7 ms·

Why does a "developer edition" notebook come with a glossy screen? I sort of understand why computer makers like glossy screens: because they just look better

by gioele 8y ago

Why does a "developer edition" notebook come with a glossy screen? I sort of understand why computer makers like glossy screens: because they just look better to the causal shopper. OK. But in a laptop that is aimed at professionals? People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better. I'm often on the train and I do not envy the poor souls that work on an enterprise-bought laptop with a glossy screen and that have to swing their heads the whole time to avoid reflections from the train window. BTW, a thorough (p)review of the 9380: https://www.ultrabookreview.com/24336-dell-xps-13-9380/ https://www.ultrabookreview.com/24336-dell-xps-13-9380/

eropple 8y ago
I used to have this reaction, but these days I go between matte and gloss screens without really noticing. Apple's got the best one, and a backlight on the ones I've got doesn't bother me at all. Dell's are also okay (though there are other reasons I don't like the XPS line).
coldtea 8y ago
>Why does a "developer edition" notebook come with a glossy screen? Because developers like sharp text (as opposed to smudged due to the diffusion filter) and better color and saturation too. Not all of us work under back lights we cannot avoid... I mean, it might be a personal preference, but it's not like some objective law that developer === matte screen (like eg. 3D artist === discreet GPU).
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Well, this is an ultra-portable, not a workstation screen in a darkened studio. Color saturation might matter for developers at a vfx house, the vast majority are looking at text. A matte screen should be default for this one.
sliken 8y ago
I can somewhat understand glossy on a desktop display where you at least have a decent chance of some control over the lighting. However on a laptop it seems silly. Last thing I want to see in my new expensive screen is my ugly mug reflected back at me.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Most laptops are sitting in either desktops or places like airports coffee shops. In all three places you can move it easily (and it being a laptop makes moving it even easier). Hundreds of thousands of developers have MBPr's which are glossy only.
  - mbrumlow 8y ago
    > Hundreds of thousands of developers have MBPr's which are glossy only. The number of people doing something does not strengthen your argument. Even more so given that Apple does not offer matte displays.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >The number of people doing something does not strengthen your argument. Actually it very much does, it just depends on the nature of the argument. Here it's very relevant. It's not silly to put a glossy screen on a laptop if tons of people buy it -- and even prefer it.
      - mbrumlow 8y ago
        You can only develop IOS apps on Apple products, apple does not offer a matte display. The argument only holds true if Apple offered a matte display and developers still chose glossy. No for sure there are people who want MacOS -- but again those people don't have a choice if they want a Apple they get gloss. So the argument does not hold. People buy apple despite glossy screens, not because of glossy screens.
        coldtea 8y ago
        >You can only develop IOS apps on Apple products, apple does not offer a matte display. The argument only holds true if Apple offered a matte display and developers still chose glossy. Or if the iOS thing is a red herring, and tons of developers still buy Apple products regardless. I'm not an iOS/macOS developer and still use Apple products (and just about everybody else in my company). And in most dev conferences for totally unrelated stuff (Golang, Rust, Java, etc.) the number of MBP yielding devs is 50% or most (and most of the speakers even more so).
LeoPanthera 8y ago
The matte finish has horrible optical qualities, causing ambient light to scatter ("antiglare") washing out colors, and also causing light from individual pixels to scatter and refract back into neighboring pixels. This reduces the quality of displayed images, and in high density LCD displays it causes pixel-fine details (small text) to appear smeary. By contrast, well-designed glossy displays minimize internal refraction and also cause light at high angles to reflect, reducing the amount of ambient light which pollutes the display. The result is that the display appears much brighter in any setting, black are blacker and do not get washed out by brights. Colors show higher dynamic range, and small details are crisper. In addition, well-designed glass glossy displays (such as those on the MacBook Pro) are actually visible and easy to use outdoors in full daylight. Even when reflections show up on glass displays, it's easy to see past them because they're full optical reflections with correct depth in stereo vision, meaning that you can correctly focus on the screen without focusing on the reflection. Glossy displays are bad under basically two conditions: * They are warped plastic, such as on older Dell laptops, causing weird shiny glossy glare at all angles that cannot be ignored. * You have positioned your screen so that there is a small but very very bright reflection behind you, and cannot tilt your display.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  You say all that -- regardless how superior your glossy screen is on paper; I, and many others still prefer to look at matte screens and have far less problems with them in real world situations.
  - appleiigs 8y ago
    I downvoted you. He’s stating facts/info and answering a question. He’s not telling you what you should prefer. Unnecessarily argumentative.
    - mbrumlow 8y ago
      The problem is some times things look good on paper, but those good attributes don't translate into user satisfaction.
TomVDB 8y ago
I like glossy screens much more than matte, even though I use my laptop almost exclusively for development. I just love how good it looks. That makes it better for me. Suggesting that people who like glossy screens are unsophisticated is just unwarranted gatekeeping.
baybal2 8y ago
> Why does a "developer edition" notebook come with a glossy screen? Not all glossy screens are bad, just the ones released relatively recently are. Sony was making near perfect high end LCDs with glossy screen, glass surface, AND real AR coating. In comparison, later design panels simply had glossy polycarbonate with poor still poor surface finish. Laminated and "one glass" screen also do come in varying quality levels. One glass screens with AR coatings are very, very good, but ones with poor lamination, and mismatched refraction indexes are horrid.
rifung 8y ago
> But in a laptop that is aimed at professionals? People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better. Way to stereotype..? I guess I am not sophisticated enough because I prefer a glossy screen. > I'm often on the train and I do not envy the poor souls that work on an enterprise-bought laptop with a glossy screen and that have to swing their heads the whole time to avoid reflections from the train window. We unsophisticated commoners work from desks and where I don't seem to have this problem.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  > work from desks and where I don't seem to have this problem. Depends where you work and if you have control over the lighting. I used to have a horrible time with overhead fluorescent tubes, glare and flickering. To the point where I'd have to climb up and disable them. Thankfully they've gone out of style.
h3throw 8y ago
> People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better. I always enjoy it when someone arrogantly poses a subjective statement as fact from a position of arbitrary authority. I like it especially so when there are a plethora of reasons against their position as in this case.
- TomVDB 8y ago
  You’re obvious not sophisticated enough. /s
robocat 8y ago
Touch-screen models are glossy. Non-touch-screen models are matte. At least that was the case for my XPS 15, and I was told it is a fairly general rule that touch screen laptops are glossy.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Last year they didn't offer a high-res version without touch.
mikestew 8y ago
People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better. "The group I'm conveniently in is more sophisticated." Mmm, hmm. Matte screens suck because everything is blurry and smeared. I mean, if your work/life balance is out of whack and you have to work in moving vehicles, I could see the need. But professionals that work someplace other than sweatshops prefer glossy screens with sharp pixels.
- feanaro 8y ago
  Please don't counter an elitist argument with an elitist argument.
  - mikestew 8y ago
    What, irony is no longer allowed on HN? Lighten up, Francis.
    - feanaro 8y ago
      Irony is famously hard to communicate reliably over the internet. If I've misjudged your comment, and it appears I have, I apologise.
pc86 8y ago
I've been looking at a screen for probably 8-9 hours a day on average since I graduated college 11 years ago and I can honestly say I've never once thought about glossy v. matte screens.
- jcadam 8y ago
  Glossy vs. matte LCDs? Pfft, I remember what it was like staring at a fuzzy CRT all day.
  - beanjammin 8y ago
    Green or amber?
    - jcadam 8y ago
      green
NightlyDev 8y ago
You can pick the matte one if that's what you want. I agree that glossy screens are very annoying.
ClassyJacket 8y ago
"People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better." A matte screen isn't just better. You get that weird prism-like diffraction of light, that turns a white pixel into coloured dots. Personally I much prefer to maybe have to move my machine occasionally to avoid a reflection than to have that weird fuzziness. For a laptop screen, anyway.

