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My Impressions of the MacBook Pro M4

(michael.stapelberg.ch)
240 points secure | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.217s | source
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rottencupcakes ◴[] No.45775475[source]
It's classic Apple to spend over a decade insisting that that glossy screens were the best option, and then to eventually roll out a matte screen as a "premium" feature with a bunch of marketing around it.
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LeoPanthera ◴[] No.45775641[source]
Historically, traditional matte screen finishes exhibited poor optical qualities by scattering ambient light, which tended to wash out colors. This scattering process also affected the light from individual pixels, causing it to refract into neighboring pixels.

This reduced overall image quality and caused pixel-fine details, such as small text, to appear smeary on high-density LCDs. In contrast, well-designed glossy displays provide a superior visual experience by minimizing internal refraction and reflecting ambient light at high angles, which reduces display pollution. Consequently, glossy screens often appear much brighter, blacks appear blacker without being washed out, colors show a higher dynamic range, and small details remain crisper. High-quality glass glossy displays are often easy to use even in full daylight, and reflections are manageable because they are full optical reflections with correct depth, allowing the user to focus on the screen content.

Apple's "nano texture" matte screens were engineered to solve the specific optical problems of traditional matte finishes, the washed-out colors and smeary details. But they cost more to make. The glossy option is still available, and still good.

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1. kakacik ◴[] No.45775837[source]
Somebody drank its portion of cool aid for sure. There is that little detail that glossy screens needed absolutely perfect conditions in front of them to not reflect literally whole world, making resulting visuals often subpar to matte. I have never, ever been in work conditions in past 20 years that didn't manifest this in annoying and distracting way.

I haven't seen a single display that ever overcame that properly for long term work. Sure, phones use it but they increased luminosity to absurd level to be readable, not a solution I prefer for daily long work.

I admit there are corner cases of pro graphics where it made sense (with corresponding changes to environment) but I am not discussing this here.