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.
The glossy era macbooks otoh have been a disaster in comparison imo. Unless your room is pitch black it is so easy to get external reflections. Using it outside sucks, you often see yourself more clearly than the actual contents on the screen. Little piece of dust on the screen you flick off becomes a fingerprint smear. The actual opening of the lid on the new thin bezel models means the top edge is never free of fingerprints. I'm inside right now and this M3 pro is on max brightness setting just to make it you know, usable, inside. I'm not sure if my screen is actually defectively dim or this is just how it is. Outside it is just barely bright enough to make out the screen. Really not much better than my old 2012 non retina model in terms of outdoor viewing which is a bit of a disappointment because the marketing material lead me to believe these new macbooks are extremely bright. I guess for HDR content maybe that is true but not for 99% of use cases.
However, I'm typing this on my Dell monitor which only does 60 Hz. It honestly doesn't bother me at all. Sure, when I scroll long pages I see the difference: the text isn't legible. But, in practice, I never read moving text.
However, one thing on which I can't go back is resolution. A 32" 4k screen is the minimum for me. I was thinking about getting a wider screen, but they usually have less vertical resolution than my current one. A 14" MBP is much more comfortable when looking at text all day then my 14" HP with FHD screen. And it's not just because the colors and contrast are better, it's because the text is sharper.