When will thinkpads come with glossy screens?

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codek · #1 Post by **codek** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:57 am

I just came back from Fry's and 95% of the laptops had glossy screens with high resolution. Are thinkpads coming out with the newer screens? Because that is the one improvement that could be made.

Antioch · #2 Post by **Antioch** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 1:14 am

I hope never. I hate those glossy screens. I think my non-glossy, high resolution 1400x1050 T42 screen is perfect the way it is. I love it. I think the 'glossy' screens offer no real benefit - they simply make things too shiny and reflect things you don't want to see.

Cassirer · #3 Post by **Cassirer** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 1:42 am

the glossy screens are o.k. to watch movies on, once you have the light set up just right ... but they suck to work on ... they are hard on the eyes because they reflect your face and lots of light back at you ...

A better quesiton would be, when will the other realise this and go back to a quality screen that both looks good and does not destroy people's eyes ...

Steve

P.S. I hope that IBM is listening ... though somehow I don't they are

christopher_wolf · #4 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 2:32 am

Glossy screens are designed with 50% "Flash" factor in mind (make it look shiny and you are part of the way to selling to customer on it) and 50% non-improvement. After using some Sonys with such screens, I cannot imagine working like that under flourescent lighting with all the reflection coming back at me. The regular screen material is good enough and, if improvements are to be made, they should be made in the area of durability and not making the screen look glossy. It might be OK for watching some movies, but I that is too small of a gain for the possible issues you might have to put up with.

geoffrey · #5 Post by **geoffrey** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 4:30 am

I bought a Thinkpad *precisely* because it was one of the few laptops left *without* a glossy screen and with a trackpoint. I can't stand glossy screens. My laptop is for working on, not for show, and I often (usually) have a light source behind me which would make a glossy screen unusable.

rockefella · #6 Post by **rockefella** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 7:57 am

Maybe there's a glossy overlay you can put onto your screen?

As for me, like the others, I would never ever buy a glossy screen computer. I recall back in the day, they used to sell non-glare overlays that GOT RID OF the reflectivity/glossiness of desktop CRT monitors. They were marketed as boosting readability by eliminating annoying and headache-inducing reflections on your screen. This has certainly been my experience. When I look at a screen, I really would like to see ONLY what's on my screen, not the objects behind me nor my face, as handsome as it is

Now ironically, just as bellbottoms and disco have returned with a vengeance, so has the glossy screen. Go figure.

bri · #7 Post by **bri** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 9:27 am

I noticed all those glossy screens at Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, etc. have more vibrant colors and crisp edges than my T60 (SXGA) and X20 (XGA), but I would rather have a non-reflective screen for regular use.

chrisd · #8 Post by **chrisd** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 9:46 am

geoffrey wrote:I bought a Thinkpad *precisely* because it was one of the few laptops left *without* a glossy screen and with a trackpoint. I can't stand glossy screens. My laptop is for working on, not for show, and I often (usually) have a light source behind me which would make a glossy screen unusable.

Ditto. I considered alot of laptops, and one thing that kept me coming back to Thinkpads, was the lack of glossy.

I've only used the matte finish and it's what I like. I had a glossy Sony LCD monitor... hated it. Now Mom has it.. SHE loves it.

rvacha · #9 Post by **rvacha** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:16 am

I have to ditto the ditto. Glossy is nice looking sitting on the shelf of CompUSA, but horrible in day to day use. In some situations adusting the screen is simply not an option (like sitting in an airplane) and the shine off of a glossy screen can really reduce the readability of the display. Glossy would be even more problematic on a tablet where the display can only have one orientation - flat. If my X41T had been glossy it would have been long gone from my inventory.

foodle · #10 Post by **foodle** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:00 pm

This thread makes me laugh given the amount of tearing of hair and rending of clothes on the Mac forums about the reflectiveness of the glossy Macbook screen. Can't please everyone. I suppose that's why there's an option on the Macbook Pro to have glossy or matte screen.

As for Thinkpads, they are still primarily targetted to a business audience and the matte screen is much better for office lighting conditions. Maybe the Z series will get a glossy screen option, but I don't expect Thinkpads to go glossy (inside or out) anytime soon.

codek · #11 Post by **codek** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 2:54 pm

well i love glossy screens and have no reflection problem. If there were no reflection problems, I think everyone would choose glossy.

kaotic504 · #12 Post by **kaotic504** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 8:47 pm

i had a XBrite (glossy screen) on my Sony TR2A and it wasn't that bad. It did get annoying at times when i can see the light bulb reflecting off the screen but it was extremely bright and nice too look at in a semi-lighted room. my T60 with Flexview is nice and is bright enough for me when plugged in.

beeblebrox · #13 Post by **beeblebrox** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:24 am

Glossy screens are far better than matte screens in every respect of light dispersion.
However, the manufacturers skip the anti-reflective finish of the screen do to immense manufacturing costs for a consumer product. So they just leave a "blank" top screen, and sell it as a great feature (what a BS!).