by gioele 8y ago

eropple 8y ago

I used to have this reaction, but these days I go between matte and gloss screens without really noticing. Apple's got the best one, and a backlight on the ones I've got doesn't bother me at all. Dell's are also okay (though there are other reasons I don't like the XPS line).

coldtea 8y ago

>Why does a "developer edition" notebook come with a glossy screen? Because developers like sharp text (as opposed to smudged due to the diffusion filter) and better color and saturation too. Not all of us work under back lights we cannot avoid... I mean, it might be a personal preference, but it's not like some objective law that developer === matte screen (like eg. 3D artist === discreet GPU).

mixmastamyk 8y ago
Well, this is an ultra-portable, not a workstation screen in a darkened studio. Color saturation might matter for developers at a vfx house, the vast majority are looking at text. A matte screen should be default for this one.

sliken 8y ago

I can somewhat understand glossy on a desktop display where you at least have a decent chance of some control over the lighting. However on a laptop it seems silly. Last thing I want to see in my new expensive screen is my ugly mug reflected back at me.

coldtea 8y ago
Most laptops are sitting in either desktops or places like airports coffee shops. In all three places you can move it easily (and it being a laptop makes moving it even easier). Hundreds of thousands of developers have MBPr's which are glossy only.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  > Hundreds of thousands of developers have MBPr's which are glossy only. The number of people doing something does not strengthen your argument. Even more so given that Apple does not offer matte displays.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >The number of people doing something does not strengthen your argument. Actually it very much does, it just depends on the nature of the argument. Here it's very relevant. It's not silly to put a glossy screen on a laptop if tons of people buy it -- and even prefer it.
    - mbrumlow 8y ago
      You can only develop IOS apps on Apple products, apple does not offer a matte display. The argument only holds true if Apple offered a matte display and developers still chose glossy. No for sure there are people who want MacOS -- but again those people don't have a choice if they want a Apple they get gloss. So the argument does not hold. People buy apple despite glossy screens, not because of glossy screens.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >You can only develop IOS apps on Apple products, apple does not offer a matte display. The argument only holds true if Apple offered a matte display and developers still chose glossy. Or if the iOS thing is a red herring, and tons of developers still buy Apple products regardless. I'm not an iOS/macOS developer and still use Apple products (and just about everybody else in my company). And in most dev conferences for totally unrelated stuff (Golang, Rust, Java, etc.) the number of MBP yielding devs is 50% or most (and most of the speakers even more so).

