Pokye

Glossy Apples

I recently decided to retire my Apple PowerBook and invest in a new MacBook Pro - despite the awful name. But I fancied the go-faster Intel Duo CPU and had already set my heart on 17 wonderful inches of screen real estate. The problem, as I saw it, was whether to go with the normal or ‘glossy’ screen. So I set out to try and find the advantages and disadvantages of both. Which proved somewhat difficult.

The Apple website was most uninstructive - seemingly taking no side in the debate on which was best. Not even recommendations determined by usage. My local Apple dealer (a reseller not Apple store) is staffed by a couple of friendly guys who seem to know an awful lot about iPods but very little else. One tried to spin me a yarn about the colour accuracy being less true on glossy screens but couldn’t back it up with any hard evidence - who knows he might be right but I rather think he was babbling and trying to sound clever. The other looked blank and was obviously wondering why I wasn’t in the shop to buy an iPod.

Which left the internet. There are literally hundreds of websites out there that pay homage to the Mac so I figured there must be some serious debate on this issue. Well - there might be but I couldn’t find it. What I did find, was a lot of discussion on why Apple had gone down this route - the most popular suggestion being that glossy displays are easier and cheaper to manufacture. And again - they might be right. Oh yes - there was also the odd comment that glossy screens are more reflective but that, it seems to me, is just stating the obvious.

To cut a long story short and acting on a hunch, I bought the glossy display and as far as I am concerned it is fantastic. And the main reason I say this is that for the first time I can take my laptop out into the garden, sit in the bright sun, and am still able to both see and read the content on the screen. I know the new MacBook line (both) state that the displays are brighter but I’m not convinced I could do this so easily with the traditional display. OK - I wouldn’t tackle a Photoshop session in the bright sun but I can easily do what I am doing now - and that, to me, is well worth it.