The new MacBook's glossy screen

I haven't had the opportunity to see it for myself but it seems that the glossy screen choice for the new MacBooks may not have been the best. The minute I saw the specs for the new MacBooks I thought about how painful it is to work outside with a laptop with glass display (yes, I used to have one and it sucks).


The general opinion of Mac users (around 44%) is that a matte display would be more suitable.

For example, here's the opinion of a photographer that does a lot of work outside: "As a pro photographer the glossy screen only option will keep me at my current MBP for a long time. I know Steve replied that at the new light levels output by the LED screen are so bright that you won't see a reflection. I do critical work on location and a hardware calibrated screen requires a light level setting of about half the maximum brightest level and at that level the glossy screen is a reflective non-start for me"

So basically, to avoid any reflections you have to set the brightness level of the display to its maximum. But then the battery will drain itself quite faster.

And the funniest part is that in some countries (like Finland and Sweden) such computers with glass displays that have a lot of reflections do not comply with Health and Safety at Work regulations: "The screen must be free of reflections that can cause mixing and inconvenience to the user."

I guess with all this talk about how the new displays may be unsuitable to most Apple users, Steve Jobs will make a shift to (or at least introduce a new option of) matte displays. Let's hope...

Source: Gearlog