> This guy really thought this and this are equally sharp.

Hello? That's the whole point? You are the one banging on about "perceived" things - here is Notebookcheck, telling you that despite how the subpixel array looks, the image is not grainy. But that's not convenient for your argument, is it?

> DESPITE THE MATTE COATING

So? People love sticking to established lingo even if it's wrong.

> And yet, you haven't managed to produce one matte screen that can match the sharpness of glossy panels, let alone exceed them in sharpness.

I did, but you ignored it because it's inconvenient.

> So does the Macbook Air, so I guess matte doesn't do shit regarding reflections?

LOL no it doesn't. This is how it looks outdoors. Half the screens is obscured with the reflection. And here is the Acer - not a hint of glare.

> Lol, that's why the Eve 4k with glossy was more sharp than the one with matte?

But... it isn't.

> By your logic setting the colorimeter 5 feet away from the display will give the exact same readings. Some "facts".

... how did you come to this conclusion?

> And who exactly is claiming that? Making up arguments because no real ones available?

Can link you dozens of threads on reddit where people keep droning on about this. Here is the latest one.

> You: All panels are matte by default!!! Glossy is just layer over matte!!!

So we've established from the article that it's a spectrum rather than binary. I explicitly mentioned that the "stripped" panel without the outer layer isn't the same as an all-out glossy panel with a glass layer, and that it falls somewhere in between. My argument still stands: to create an actual glossy panel, you need a layer of glass/hard plastic on top. Like MacBooks, smartphones, etc do. If you don't have that, your screen isn't glossy, end of story. It's just somewhere on that spectrum in between - and I've taken apart enough broken LCDs for hobby projects to know that not every one of them looks like this with the top layers stripped.

> EDIT: Oh yeah, weren't you claiming "perception" was snake oil? Got on that train very quick when you found "light matte" is close to glossy in that regard lol.

Except that's not "perception", that's literally a material with different qualities used and the article you linked states so.

> The laptops I listed all have much higher quality screen materials than laptops costing at least twice as much?

Again. Subpixel array photos do not reflect actual graininess. I have never conceded that point, nor will I. You are the only one riding on it here.

Here's what the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G9 review has to say: "Subjectively, the panel offers excellent picture quality because even bright surfaces do not look grainy despite the matte coating." And yet, its subpixel array looks like this. But go on and keep trying to convince me it's connected lol.

> Yes, because it completely counters your absurd claim of "all glossy is just glass over matte".

So now I'm supposed to argue points that go against my own claim and experience? Do you even know how arguments work?

> It is possible to use the screen outdoors, provided that the sun isn't overly bright.

They say that for literally every display that isn't a phone display with 500+ nit brightness. Try someone who doesn't know their lingo inside and out lmao. It's very clear from the photo that the display looks excellent outdoors.

> you can clearly see the graininess at the edges

Of course, it doesn't sit well with you to just admit it's as clear as the ones you've linked, there has to be a defect...

> In the end, glossy panels have more sharpness and perceived vibrancy than matte panels

No, sorry. "Sharpness" is determined only by resolution, and "perceived vibrancy" is snake oil. We have tools that return objective numbers (deltaE, colorspace coverage, brightness, PPI calculators), and anyone who wants to deal in facts will stick with them.

> Just as is common knowledge for literally anyone but you apparently.

The same "literally anyone" who tried to convince me that 1080p at 24" is "totally enough" and there's no point in trying to get a rare 1440p 24" monitor to increase actual sharpness? Yeah, I'll totally listen to those people.

Also, thanks for the article! So many great points to disprove your bullshit:

> Some displays use a very mild matte anti-glare treatment for the screen surface. They have a very low haze value of around 2-7%. This describes the level of diffusion of light by the screen surface, with most matte screen surfaces having a higher haze value of ~25% or above. Such displays can therefore be classified as glossy or ‘close to glossy’ as their light emission and reflection properties most closely align with a glossy surface that has an anti-reflective film.

So I was completely right and there are "in-between" screens.