Anyone in the optics/space industry will notice that high-end lenses and screens are multi-layer coated. You sit in front of a glossy screen and hardly notice a reflection, just a tiny, very faint blue/green spot. The rest of the light is cancelled out by light wave interference.

Matte screens are just the very-low-cost version of non-refletive screens, because they are etched. By etching you diffuse a light beam and lose a lot of light directed to you, lose focus and brightness and color, because different color wavelengths are dispersed differently. That is really bad!

That's why glossy screens are called VibrantView, BrightView, whatever.
Without a coating finish, glossy screens are kind of useless.

I hope the costs for coating glossy screens will decrease by time and probably in a few years, matte etched screens will be gone.

alexzabr · #14 Post by **alexzabr** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 11:22 am

I tried some Fujitsu laptop of a budy from university few weeks ago - the screen is glossy, looked quite attractive, bright and clear, but once under artificial, office-like lighting - puts real strain on the eyes fora prolonged use, I felt as will get a headache would I work on one more then a half hour. However for an entertainment it certainly is good - movies, graphic-rich games, ...
For work certainly matte one wins - I work with mine for hours without any signs of inconvenience eye-wise.

As about glossy screen technology - I'm quite experienced photography amateur with not bad technical understanding (my engineering background helps tremendously), yes, optical coating is nearly ultyimate tool to reduce reflections off the optical surfaces and is used extensively in high-end photographic optics, but then, the techology is still quite expensive, I think applying such to the consumer notebook screens in volume would rise up the price considerably.

christopher_wolf · #15 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 12:49 pm

Glossy screens are still a gimmick for the most part; I have used them for prolonged periods for work and entertainment and, at the worst, all I got was eyestrain. At the best, not much, if any, of an improvement over a matte screen. And I am highly dubious about the supposed better optical properties of such screens. If you want a high performance optical screeen, then ask the LCD maker to build one where money is no object and make sure it has the best optical properties you can get; keep in mind that you will also be reducing the durability of it as well.

The matte screens win out simply because it doesn't cause eyestrain vs. the glossy screen; the assumed benefit of the glossy screen is that it makes for a better viewing experience when it comes to media...but I wouldn't trade in my matte screen for that and I certainly wouldn't pay more just to get that.

beeblebrox · #16 Post by **beeblebrox** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 6:51 am

christopher_wolf wrote:Glossy screens are still a gimmick for the most part; I have used them for prolonged periods for work and entertainment and, at the worst, all I got was eyestrain. At the best, not much, if any, of an improvement over a matte screen. And I am highly dubious about the supposed better optical properties of such screens. If you want a high performance optical screeen, then ask the LCD maker to build one where money is no object and make sure it has the best optical properties you can get; keep in mind that you will also be reducing the durability of it as well.

The matte screens win out simply because it doesn't cause eyestrain vs. the glossy screen; the assumed benefit of the glossy screen is that it makes for a better viewing experience when it comes to media...but I wouldn't trade in my matte screen for that and I certainly wouldn't pay more just to get that.

I am puzzled, Christopher, you sit in Berkeley and write these lines? I can't believe this..
Go to the library, get the Feynman lectures on Physics, volume "optics" and read about light dispersion and wave interference.
A glossy screen is by far better than any etched screen, it is all about physics. An etched screen is matte, but terrible in performance. It is just mathematics and physics.
What you complain about is light reflection. Multiple layers of light modulating chemicals can theoretically absorb all reflection. Think about stealth planes, their multiple paint layers absorb radar by interference. No reflection.
For screens it is all about costs. I once was at commercial radar tracking installation, they have huge glossy screens for the airports- no reflection at all. A marvel of technology.

You should consider that companies produce exactly what sells, otherwise they are out of business. Noone cares about technology or costs, keep costs low and volume high is the mantra. If customers are starting to complain about reflection and would be willing to pay for it (what they currently are not!), then glossy, reflection-free screens would appear.
See, Sony started introducing some first anti-reflective modifications to their newest screens, due to customer feedback (i.e. complaints and bad press)
As soon as the first vendor offers large, glossy and reflection-free screens at a good price, customers will buy. It is all about supply and demand. The master of meeting that S/D point is Dell. They produce exactly what sells. Cheap products that meet (cheap) customer demands. When customer demand shifts, so shifts Dell.
You have to obey the law of the market forces, otherwise you are bankrupt quickly.

gearguy · #17 Post by **gearguy** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 8:07 am

codek wrote:well i love glossy screens and have no reflection problem. If there were no reflection problems, I think everyone would choose glossy.

