[crazygringo]

Not a single demonstration of contrast?

We've had matte screens for a long time that don't show glare. The problem is, the blacks are much more washed-out because that light still has to go somewhere, so it's basically just being smeared across the entire display.

This page shows lots of side-by-side photos of content that is primarily white, and most of the black bits (like text) are too small to make out.

The comparison needs to use things like busy photographs with bright areas and black areas. Then you can judge how much more washed-out the black areas look.

The second photo makes the Nano texture look pretty washed-out, but sadly doesn't include the traditional glossy laptop next to it for comparison, so it's impossible to tell.

Also, in all the side-by-side photos the Nano screen looks like it's set to much brighter. So any fair comparison should have them set to equal brightness. There's no universe in which a glossy screen is going to make the white areas look darker, as they are in all these examples.

I'm very curious if/how the Nano is better, but unfortunately these photos don't do anything to demonstrate it.

[MrScruff]

Contrast is worse, it's a trade off. For me in most environments there will be bright reflections on the glossy screens, even indoors - your brain actually does a good job of ignoring them to the point you're not even conciously aware most of the time, but when you smear them out with the nano texture display it's just way more comfortable to look at, for me at least.

If I was focused on watching movies, or grading photos in a dark room then glossy would be the way to go.

[cosmic_cheese]

Depends a lot on the screen and environment in my experience.

A glossy Apple Studio Display or iMac (both of which have a decent antiglare treatment despite being glossy) in an office setting for example isn’t too bad.

On the other hand, your average touchscreen laptop (which are always almost-mirrors with no hint of treatment, for some reason) with screen angled up slightly and overhead fluorescent tube lighting or a skylight on the other hand? Borderline useless if the screen isn’t bright enough to outshine the strong glare covering 40-60%+ of the screen.

[trueno]

I really like the nano texture display. But I occasionally like to dabble with my camera, sometimes pushing things around in editing apps and after seeing how an unedited photo rendered on a coworkers macbook with the nano texture, I sadly went for the gloss on my own purchase. It's not a huge difference and probably not even a dealbreaker to most, but it's already hard enough to find a best fit for varied color spaces out there who I share photos with and I didn't want to add another variable to the equation. When you're trying to deal with shadows it does get annoying when you're nerfed even just a little bit trying to determine how much detail is in the shadows.

It's admittedly a very obvious tradeoff, but part of me was hoping some new magic existed with the nano texture since everyone was ranting and raving about it on its release. Figured maybe just maybe it could've given me the best of both worlds. Nope. As it turns out people who make "review videos" often times don't know what the hell they're talking about. I've learned to tune those out and just source my purchasing info from people who do things im also interested in doing. In practical application it was an easy decision to make. For my use case glossy display just made more sense, I dork with photos/videos many times a year whereas I sit outside in the sun with my laptop maybe once a year if I'm traveling. And even in those scenarios the glossy display is fine.

[jborichevskiy]

Appreciate the feedback and notes here- I would love to revisit the methodology and use a separate physical brightness meter to normalize for that. To my best memory I made sure both devices were at max stock brightness for each photo.

[CharlesW]

> Not a single demonstration of contrast?

The nano-texture has less contrast.

"The nano-texture adds a filter-like appearance, resulting in a lower contrast ratio than the glossy panel. That said, there are differing opinions about the subjective appearance of the raised blacks. Some say it's a dealbreaker, while others prefer it, arguing that it looks more like what you would see on paper. The glossy panel produces a deeper, more Google Pixel HDR type of contrast that some find unnatural." — https://www.rtings.com/laptop/learn/apple-nano-texture

[chippiewill]

I'd definitely recommend popping to an Apple store at some point and looking at a nano display in person. It's really kind of freaky, it has a paper-like quality to it that I've not seen with any other laptop display. I'm not sure a picture or a description is ever going to cut it.

[musicale]

To me it looked "grainy" (along with something like diffusion glow and rainbowing I think), and I can't give up the high contrast that I've gotten used to. But if you're somewhere where you can't change the bright lighting behind you (outside in this example) nano texture does work fairly well.

[buildbot]

It’s perfect for the iPad, it adds just a little friction to the pen and makes it much more paper like in feel too.

[sgarland]

Last year, I bought a MBP with both screen types (at the recommendation of an Apple employee - they said just return the one I didn’t like) and compared them side by side for a few days. I also spent some time in the Apple Store, looking at iMacs side by side, since they were the only things they had on display with the Nano Texture.

tl;dr in perfect lighting conditions - which I noticed the Apple Store did a pretty good job at - the glossy screen wins, obviously. The contrast is quite a bit better, pictures really pop, and text isn’t particularly affected. In anything other than perfect lighting, Nano Texture wins by a mile.

If you’re going to be doing any kind of photo or video work, you’ll probably want the glossy screen, or (what I suspect most would have) the Nano Texture, with a dedicated external monitor for the best of both worlds.

If you’re primarily using your laptop for anything other than photo / video work, or if you use it mobile, you want the Nano Texture screen. I can’t objectively say what you lose in contrast ratio, but it’s not bad enough to overcome the huge disparity in glare reduction. I haven’t regretted my Nano Texture MBP for a second.

[Melatonic]

Your idea makes a lot of sense - external OLED glossy monitor color calibrated for the room used for serious photo and color theory. And for portable use the nano texture laptop screen.

I suppose if you really wanted to get fancy you could calibrate the nano texture screen against the proper monitor and then add an export filter that accounted for the contrast adjustment when using your machine portably

[nice_byte]

Here's a question, what's the point of having deep blacks when they're ruined by bright, distracting reflections? if image quality is going to be degraded either way, a dim, broad reflection is MUCH better than a sharp one. matte screens win in pretty much all scenarios except when the display is the only light source in the room.

[Melatonic]

In a dark ish room with decent lighting you shouldn't get a ton of reflections.

A physical glare shield (top and sides of screen ) might be the best of all worlds

[vintagedave]

There is a photo with predominantly black background here: https://jon.bo/nano-texture/side-by-side-dark.jpg

[brailsafe]

> There's no universe in which a glossy screen is going to make the white areas look darker, as they are in all these examples.

Actually I do think I get this effect in sunny environments on my glossy screen, and end up wishing my work laptop had the nano texture.

Ultimately, I bought the nano-texture 16", and have not hesitated on that choice once. It's also far easier to maintain; while the glossy screen just gets nasty over time, the nano-texture is still pretty much mint after a year.

[dakial1]

This won't be a problem when Apple migrate all macs to OLED as blacks will be true black (no light). I have a Samsung SD95 that has a glare free chemical coating and it is amazing on rooms with too much light with no greyish black on low light conditions (at least from my personal experience).

[crazygringo]

No, matte screens having nothing to do with the underlying contrast.

The blacks are getting washed out from light in the room that is diffused by the matte finish. Not light coming from the pixels.

The final black contrast is limited by both the underlying pixel technology and the screen finish. You get true black only with both OLED and glossy.