> Some manufacturers offer a compromise between the two – a surface type that is sometimes dubbed ‘semi-glossy’ or that we’d usually classify as ‘very light’ matte. These surfaces are still matte but are roughened up either a little or a lot less, giving them a smoother appearance and making the diffusion of light weaker.

Yep, definitely seen that. In fact, lots of desktop monitors I've dealt with are like that. Including my current one. But since it doesn't have freaking glass, I never see any reflections at all.

> In the past, some manufacturers (most notably Apple with their earlier ‘LED Cinema Display’ series) chose to forgo any anti-reflective treatment and included highly reflective untreated glass as the outermost surface. This was done largely for aesthetic reasons as there is no advantage of this over a properly treated anti-reflective surface when it comes to image quality.

Whoops... they did use glass, and it was for aesthetic reasons...

> Disadvantages of a Glossy Screen: Potentially increased eyestrain due to difficulty focusing on image through reflections

Hey look, this guy really knows what he's talking about after all! Unlike you.

> It’s important to note that screen surface texture is also important and there are some models that buck the trends for ‘image smoothness’ expected from their haze values. Screen surface is a complex 3D structure with many layers and there’s a lot more to consider beyond a single haze value. Good examples would be some 23.6 – 27″ IPS-type ‘4K’ UHD (3840 x 2160) panels such as those used on the Dell P2415Q or ASUS PG27AQ. These are light matte anti-glare (relatively low haze value), which preserves image vibrancy and clarity, but don’t have a particularly smooth surface texture.

Would you look at that, nuance! Actual understanding that there are different materials utilized with different properties!

My dude, you just dug your own grave.

> How convenient. Almost as if matte causes graininess by its nature, and glossy displays do not have "native matte" surfaces.

Almost as if actual graininess has nothing to do with matte and everything to do with low quality screen materials.

> Also that LG Gram, Zenbook and Vivobook are all 1080p, so that excuse won't fly either.

What excuse?

> Again, I'm waiting for that mythical matte panel with subpixels as clear as almost all the glossy laptop panels.

I never promised to deliver it. All I've ever claimed is that even glossy screens can have a blurry subpixel array on those photos. But sure, here you go: Acer Aspire Vero AV14-51. Definitely a matte screen (see full review). What now?

> it should be even easier to find the matte panels with sharp subpixels, given your claim

Already explained to you why that's not going to happen.

> Except most glossy display notebooks are as sharp.

Sharpness is determined by resolution, not by how individual subpixels look under a microscope. Do your eyes look at individual subpixels? No.

That's not an "excuse". It's an explanation. These photos are always going to look like that because of the physics you yourself mentioned. That doesn't mean that the actual screen will look grainy. Because most don't.

> Ah yes, professional monitors having to come with massive hoods to block out ambient light, studios having to be painted in neutral gray colors to prevent the brain from automatically correcting color casts, and mastering standards specifying bias lighting specifically to enhanced perceived contrast are all snake oil.

No, because all those factors change actual lighting. You know what those professionals also don't like? Reflections. That's why they have those hoods. And a lot of other professionals also just opt for matte screens instead. (Or both.)

> why your "uncoated native matte" is somehow even more blurry (even with your surface pro 9 example lol) than the supposed "gloss is just glass over matte" screens, in literally all cases

Because you are taking pictures of sub-millimeter particles with average equipment through a surface that diffuses light and not through clear glass. That matters for seeing individual subpixels on photos like that - and doesn't for the actual picture, because your eyes are looking at the result of those subpixels combined. If the screen actually appears grainy, that means that its surface is just low quality coarse garbage. And guess what, I've seen that with glossy screens too!

> Fine, it can be plastic as well. Happy? Does that change anything?

Yes. It disproves your false claim that "matte screens have glass on top because polarizer is always made of glass". Though by the end of your comment, you're already back to pretending that's the case. Does that actually work on people? I kinda always assumed it wouldn't.

> That looks like matte to you? Since when do matte displays have razor sharp reflections?