Err, yes.

The trouble is the fact that it is glossy CAUSES reflections, so people who don't like reflections will never ever chose glossy as there is no choice but to put up with reflections or get an anti reflection overlay or something...

Although you can reduce the reflections on glossy, you wil never entirley eliminate them as that would... get rid of the "gloss"

As for CRT monitors, I love CRT, and CRT with anti gloss coating on the glass just pones, simply pones pones pones.

christopher_wolf · #18 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 1:50 pm

beeblebrox wrote:
christopher_wolf wrote:Glossy screens are still a gimmick for the most part; I have used them for prolonged periods for work and entertainment and, at the worst, all I got was eyestrain. At the best, not much, if any, of an improvement over a matte screen. And I am highly dubious about the supposed better optical properties of such screens. If you want a high performance optical screeen, then ask the LCD maker to build one where money is no object and make sure it has the best optical properties you can get; keep in mind that you will also be reducing the durability of it as well.

The matte screens win out simply because it doesn't cause eyestrain vs. the glossy screen; the assumed benefit of the glossy screen is that it makes for a better viewing experience when it comes to media...but I wouldn't trade in my matte screen for that and I certainly wouldn't pay more just to get that.
I am puzzled, Christopher, you sit in Berkeley and write these lines? I can't believe this..
Go to the library, get the Feynman lectures on Physics, volume "optics" and read about light dispersion and wave interference.
A glossy screen is by far better than any etched screen, it is all about physics. An etched screen is matte, but terrible in performance. It is just mathematics and physics.
What you complain about is light reflection. Multiple layers of light modulating chemicals can theoretically absorb all reflection. Think about stealth planes, their multiple paint layers absorb radar by interference. No reflection.
For screens it is all about costs. I once was at commercial radar tracking installation, they have huge glossy screens for the airports- no reflection at all. A marvel of technology.

You should consider that companies produce exactly what sells, otherwise they are out of business. Noone cares about technology or costs, keep costs low and volume high is the mantra. If customers are starting to complain about reflection and would be willing to pay for it (what they currently are not!), then glossy, reflection-free screens would appear.
See, Sony started introducing some first anti-reflective modifications to their newest screens, due to customer feedback (i.e. complaints and bad press)
As soon as the first vendor offers large, glossy and reflection-free screens at a good price, customers will buy. It is all about supply and demand. The master of meeting that S/D point is Dell. They produce exactly what sells. Cheap products that meet (cheap) customer demands. When customer demand shifts, so shifts Dell.
You have to obey the law of the market forces, otherwise you are bankrupt quickly.

I will kindly ask that you do not tell me where I am, where I study, or what books to look up in the libraries; I myself know about the difference, physical as well as user-perception, that glossy screens make well enough. Until I am using my Thinkpad's screen in the stead of a high-precision optical lens in a powerful confocal laser, SPT system, or an atomic force microscopy setup, all of which I have worked on, calibrated, and built in various labs, I think it is safe to remain with the matte screen for now.

The user isn't going to care about the specifics of the screen unless it bothers them. Everybody can go on for ages about how the glossy screens have better optical properties than matte, etc....The user isn't going to give a rat's rear-end, nor would I, if the screen causes eye-strain, glare, or reflection. One can say that it is the law of the market, but then again, the law of the market has given as such horrors as Dell. A freind of mine got a laptop with a glossy screen because, well, it had a glossy screen...He went through two of them because they each caused glare and eye-strain in a standard working environment; granted, he may have been better at viewing DVDs on them, but that doesn't cut the cheese when it comes to working on it with an assortment of fluorescents above you for hours on end in the library. We eventually found that, the only way it would be managible, would be to go into a dark room and then view everything on a black background. If we wanted that, we would have either used a CRT, with or without a screen filter, or just a plain matte screen. Eventually, my friend folded and got a Thinkpad.

Markets can only go so far, the standard consumer is pretty much like a single sheep; the user may intitially define a market, but then the market will shape the user's perceptions of the rest. This is what advertising is for, do a [censored] good job advertising and you have hooked the market and given yourself a suprisingly leeway when it comes to the products. If you do a good enough job convincing the customer that it looks good, performs good, and quacks like it should, then you can sell anything.

BTW: I would put your location in your profile.

gearguy · #19 Post by **gearguy** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 2:24 pm

The one thing that annoys me about the majority of Laptop LCDs is their total inability to be used outdoors.

