in media centres being replaced by a matt version. Now, with Apple’s abandoning matt screen policy, I see more and more non-Apple laptops creeping into a preserve that was all Apple’s and a lot of older Powerbooks and early MacBook Pros being cherished beyond their normal life cycle. Like I said before, there is a lot of frustration and it’s mounting.
The glossy screens are OK for individuals. I often use a 17″ MBP to give presentations to small groups. I can’t control the lighting of the room, I can’t control where my audience is sitting. I can’t tell if they can see my presentation or if it is obscured by glare. I may be a minority but I’d really like a matte screen. Any time you have two or more people collaborating on a project this will be the case.
Since the Intel switch, Apple started to do Taiwan like things like shipping higher performance stuff in black and now the glossy thing.
If you go to any PC Laptop store and see various brands, you will see where that Glossy thing comes from. Everything became glossy.
It really bothers me. Also the Green Peace is not really that peaceful, they have very deep ties with many organisations. E.g. coal mining lobby to start with. Nothing makes them “the standard” in environmental organisations or some sort of authority.
If Apple took that decision just to mute Greenpeace, it is wrong. Unless whatever they want really accomplished, Green Peace will find another issue.
@ ardaz:
It seems Apple is forgetting what their core market is and it is very alerting.
Apple’s core market it whoever is buying most of their computers. That may have been photographers and other creative pros a few years ago, but today Apple’s core market is consumers.
@ardaz
No screen – matte or glossy – is predictable in varying light conditions. There’s nothing you can do about that. Glossy or matte – you still have reflections and ambient light changing not only your screen, but your eyes and your brain’s interpretation of hue and shade. Have you ever worn colored lenses or goggles? Less than 5 minutes and you’ll swear you’re looking at a blue sky through amber lenses. But those amber lenses are amber because they’re taking out most of the blue light. You’ll even see snow as white (even though it, too, has quite a bit of blue in it).
You can put any magical coating you want on your screen. If the ambient light is wrong (even just the wrong temperature), you’ve got problems far more serious then reflections (matte or otherwise). I completely understand the need for many photographers to be mobile. But if you’ve got varying light conditions, you’re color problems are WAY bigger than anything your screen can compensate for. At least with a glossy screen, that reflection of a lamp just looks like a tiny, little version of the same lamp. On a matte screen, that same reflection is a patch of light with a 3″ diameter, through which any image looses much of it’s contrast and brightness.
@Andrew
I was just going to say that! Apple’s market size has just about doubled since the last time ardaz’s idea of “Apple’s core market” (circa Gil Amelio, I’m guessing) reflected some actual trend. And I’m guessing most of those new customers were professional photographers.
As a musician who performs live on stages with many lights, the glossy screens are impossible to use. Upgrading to the new Apple laptops is not an option — period.
Andrew M. wrote:
This is a much better description of what I meant when I said that my iBook screen “washes out” in side lighting situations. It happens to varying degrees in all bright light, but side lighting makes this phenomenon worse to the point of un-usability.
Well folks, my NuShield anti glare film has arrived. I may have been better off ordering the version designed for outside use as my particular issue is a window directly behind me at work. I will say, though, that I am impressed with the initial result. The colors, particularly black levels, that I feel are so good seem to remain so. There is glare (nothing can totally stop that) but it is definitely much more diffuse and I have no “hard reflections” just bright areas. For $20.00 I am quite pleased. My personal MacBook is one that I do use outdoors and in many more varying light conditions. That fact notwithstanding, I don’t know that I will order the shield for that machine. True, the glare is sometimes worse on that screen, but it is also often nearly nonexistent. The MacBook here at the office is always facing the window, though so this was a very beneficial move.
No, this won’t make a perfect photo editing screen out of your glass macbook screen, but only good calibration and controlled lighting can do that.
Cheers!