The matte finish has horrible optical qualities, causing ambient light to scatter ("antiglare") washing out colors, and also causing light from individual pixels to scatter and refract back into neighboring pixels. This reduces the quality of displayed images, and in high density LCD displays it causes pixel-fine details (small text) to appear smeary.
By contrast, well-designed glossy displays minimize internal refraction and also cause light at high angles to reflect, reducing the amount of ambient light which pollutes the display. The result is that the display appears much brighter in any setting, black are blacker and do not get washed out by brights. Colors show higher dynamic range, and small details are crisper. In addition, well-designed glass glossy displays (such as those on the MacBook Pro) are actually visible and easy to use outdoors in full daylight. Even when reflections show up on glass displays, it's easy to see past them because they're full optical reflections with correct depth in stereo vision, meaning that you can correctly focus on the screen without focusing on the reflection.
Glossy displays are bad under basically two conditions:
* They are warped plastic, such as on older Dell laptops, causing weird shiny glossy glare at all angles that cannot be ignored.
* You have positioned your screen so that there is a small but very very bright reflection behind you, and cannot tilt your display.
I had XPS-13 9350 with a glossy screen. The reflection of ambient light sources was terrible. Plus, as the screen max opening angle was small, I often could not just tilt the screen sufficiently to direct the reflection away. I ended up getting a filter cover. With that the experience was like on MacBook Air 2013. The screen still reflected, but not strongly enough to bother.
Now I have Thinkpad X280 with the mate screen and I really like it. Reflections are just not there and I can tilt the screen 180 degrees.
I considered getting one. But they don't come with on-site warranty in my area -- and the warranty can't be upgraded to include on-site service. Not sure what their deal is with that. Makes me think they're crappy machines that are hard to service. Or maybe Lenovo just don't want my business?
You say all that -- regardless how superior your glossy screen is on paper; I, and many others still prefer to look at matte screens and have far less problems with them in real world situations.
> Even when reflections show up on glass displays, it's easy to see past them, because they're full optical reflections with correct depth in stereo vision, meaning that you can correctly focus on the screen without focusing on the reflection.
This... just doesn't track my experience, at least with MBPs up through 2015. "easy to see past [reflections]" is a subjective point even if what you're saying about the optics is 100% correct.
Retina displays are great in some ways but for me a typical open office plan lighting will do the job of providing distracting light reflections on any glossy display, and depth of reflection has never made them any less distracting than, say, someone standing behind me -- sure, you can focus on something else but it doesn't mean they're not a distraction. Not a problem with matte screens unless there's sun-bright direct light. And for outdoor use, sure, that can be a problem, but if I'm picking between any retina model and my mid-2012 non-retina antiglare/matte MBP, the latter has won every time. Which is one of the reasons I'm typing this on that same model and dreading the day it outright breaks or falls out of OS update.
Now if you're more worried about any subpixel smudginess, it's never bothered me, but OK, that's a fair personal preference. And as for scatter through matte from light sources degrading images, outside of bright daylight, I've never even noticed on-screen quality being compromised.
But who knows, maybe your perceptual wetware works differently. And if you like glass/glossy displays, congratulations, you have plenty of options, and that's great. None of that is enough reason to assume it's a global experience.
> Even when reflections show up on glass displays, it's easy to see past them because they're full optical reflections with correct depth in stereo vision, meaning that you can correctly focus on the screen without focusing on the reflection.
That does not work for a laptop - the glass surface is too close to the pixels for the "focus past the glass" to make a difference.
The light which is not "at high angles" reflects into your eyes from the surface you are focusing on (+/- 0.5 mm).
By contrast, well-designed glossy displays minimize internal refraction and also cause light at high angles to reflect, reducing the amount of ambient light which pollutes the display. The result is that the display appears much brighter in any setting, black are blacker and do not get washed out by brights. Colors show higher dynamic range, and small details are crisper. In addition, well-designed glass glossy displays (such as those on the MacBook Pro) are actually visible and easy to use outdoors in full daylight. Even when reflections show up on glass displays, it's easy to see past them because they're full optical reflections with correct depth in stereo vision, meaning that you can correctly focus on the screen without focusing on the reflection.
Glossy displays are bad under basically two conditions:
* They are warped plastic, such as on older Dell laptops, causing weird shiny glossy glare at all angles that cannot be ignored.
* You have positioned your screen so that there is a small but very very bright reflection behind you, and cannot tilt your display.