That's not "razor sharp" lol. And we've established that matte screens reflect to some extent as well. I can see myself in my matte screens when they are turned off - they don't behave the same way when turned on.

> If you haven't noticed, display tech has progressed quite a bit since then, and we used laminated displays now.

Which changes... what, exactly? Adds glass to matte displays? Nope.

> And as for peeling off layers, what exactly is up with all the "matte removal" processes available online? Are these companies putting on "natively matte" panels, then putting glossy glass on it, and then again putting a matte coating on it?

I mean... that's exactly what Apple has done, as shown in the video I've linked. Matte panel, then glass on top, then "anti-glare" coating on top of glass (which doesn't work very well but it gives their marketing another buzzword). Yes, they fuse them nowadays instead, but the layers remain the same.

Stripping the top layer from the panel and exposing the fragile inner layer doesn't make it the same as an actual glossy screen. Again, glossy screens have a glass (or hard plastic) on top of the panel (or fused with it), which generates most of the reflections. This exposed inner layer is still semi-soft, easily damaged, and will get absolutely destroyed by cleaning solutions (meanwhile, actual glossy screens can be fully cleaned with a microfiber cloth, especially since the glass allows them to be coated with an oleophobic layer - standard on most phones nowadays). It is not glass. People in the comments on that video even recommend getting a protective film for it, because it will get easily damaged otherwise. Hint: that does not happen with glass.

Yes, it's reflective, congratulations - but that's not at all what a glossy display on my MacBook or my Windows convertible is like. You can clearly feel the glass on them if you touch them. You won't feel it on that stripped display. In fact, the way it looks strongly reminds me of monitors sold in the early 00s when LCDs were still new and people didn't even know terms like "matte" or "glossy". Those monitors scratched extremely easily and their reflectiveness was somewhere in between real matte and real glossy displays and was annoying to both camps. They don't exist anymore nowadays.

> Same colorspace, same brightness, same resolution, same refresh rate. What more do you want?

Official specs that confirm that and not just your word.

> I just used max brightness for the worst case scenario. In most cases even that's not required.

Yes, except I have yet to find these "most cases" with this Macbook whenever any lighting is involved.

> Except I don't have to. I cant just tilt my screen away from light sources to completely eliminate reflections.

> tilt my screen away

> tilt my screen

It took over a decade for TN screens to be finally phased out and humanity breathed a collective sigh of relief once they no longer had to constantly adjust their screens to avoid colour distortion and brightness changes. But not this person! 🤡

> Perceived vibrancy can be wildly different even if the colors measured at the surface of the panel is same.

Oh okay, so we're firmly into snake oil territory now. Instruments say the colours are the same, but "perception" isn't.

The funniest thing is that you are sort of right - except that "perception" has nothing to do with the actual image quality. Why do you think glossy magazines existed? Humans just like flashy, shiny surfaces. They are perceived as expensive and high quality. Which is exactly why almost every shitty low-end laptop has a glossy layer to mask how awful their panels truly are. That's been the go-to tactic throughout the entire era of 150 nit TN panels being standard on laptops.

> So the sensors are inside the display as well. No problem in making them matte now, given the "extra glass" layer is unnecessary, right?

Except that you forgot that touchscreens are meant to be touched. You know, swiping gestures and all that. Glass makes that easy and pleasant. Cheap plastic or, worse, those tacky "matte" screen protectors? Horrible, your fingers literally stop in their tracks.

> I said the screens are already topped with glass or plastic even for matte, and you literally proved it for me with your videos

Incorrect. Nothing I linked "proves" that matte screens are topped with glass. And plastic film ≠ hard plastic layer (which is what's found on cheapest glossy displays).

> And yet it has literally never come up once anywhere, outside of matte vs glossy arguments for monitors. Even people clamoring for small phones massively outnumber any such people.

Really? Never came up? You must be quite young. The generation that grew up using resistive matte PDA touchscreens complains about it to this day.

> The panel manufacturing process is the same, they aren't going to spin up a whole other pipeline for glossy polarizing layers.