LCDs used in devices such as Phones and PDAs tend to be perfectly visible whether indoors or out... ;p LCDs on laptops just tend to look black when placed in direct light.

#20 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 6:58 pm

beeblebrox wrote:It is just mathematics and physics.

No, in the real, day to day user world its all about usability, human interface factors and perceptions.

Cheers,

Bill

christopher_wolf · #21 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 7:20 pm

Exactly as Bill said; there can be many theories and concepts put into the technology, but when it comes down to it, all that really matters is what the user experiences and the perception of the system at that point. That is the difference between Experiment and Theory (and add field operation for certain types of engineering and design specialties.

It is also the origin of the phrase "It looks good on paper."

ipark · #22 Post by **ipark** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:00 pm

I think someone mentioned a glossy overlay for the lcd earlier in the post, and that's what I had on my old vaio. I'm guessing all the glossy screened notebooks today are just that; a layer of the glossy sheet over the regular lcd display, just in a nicer package?

Before I got my tp, I was determined to get a notebook with a glossy screen...that was until I found out about thinkpads. I could care less for that sort of screen now.

JHEM · #23 Post by **JHEM** » Fri Jun 16, 2006 10:58 pm

In answer to the question posed in the subject line, I would hope the answer is never.

For the record, every current aircraft that has a glass panel in lieu of steam gauges uses matte, not glossy, displays. And the choice of displays is far from a matter of price.

Regards,

James

gearguy · #24 Post by **gearguy** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 5:12 am

Infact the only "advantage" glossy screens have over matt is that they are minorly more visible in direct sunlight. (Obviously because they are reflective)... so yeah if you plan on working outdoors then glossy is for you.

But let's face up to reality...

Who does?

Puppy · #25 Post by **Puppy** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 5:20 am

I also hope the answer is never. Those screens are usually low-end TN panels with "flashy" design which can NOT improve its bad quality and poor color representation. ThinkPad's IPS screens are top class panels with no competition.

lowie · #26 Post by **lowie** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:27 am

Puppy wrote:I also hope the answer is never. Those screens are usually low-end TN panels with "flashy" design which can NOT improve its bad quality and poor color representation. ThinkPad's IPS screens are top class panels with no competition.

I couldn't agree with you more

gearguy · #27 Post by **gearguy** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 7:42 am

I personally would love to see LCDs abolished alltogether :p
Let's all pray for OLED screens

christopher_wolf · #28 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 4:01 pm

gearguy wrote:I personally would love to see LCDs abolished alltogether :p
Let's all pray for OLED screens

They are in the works, but so are diffraction technology screens which cost less to implement right now than OLEDs for the same size viewing area.

Red_October_7000 · #29 Post by **Red_October_7000** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 5:12 pm

Remember gas-discharge display panels? Those awful orange things? My ladyfriend now has a Gateway laptop the size of an abrams tank that has a huge glossy display. I HATE that computer. Plus two years of trackpoint has spoiled me for them; I really can't stand the little touchpads at all; I never realized how hard they are on the fingers and hand compared to the Trackpoint. The display is fine in dim light looking right at it; anything else and I'm brough back to the days of the old monocrhome LCDs that disappeared when you looked at them side-on. Only thing that was good for was knowing the goon sitting next to you couldn't read what you were writing. And I understand that the folks at 3M who bring us excellent packing tape and crappy magnetic media have a soulution for that.

christopher_wolf · #30 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 5:24 pm

Red_October_7000 wrote:Remember gas-discharge display panels? Those awful orange things? My ladyfriend now has a Gateway laptop the size of an abrams tank that has a huge glossy display. I HATE that computer. Plus two years of trackpoint has spoiled me for them; I really can't stand the little touchpads at all; I never realized how hard they are on the fingers and hand compared to the Trackpoint. The display is fine in dim light looking right at it; anything else and I'm brough back to the days of the old monocrhome LCDs that disappeared when you looked at them side-on. Only thing that was good for was knowing the goon sitting next to you couldn't read what you were writing. And I understand that the folks at 3M who bring us excellent packing tape and crappy magnetic media have a soulution for that.

Do I remember them? Heck, I had one for awhile. It was an old IBM portable server/luggable with a orange-red LCD running Windows 3.1. I also know what you mean about the monochrome LCDs; I had a Compaq/Digital laptop, small at the time but large enough to really benefit from its built in handle, that had a monochrome LCD that would disappear if you looked at it the wrong way (literally). Since the LCD technology has improved greatly since then, I don't need a glossy screen emulating that same, *highly* annoying, trait.

When will thinkpads come with glossy screens?

When will thinkpads come with glossy screens?

with luck absolutely never

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