New Latitude and Precision's

Some of the Dells in the last generation used better panels than the MBP (M6400/Elitebook 8730w > MBP 17/Lenovo W700), but Dell has many panel vendors, so it can be a lottery to get a good panel.

 

MacBook Pro has a glossy screen. A black and white matte screen beats a mac book pro screen. ok FINE I am exagerating, but here is why:
Once you experience matte screens, and compare with others who has glossy screens, you will LOVE your screen.

- You don't see your reflection, so you can focus on what you do and not get detracted.

- You can use your laptop under any light layout.. outside or in.. even with the sun behind you. Glossy screen you cannot, especially NOT go outside. A problem that plagues iPad's as those few who got it, can't use it outside. Hence why you see all the Apple ads, showing the iPad used inside. If you want to go anywhere and get a prefer view of your glossy screen, without any reflection or anything, you need this:


- Because you don't have reflection like a mirror, you don't need to go full brightness on the screen, to see it. So you get to save a lot of battery life in a day to day usage.

Those above, alone, should make the screen better than a Mac Book Pro.

In terms of color vividness, sharpness, color accuracy, sgogeta4 is correct.

 

Though, it appears that it doesn't bother people as much as us since the majority of laptops are glossy...

 

Yes it does... they simply don't know the advantage of a matte screen. Most people (average computer user), wants one thing... pay the least amount of money for a computer. When you go to store, and all the screens are glossy, people think that this is the screen, that is it.. they must live with it.

Same thing about the fact that all store displays are TN panels, which means they have poor view angle, and only 6-bit colors. To reproduce the missing colors to reach 8-bit. The display takes 2 close colors that it can reproduce, and switch between them really really fast (2ms response time), and hope that you will notice.

As soon as you experience a IPS or PVA panels which are 8-bit, non-glossy, people go WOW on it. Like my computer monitor, when I got it, everyone told me I was an idiot for purchasing such an expensive (500$ on special) 24inch screen (Dell U2410), while you can get any monitor for 200$. Well I got it, and now everyone, even friends wants one... reaaaaallly wants one. Of course, what blocks them is the price. And that, is the problem. Matte screens are more expensive (even the TN panels), as it require better monitor LCD liquid, better panel, better panel. This is the case, as the screen needs to compensate for the light distortion cause my matte screen film. While it's not too complicated for desktop LCD.. for laptops... it can't consume more power, and needs to be thin.... This increases the laptop/monitor price, and looks pale in stores shelf. It's a double lose for screen and laptop manufactures. So no companies sells them in store.

However, they do know that professionals really do love them. And this is why all professionals aimed displays, are all matte.

At school, I have friends that all have glossy screen because they purchased their system in store. When they saw my laptop, and notice that I can stay in low brightness and perfectly see my screen, and notice that can I sit anywhere, even when a teh sun light is behind me in a room. They are like "I'll never purchase a flossy screen ever again...", and when they notice that matte screens are only found in expensive, professional aimed laptops, they are like "damn it's expensive". Well that is the price to pay. You always get what you paid for.

 

So when is the Precision M2410 going to come out?

 

Uhhhh.... the MBP 15" has the non glossy option now ... so this is a non-issue. I would get the matte hi-res screen on the MBP if I got one

 

yes but it still overheats like no tomorrow when you do barely something with the laptop. Faulty design.
Macbook Pro helps Core i7 hit 100 Degrees - News - PC Authority

Like all issues with Apple product,they says it's normal. Apple has a very hard time admitting problems with their products.

 

The biggest reasons glossy screens gained a foothold are:

1) the blacks are significantly darker and there is higher attainable contrast ratios on glossy screens. If you get a matte screen panel to attain a set contrast, you can beat it by going glossy on the front. Same with glossy prints. I hate glossy prints but the contrast, blacks, and color saturation are definitely better. By a wide margin.

2) People like shiny things. For better or worse people like shiny things over non-shiny things. Would you buy a matte finished car over shiny clear-coat?

3) *most* people don't use their displays outside. Yes, business users in large cubicled offices are going to suffer. But on the consumer side it isn't usually that big a deal. Not saying it isn't ever a big deal, but most adjust just fine.

Don't get me wrong, I generally prefer matte screens too, just as I prefer semi-gloss and matte prints. But I also LOVE the image quality of the glossy stuff and cant deny how it looks.

It may cost more to compensate for matte's flaws but I don't think that's a fair comparison, the base cost of materials is probably pretty close (spec for spec). And just because they charge more for some of them does not mean they actually cost more to produce (barring mfg cost differences related only to smaller production volume). The Apple 30" Cinema Display, a wonderful looking monitor, is glossy and insanely expensive for what it is. As is Apple's 24".

Now what I would like to see is if they could take a "glossy" screen and apply anti-reflective coatings to them, similar to on one's eyeglasses or other optics. This is much different than matte as it's much higher quality and not as much specular smearing like with matte finishes. My assumption is this would be rather difficult and prohibitively expensive but I don't know the technical side to make an informed statement on it.

 

That is because the monitor that you are looking at doesn't perform the compensation. Have a look at the U2410 or the U2711 from Dell or if you can find one, real high end monitors for professional/medical centers, from brands like EIZO. The contrast ratio is even better, and can provide 100% or more Adobe RGB and 98%-100% sRGB or even better depending on how much you can afford a high-end monitor.

Like I said.. it costs more to compensate, and as people want to pay the lowest price possible as they don't understand the concept of "you get what you paid for", putting glossy screen was a big plus for them, as it cost much less for manufactures to make.

It has nothing to do with outside car color. Would you buy a car where the dashboard, radio and all the other equipment with their knobs and button in chrome color, with the steering wheel, and the chair is also shinny?
No? But most people drive when you don't have much sun (early in the morning or at night after work). What is the problem? Ah yes, maybe because you can't focus on the road!

You are excluding engineering cost. Think about this. How many engineers is takes to make a product? It's usually 500-1000+ depending on the product. A hardware such as a GPU, is between 1000-1500 engineer. Engineers are paid about 100 000$ US per year, and close to that for programmers/software engineers/computer science. Plus add testing, manual, marketing, prototype, assembly machine reconfiguration or even the requirement to make a new one for a particular product (this usually costs a few million dollars). A product can take 2-3 years to make or maybe 1 year to make an upgrade version of another one...

This is A LOT of money. So yes, a monitor might cost 50$ to manufacture... but you have the rest to pay... and that 100$ easily becomes 300-400$, Plus the business needs to make a profit. Well the prices mentioned is just for some assuming technology product what ever it could be.

You can actually. CRT's (the monitors with the tubes on the back, for those who don't know) had that for quiet some time. So long in fact, that glossy CRT's was not found. The problem is, to do this you need to use glass. Glass is heavy, can shatter (unless treated), and more expensive. Lenses on glasses are fine, because they are very small.. a glass sheet, perfectly straight 24inch.. is expensive.. remember I am talking about treated glasses to be anti-reflective, and shatter proof, without being very easy to scratch, but not scratch proof. A property that old CRT's had. But you windows of your home, doesn't.

 

I had always assumed that a matte screen was a glossy screen with a coating on the front. Am I wrong?

As already noted, the coating degrades the image quality slightly. Until a few years ago all the notebook screens were matte to improve legibility under all conditions but manufacturers then realised that they could save themselves a little money by stressing the advantages of a glossy screen.

John