• That comparison video you've originally linked allegedly has exactly the same panels but with a "different finish" (let's roll with that for the sake of the argument). So either they're actually different panels, unlike what you claim, or... changing the "finish" type isn't that difficult after all. You know, like sticking a glass layer on top.
• If there's so much demand for glossy screens, why are they still running the matte pipeline at all?
• We've already established that the polarizing layer isn't glossy or matte. But anyway, according to you, matte surface is created by sticking an additional layer on top of glass. So... every display is originally glossy anyway, and it should be incredibly easy to convert it to matte.

Doesn't track.

> Are you seriously claiming that glass can't be matte? Are you just trolling at this point?

Yes, glass can be matte, and if grandma had wheels, she'd have been a wagon. It doesn't matter how many layers of "anti glare" you coat it with - it's still glass, it generates reflections. The only way for a panel to not be glossy is to not utilize glass at all.

> Yep, you're trolling.

Trolling so much that I've paid extra and ordered my previous laptop from a different country back in 2011 just to make sure I get a matte version because the local SKUs of that model only had glossy. All to troll one random on the internet a decade later. All my clients that specifically demanded a matte screen for their home and office setups I've built for them were trolling, too. It's a conspiracy against you! Not a wide preference for several objective reasons, not at all.

> No one with working eyes thinks this and this are the same.

Here is the Surface Pro 9 subpixel grid. What's wrong? Why is it like that? It's glossy! It's supposed to be crystal clear!

> Also "avid readers" of Notebookcheck would very much know they always point out the "graininess" of matte displays vs glossy ones, but it's already confirmed you're just trolling.

Yes, they also call it a "screen-door effect". Not having a lowest bidder display helps: my monitor definitely doesn't have that. But I've certainly seen ones that do. That doesn't mean this graininess is inherent to matte screens.

> ...what do you think the outer polarizing layer is made out of?

Film. Here, watch a video that shows it coming off. That's some flexible glass...

And here is another video showing an iMac's glass being removed. What's underneath? That's right, a matte panel...

> You see discrepancies between LG panels and Samsung panels, not one Samsung panel vs another Samsung panel.

So first of all, even the panels of the same model have discrepancies - that's why calibration exists. (Another thing you'll see Notebookcheck point out regularly, if you pay attention.) Second, Samsung or LG make dozens, if not hundreds, of different panel models - and the same monitor can use different panels from the same manufacturer whose model number differs only by one letter yet means a considerable difference in specs. I'll ask you again: is there any data that shows that both of these monitors use the exact same panels? (Impossibly by definition, by the way, because one is glossy and another matte, but let's at least compare their stated specifications.)

> Yes, in an office scenario. I like to consume media on my devices, and I do that in comfort of my home, not office, where I do have control over placement of lighting.

Cool beans, I do too. And I don't want to switch off my ceiling light just so my screen is legible lmao.

> Provable false. What counts as "decent screen"? 500$? 1000$? 6000$? All of them will wash out the display, that's literally how matte works.

IPS, high contrast, above 90% sRGB coverage, low deltaE values. Again: I have yet to see this "washing out".

> Then I guess you should stop sitting out in direct sun, it will damage your panel either way.

... lol?

> Macbooks at max brightness are nowhere that reflective in office lighting.

Yeah, because they use an additional anti-glare coating which tends to warp with age - remember Staingate? And I don't want to have to use maximum brightness, that depletes battery faster. Again something you should know from Notebookcheck.

> Apple laptops were only one class I mentioned, where are the excuses for the others?

CAPACITIVE TOUCHSCREEN. For fuck's sake! I love how you conveniently ignored the Wikipedia tidbit I linked. And yes, plenty of people have wanted a matte smartphone for years, because you DO use those outside a lot, and until manufacturers like Samsung and Apple started sticking ridiculous 500+ nit displays (that you can't even set to max brightness manually for numerous reasons - they only go that high via ambient light sensor) on their phones to cope with that, using a smartphone in the sun was a pain. Again something you should know from Notebookcheck. Or, you know, just common sense.

