Talk:Glossy display

Based on wrong (marketing) assertions
The hype for glossy displays was marketing triggered and almost none of the claimed improvements is correct. It rather seems to be a question of personal preference if a matte or a shiny surface is perceived as more "valuable". From the ergonomic point of view, glossy LCDs are one stpe back in time & performance. The article requires major revisions.

panjasan (talk) 19:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Disadvantages
It's rather weak to say that a glossy LCD can cause distracting reflections when in places such as offices where lights cannot be avoided. Why would you be using a laptop in an office anyway? Is the whole point of a laptop not to be portable? Besides, even non glossy LCD screens offer the same problems. I'm removing this. 83.104.51.181 (talk) 11:42, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Confusion between terms

 * I guess the article makes some confusion between "anti-reflective" and "anti-glare", but I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to be sure --Gennaro Prota 17:11, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Some Facts
Most of this article was a citation of some advertisement text published by the company of 'ScreenTek' (http://www.screentekinc.com/fujitsu-crystal-view-superfine-lcd-screens.shtml), who are producers of LCD displays.

It is simply not true that normal LCD displays cause "eye-fatigue". Eye problems, fatigue, or headache etc. are very often symptoms of bad ergonomics in the workplace, e. g. reflexions on the screen or directly blinding light e. g. from a window behind the screen, or many other factors.

If glare-type screens which seem to be hip at the moment are called anti-reflective, this sounds like a joke in the ears of an ergonomics expert.

mhm from de.wikipedia.org

--84.161.224.248 23:23, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Information disappearing
Anyone else notice that (I would say) fairly relevant information has disappeared from this article over revisions? Take for instance the information about being introduced into japaneese markets in the beginning of 2003. In any event, fixed a typo.

This page is mostly wrong
The page starts with a fundamental confusion between anti-glare and anti-reflection and goes downhill from there, made worse by marketing doublespeak. I'm a consultant with an expertise in AG/AR and related areas, and I'd like to fix the page, but I don't know quite how to get started. I've never contributed anything before to Wikipedia, although I've written more than three dozen articles for conventional technical print media. I'd like to write a page that clarifies the difference between AR and AG, as well as gives information about trends (e.g., how and why "glare" screens got started in the Japanese retail market, as the author above me indirectly references). But such a page wouldn't go under the subject of "anti-reflective screen", which in itself is an incorrect term (one can have an anti-reflection coating on a screen, but a screen itself cannot be anti-reflective). Anyone willing to give me some guidance?

Gfwalker 06:40, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I might be able to help, I have some experience writing wiki articles.. see Calgary Science School and Maple Skate. I have a dell inspiron 6400 with "TrueLife". Let me know on My talk page if you'd like some help. Ard0 20:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the content here as of this date is a bit slanted. I am certainly no expert, but I have a handful of laptops. The glare screen type (i.e., Dell's TrueLife) described as "unviewable" in high light conditions offers a compromise of sorts. It increases contrast and overall image quality in conditions where most people use laptops--coffee shops, offices, homes, etc., but it does not perform as well as older "matte" screens in high-light conditions such as park benches, open land, sunlit areas, etc. Also, the "TrueLife" screen, I have noticed, does well under fluorescent lighting but not as well under full-spectrum light.

This page is titled wrong
May I also add that its very confusing. There is: anti-reflective, glossy, matte, anti-glare, and many more terms. I'd like to help with the article, but the way it was written, the terms included and the way they are described, the redirects that are included.. it's a mess. Ard0 20:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Marketing hype, inferior technology
An article on the Anti-reflective screen should at least get its facts correct: purely driven by profit margin, the marketing names for the high gloss surface screens and the deceptive Marketing methods, are intended to overshadow and understate the more costly, but more effective true "matte finish" anti-reflective Fresnel lens technology that has been used with great success in various applications since the 1800's.

Laptop LCD screen technology, in particular, has been the target of marketing hype designed to promote so-called "anti-reflective" or "anti-glare" screen technology. This technology makes primary use of optical polarization, but does not go much further than that. High Gloss, simply put, describes a very reflective surface: one would think that for Laptop screens, which are used both indoors and outdoors, a non reflective surface would be the best choice. Far superior to this glaring, reflective technology. is the low gloss matte finish, which is based on the light scattering properties of a Fresnel lens surface. This is typically why almost all stand-alone desktop screens have matte surfaces. Unfortunately, this marketing hype has largely thrown out ergonomic studies so that Laptop and TV manufacturers can dramatically reduce the cost of one of the most expensive components in their products: the screen.

These high gloss, highly reflective screen surfaces, are simply the cheapest LCD glass available; matte finish screens are now reserved as an option on select higher quality Laptop products because of their cost to manufacture at high enough quality to support the demanding screen resolutions of full HDTV resolution WSXGA 1680 x 1050 pixels without scattering too much of the light emitted by the LCD.

I suggest that this page present both sides of the polarized surface vs fresnel surface debate.

