The glossy ones are a lot of hype with very little substance.
What surprises me in this sentence is that glossiness is even marketed as a feature? I reckon it's been a while since I last shopped for a monitor or a laptop, but this leaves me perplexed. What are the supposed benefits?
The only explanation I can find is that it's a matter of fashion, started by OS X GUI theme and continued by Vista?
Glossiness increases the contrast between lights and darks so that movies and other things look crisper. You find it mostly on media-centered systems. On a lot of laptops it is either the only option or available for about $25 more.
I don't think OSX and Vista have too much to do with it. My brother's Macbook doesn't have a glossy screen and I'm not sure they even offer it. I'm not sure about the other models though. Vista is only software, since MSFT doesn't make the hardware on PCs, so I don't see how that contributes to glossy screens.
The reason I would give for it is that it is a way to add a feature to a product that differentiates it from other products. It doesn't matter that the glossy screens have enough negative effects to counter the 1 advantage. Company A came out with it to sell more computers, so companies B, C, and D all had to develop their own version to compete. Consumers can be silly that way. I was.
I think Apple might have a different process for making their screens, because my brother's macbook doesn't look reflective at all. They probably just do a better job with their glossy screens.
In the controlled lighting of a store, glossy screens look awesome. Especially for watching movies and things like that. I wasn't with my wife when she got a replacement laptop for one that crapped out under a Best Buy warranty, and she totally fell in love with a laptop with a glossy screen. Until she got it home. She always uses it near a window (except when she goes outside to sit on the front steps to use it, which is worse), and it's way harder to see. Oops. Live and learn.
Colors are more vibrant, they have better contrast in glossy screens. It's kind of like simulating better dynamic range by making the extremes bigger when there isn't any.
From what I understand, the matte screen is a glossy screen before it's coated with an anti-reflective material. Supposedly, some consumers saw "unfinished" displays at a computer show and liked them, and manufacturers noticed that customers were more apt to purchase shiny laptops. Given the difference in reflectivity between such displays in different laptops, I deduce that glossy screens do have some anti-reflective coating, just not as much as matte.
What surprises me in this sentence is that glossiness is even marketed as a feature? I reckon it's been a while since I last shopped for a monitor or a laptop, but this leaves me perplexed. What are the supposed benefits?
The only explanation I can find is that it's a matter of fashion, started by OS X GUI theme and continued by Vista?