> And Apple does make a matte version of their expensive monitor, so it's obviously not limited to "glass looks fancy".

"Every Pro Display XDR screen is engineered for extremely low reflectivity. And if you’re in an especially uncontrolled lighting environment, there’s an innovative matt option with nano‑texture glass."

Oops, so it's still glossy, just less glossy.

> If glass was that unnecessary they wouldn't have put it on in the first place. Of course, that's assuming the ridiculous notion of "panels being natively" matte is true in the first place.

> Because most people use them in offices. That's what drives it.

I guess people also buy gaming monitors for offices?

> Like I said, check the subpixel shots of glossy laptops and matte laptops. That alone should completely destroy the notion of "panels being natively matte and glossy just have glass over them".

Did. What difference am I supposed to be looking at?

> If glass was that unnecessary they wouldn't have put it on in the first place.

And they don't on matte screens.

> All LCDs have an outer polarizing layer. The manufacturer decides whether that layer is coarsened to have a matte finish, or to leave it at that to get a glossy finish. Glossy displays don't have anything "extra" than matte displays do.

Wildly incorrect. You can't tell by simply touching the display that the glossy ones have a layer of glass (or plastic) on top, really?

> Also I don't think you understand that there are only few actual panel manufacturers in the world, so many displays from different manufacturers will indeed have the same panel.

I'm well aware of that. And are you aware of the fact that even the same laptop or monitor can source difference panels with "similar" specs that aren't the same? You claim to read Notebookcheck - they bring up that fact over and over.

> In the case of glossy, I can position my monitor to completely cut out the glaring lights.

Good luck with that when your lights are on the ceiling like they are in most cases - or when you are working outside/next to a window (which is very often the case with a laptop).

> With the matte even if I do that I still end up with a washed out image.

Except it's not washed out if you have a decent screen.

> If matte displays can't be touch sensitive

I literally said they can be. But they have to be resistive, not capacitive. Capacitive tech needs the glass or plastic layer to work. Read up on how it functions. "A capacitive touchscreen panel consists of an insulator, such as glass, coated with a transparent conductor, such as indium tin oxide (ITO)."

> Lenovo

... is an example of when a display actually has matte "coating" on top of the capacitive glass layer.

> Am I hallucinating that my screen protector on my phone right now is matte?

You said it yourself: screen protector. (And those truly make phone displays look like grainy trash.) Get back to me when you build a capacitive display without the glass layer, you will be rich overnight.

> ...so did the matte one.

Uh-huh - except matte screens do it to a much smaller extent and only on dark backgrounds. Glossy ones like on my MacBook do it regardless of background and lighting, and it's extremely tiring on the eyes.

> And yet pretty much no one is claiming for matte displays on Apple laptops, smartphones, tablets or OLED TVs

You're joking, right? People have been demanding a matte MacBook for ages. When you do actual work on it for a full day instead of being a pretentious "graphics designer" playing with fonts for half an hour, the reflections become extremely exhausting. The reason Apple isn't doing it is because matte screens look "cheap" - glass looks expensive and fancy.

> is way more desirable

Yet almost all desktop monitors, even the very expensive ones, are matte. I wonder why...

> And yet there are no laptops on notebookcheck where the matte display is anywhere near as sharp as their glossy counterparts (as seen in their subpixel view)

As an avid Notebookcheck reader myself: citation needed.

> Are they all using worse panels than the ones using glossy?

That's not as far from the truth as you think. The aforementioned MacBooks have been consistently offering some of the best displays on the market in terms of resolution, colour accuracy, and colorspace coverage - and all of them have glass. Those specs aren't the consequence of having glass, but they do skew the statistics in glossy screens' favour.

So first of all, there no such thing as a matte """coating""". That's just the natural state of any panel. Calling it a "coating" the way he and you do is incorrect. Glossy panels are the ones that have something extra - the glass layer.

Second, do the monitors in the video have exactly the same panel? He claims so, but I've seen plenty of big reviewers not understand the difference and claim that something is "the same/practically the same panel" when it wasn't even from the same manufacturer. Are brightness and contrast settings configured to match?