LeoPanthera 8y ago

The matte finish has horrible optical qualities, causing ambient light to scatter ("antiglare") washing out colors, and also causing light from individual pixels to scatter and refract back into neighboring pixels. This reduces the quality of displayed images, and in high density LCD displays it causes pixel-fine details (small text) to appear smeary. By contrast, well-designed glossy displays minimize internal refraction and also cause light at high angles to reflect, reducing the amount of ambient light which pollutes the display. The result is that the display appears much brighter in any setting, black are blacker and do not get washed out by brights. Colors show higher dynamic range, and small details are crisper. In addition, well-designed glass glossy displays (such as those on the MacBook Pro) are actually visible and easy to use outdoors in full daylight. Even when reflections show up on glass displays, it's easy to see past them because they're full optical reflections with correct depth in stereo vision, meaning that you can correctly focus on the screen without focusing on the reflection. Glossy displays are bad under basically two conditions: * They are warped plastic, such as on older Dell laptops, causing weird shiny glossy glare at all angles that cannot be ignored. * You have positioned your screen so that there is a small but very very bright reflection behind you, and cannot tilt your display.

mbrumlow 8y ago
You say all that -- regardless how superior your glossy screen is on paper; I, and many others still prefer to look at matte screens and have far less problems with them in real world situations.
- appleiigs 8y ago
  I downvoted you. He’s stating facts/info and answering a question. He’s not telling you what you should prefer. Unnecessarily argumentative.
  - mbrumlow 8y ago
    The problem is some times things look good on paper, but those good attributes don't translate into user satisfaction.

TomVDB 8y ago

I like glossy screens much more than matte, even though I use my laptop almost exclusively for development. I just love how good it looks. That makes it better for me. Suggesting that people who like glossy screens are unsophisticated is just unwarranted gatekeeping.

baybal2 8y ago

> Why does a "developer edition" notebook come with a glossy screen? Not all glossy screens are bad, just the ones released relatively recently are. Sony was making near perfect high end LCDs with glossy screen, glass surface, AND real AR coating. In comparison, later design panels simply had glossy polycarbonate with poor still poor surface finish. Laminated and "one glass" screen also do come in varying quality levels. One glass screens with AR coatings are very, very good, but ones with poor lamination, and mismatched refraction indexes are horrid.

rifung 8y ago

> But in a laptop that is aimed at professionals? People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better. Way to stereotype..? I guess I am not sophisticated enough because I prefer a glossy screen. > I'm often on the train and I do not envy the poor souls that work on an enterprise-bought laptop with a glossy screen and that have to swing their heads the whole time to avoid reflections from the train window. We unsophisticated commoners work from desks and where I don't seem to have this problem.

mixmastamyk 8y ago
> work from desks and where I don't seem to have this problem. Depends where you work and if you have control over the lighting. I used to have a horrible time with overhead fluorescent tubes, glare and flickering. To the point where I'd have to climb up and disable them. Thankfully they've gone out of style.

h3throw 8y ago

> People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better. I always enjoy it when someone arrogantly poses a subjective statement as fact from a position of arbitrary authority. I like it especially so when there are a plethora of reasons against their position as in this case.

TomVDB 8y ago
You’re obvious not sophisticated enough. /s

robocat 8y ago

Touch-screen models are glossy. Non-touch-screen models are matte. At least that was the case for my XPS 15, and I was told it is a fairly general rule that touch screen laptops are glossy.

mixmastamyk 8y ago
Last year they didn't offer a high-res version without touch.

mikestew 8y ago

People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better. "The group I'm conveniently in is more sophisticated." Mmm, hmm. Matte screens suck because everything is blurry and smeared. I mean, if your work/life balance is out of whack and you have to work in moving vehicles, I could see the need. But professionals that work someplace other than sweatshops prefer glossy screens with sharp pixels.

feanaro 8y ago
Please don't counter an elitist argument with an elitist argument.
- mikestew 8y ago
  What, irony is no longer allowed on HN? Lighten up, Francis.
  - feanaro 8y ago
    Irony is famously hard to communicate reliably over the internet. If I've misjudged your comment, and it appears I have, I apologise.

pc86 8y ago

I've been looking at a screen for probably 8-9 hours a day on average since I graduated college 11 years ago and I can honestly say I've never once thought about glossy v. matte screens.

jcadam 8y ago
Glossy vs. matte LCDs? Pfft, I remember what it was like staring at a fuzzy CRT all day.
- beanjammin 8y ago
  Green or amber?
  - jcadam 8y ago
    green

NightlyDev 8y ago

You can pick the matte one if that's what you want. I agree that glossy screens are very annoying.

ClassyJacket 8y ago

"People that stare at the screen all day long are sophisticated enough to know that a matte screen is just better." A matte screen isn't just better. You get that weird prism-like diffraction of light, that turns a white pixel into coloured dots. Personally I much prefer to maybe have to move my machine occasionally to avoid a reflection than to have that weird fuzziness. For a laptop screen, anyway.