Gloss or matte ? I feel I'm turning...

[Paul Shields]

I've always preferred matte when it comes to LCDs, but a recent situation has made me look again. I had a problem with my company laptop (IBM/Lenovo Z61m) where the screen basically died. I couldn't get it replaced due to it being just outside of warranty, so I put my hand in my pocket and bought a replacement panel that I installed myself. Unfortunately (or so it seemed) only the high gloss panels were available, but as I don't use this laptop for any image work I thought what the hell.

The strange thing is - I really like this high gloss look . The blacks are 100% black (or rather 0%, for the geeks amongst us) and everything looks so much nicer.

Anyone using a high gloss screen for photo editing? As an iMac user it seems we have no choice now, but having used this high gloss laptop for a while I'm not sure if it's as bad as people say it is?

[brian.austin]

I've seen the same differences in quality that you're seeing, Paul.

The only issue I have with high gloss screens is the reflections. In a darker, controlled environment, I love them. On the road, though, it can make things difficult to see.

[Songman45]

Isn't it odd how things run in cycles? TVs used to have glass screens then came the non-glare, sort of matte screen. The same changes happened with computer monitors. CRTs were glass gloss then improved to non-glare matte. Now laptops seem to be reversing the trend. Back to glossy and call it "bright vue". I was just getting used to a matte monitor when I bought a new laptop and noticed all the models on display had high gloss screens. Its all good except for the reflections.

[JDArt]

Gloss is good for watching movies. But I don't watch movies on a laptop, thank goodness.

IMO, gloss sucks.

[Paul Shields]

Originally Posted by JDArt

Gloss is good for watching movies. But I don't watch movies on a laptop, thank goodness.

IMO, gloss sucks.

Movie watching on a laptop is cool .

I'm sitting here right now looking at a 20" iMac screen (matte) and my 15.4" laptop screen (glossy). Both of them are at 1680x1050 and I can honestly say the glossy laptop, despite being quite a bit smaller, is much nicer to use when reading small text, is perceptibly more detailed and shows amazingly deep black and white whites. No doubt my colours would be all over the place if I printed from it, but from a purely pleasing to look at point of view my opinion has changed somewhat.

[Malakor]

Reflections aside, gloss is the way to go - better contrast and deeper colours. The more expensive Sony notebooks have an outstanding screen, but at a price.