Third, using ambient lighting as an argument in favour of glossy displays... really doesn't make sense. You can literally see it in the video how the monitor is reflecting him. Who wants that? I have a MacBook (which of course has a glossy display) for work and a 24" matte desktop monitor - guess which one is a pain even at max brightness? Not the matte monitor.

The guy is literally talking out of his ass, claiming that the reason phones and tables have glossy screens is because "they provide the best visual experience". Wrong: it's because you need the glass layer for a capacitive touchscreen (back in the day, Windows Mobile PDAs had matte touchscreens because they were resistive - I miss that greatly, they also worked with anything that exerted pressure, meaning you could use them in gloves etc). Why should I listen to anything he says? He outright doesn't understand that reflections are not wanted by the overwhelming majority of users, and uses what's clearly a worse panel - my previous monitor (MSI Optix MAG241CR) also had that kind of "diffusion" that made text more difficult to read, but neither my current monitor (AOC Q24G2) nor my older one (Asus VX248H) do. All of them are matte.

What part of what I said is only true if there is no light at all? You have to be more specific.

It's even less of a problem when your screen is matte. Glossy coating adds absolutely nothing of value to the screen's factual characteristics. The fact that Apple's version of glossy is less worse than usual glossy gets brought up a lot, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still worse than just matte - so why do we keep bringing it up at all? It only serves as an excuse for them to keep doing it.

> Also helps to not use cleaners when cleaning the screen

I've tried that, but that coating ironically makes it absolutely impossible even for the slightest smudges to come off with just a microfiber cloth, it needs cleaner. Glossy screens without that coating don't have that issue, in my experience. Or maybe they have oleophobic coating that Apple displays don't. Fortunately, it's not my problem in the long run, as this is a company laptop, so if the screen does stain while I'm still with them, it's an excuse for me to demand an upgrade.

Most people who play on consoles aren't likely to spend this much on a monitor, double duty or not, they play on TVs that "already exist in their household" and in their minds are basically free (even though they are not). Yes, some people will do what you said, no doubt, but pretending that this is "perfect for consoles" is an extremely questionable claim, as it was definitely not the intention nor the target market.

That coating tends to wear off with time, rendering the display unusable. Remember Staingate?

Exactly. If you saw the average glossy screens on a cheap Windows laptop even just a few years ago, you'd want to instantly smash them. Garbage 200 nit (if you're lucky) 768p TN panels with low contrast, glossy coating only made them even harder to read. I have an MBP 16 for work and while the screen is good, I still prefer the gorgeous AHVA 1080p 120 Hz matte panel on my personal laptop. So much less eye strain in brighter rooms.

Do you work for Dell marketing or something? Or is this just thick sarcasm I'm too tired to see through?

> Included HDMI 2.1(perfect for consoles)

Oh yeah, console owners are totally going to drop more on a 32" monitor than their console costs - a monitor with a resolution their console won't even support.

> This monitor even has DUAL 15W speakers

Not once in the history of modern monitors was someone who actually cares about their monitor excited that it has inbuilt speakers.

No, they don't. An extra layer of transparent glass on top of the display panel doesn't change the colours. What's actually happening is that the glossy screens you are seeing - most likely on MacBooks - just happen to have much better displays with higher colour accuracy and colourspace coverage than an average matte screen on cheaper laptops.

I have a MacBook for work and I'd definitely opt for a matte screen if I could. Glossy is incredibly annoying. It looks more expensive, but is far more annoying to deal with the second you have a single light source in your room.

So you feel more pushed to upgrade when that webcam breaks or becomes obsolete.

Huh you're right, apparently he is.

Yeah, but now NZ has no COVID-related restrictions anymore, so it's not really different from anywhere else - yet he's in no hurry to leave.

Shmeesh wtf. Absolutely shameless ripoff

You could have said the same thing without being an ass to him, you know

Also in NZ, come on Gabe, you literally live here, don't let MightyApe rip us off with 900 USD equivalent for the parallel imported 256 GB version!