I would be typing this on an affordable laptop, if I could actually find one that doesn't fall short on everything but quality of the screen surface. User:Beerden 2007 May 15


 * When glossy displays first appeared circa 2005 I thought it was a joke and would go away quickly because of the terrible ergonomics. Five years later I find that they are totally dominating the market and still haven't been able to find a decent laptop with matte display to buy. This article would benefit from showing how the market share of glossy screens have skyrocketed, but I have no source on that. Wasn't it Apple that popularized it? --109.58.85.163 (talk) 12:11, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Hoping to improve this page...
Hi, yesterday I helped someone who was looking for a new laptop. Key questions included new vs. used; intended use; Mac vs. Windows PC; if Windows, which OS; and ... whether the person wanted a glossy or a matte-finish screen. She stated emphatically "I have vision issues" and did NOT want a glossy screen. Finding a laptop without a glossy screen is a challenge. We found that Lenovo and Apple sell laptops with matte-finish screens. There may be others.

We also found this entry. Its emphasis on "anti-reflective" screens (meaning, the new glossy ones) was totally misleading to this person. We passed over the problem, looked for more authoritative descriptions (I didn't even look for the term "transreflective"), went looking for computer makers offering matte finish lcds.

Today I'm back, dabbling in the text, hoping to make improvements.

Especially with a laptop, which might be taken into many different "uncontrolled" environments, a glossy screen that reflects well-lit objects in the room (or, if outdoors, within line of sight distance), I think that many users will find a glossy screen difficult.

I'm looking for images on the web of glossy screens reflecting stuff.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hatsandcats (talk • contribs) 16:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC) Bob Stromberg in Greenwich, NY 17:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Big cleanup and renamed page & Remove tags?
Well, I've done my bit. Sectioned the article up, added advantages/disadvantages, renamed it to something that more people can relate to (over the term 'anti-reflective', which rather confusingly is exactly what it tends not to do), added references, and just general clean up.

Do you think we ought to remove the neutrality and factual accuracy tag, and also the two 'stub' tags?--Shaliron 10:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm going to remove the tags now. There doesn't seem to be any real discussion on this talk page anymore so I'm not expecting a response for a while.  The page has expanded fairly well and it doesn't seem to be bias anymore.

If anyone objects, feel free to re-add the tags.--Shaliron 05:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Color accuracy?
Is there any support for the claim that glossy covers oversaturate the image? I just can't see how that would work. Maybe the article means "Glossy covers are often found on monitors with poor factory calibration" but that would require some explanation.

The vast majority of desktop monitors are matte this year, and most of them have very bad color accuracy out of the box, so you'd need some serious testing of properly calibrated displays to back this up. Mmnno (talk) 22:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

You are right. In fact, the whole sentence is wrong.


 * "Glossy displays tend to exaggerate colors and shade, to the point in which they over-saturate and have poorer grayscale accuracy. This makes glossy displays unsuitable for people who seek to use their computers for graphics work which requires color accuracy. "

Every single one of these claims comes from the TN display technology used in most glossy displays and NOT from the glossy surface itself. TN panels generally have a lower color depth (often 6bit), resulting in poorer grayscale accuracy and color banding. I could well imagine that the oversaturation is produced by the manufacturers trying to compensate these shortcomings with firmware tweaks or whatever. Or maybe the author of these lines saw a glossy display with a wide color gamut panel and mistook the uncalibrated colors for oversaturation (just speculating here).

In the end, it just needs one example to disprove a claim, and that is Apple. Apple uses high-quality H-IPS panels in its iMac and Cinema Display lines which provide great colors and greyscale and good color accuracy even though being glossy. So I'm deleting the passage. --Halbm0nd (talk) 00:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Clean up
Needs some more citations. Also, various comments specific to "laptops" (see "DISADVANTAGES" discussion above) are no longer relevant as these are being used for desktop displays now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.188.123 (talk) 20:01, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Viewing angle
The article states... Traditionally LCDs have had a matte anti-glare finish to scatter reflected light. This has the side effect of scattering the light from the display, increasing blur and reducing contrast ratio, colour intensity, and viewing angle. How can greater scattering of the emitted light reduce the viewing angle? Surely the light has to go somewhere? Would someone please explain this in the article. JBel (talk) 23:30, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Brand Names
I'm going to remove the Brand names section, if in the encyclopedia at all it should be somewhere in the "glossy displays manufacturers" or something. Here's the original section:

→created Glossy Display Branding to contain this info --calavera (talk) 21:33, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Brand names
Most display manufacturers label their glossy screens under a variety of brand names:

--Dc987 (talk) 07:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Advantages - less expensive to manufacture?
AFAIK glossy displays are less expensive to manufacture, but I couldn't find any direct sources for that. Indirectly --Dc987 (talk) 08:19, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Harmful Fallacy
I work (as distinct from play) with two screens based on the same in-plane switching (IPS) technology. One is glossy and the other is matt. I am certain that the benefits of the glossy screen, described here as "better color intensity and contrast ratios" are fallacious. The colours and the contrast are identical and the difference is nothing less subjective than the choice between matt or glossy photographic prints, or the meaningless but obvious attraction of a glossy brochure.

On the other hand, the disadvantages of the glossy screen are very real, in that the tendency to focus on reflected images is a major distraction. This is in addition to the obvious disadvantage of the screen image being obscured by reflected light, as demonstrated by the illustration in the article.

The distraction is such that it can trigger photosensitive epileptic episodes. Doubtless, there will be a formal study of this some day, after many people have found themselves inexplicably ill.

JoeMCMXLVII (talk) 18:54, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, the article claim applies only to "certain light environments". Dc987 (talk) 00:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Even that's doubtful. The article has only one source for the benefits of glossy screens and that's a five-year-old readers' advice column by a contributor who qualifies her advice as a "generally regarded" view.JoeMCMXLVII (talk) 04:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

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