For those who bought the matte screen option, are you happy with it?

Add in my vote for matte. I waited last year to get a 15" MPB until that was added. In fact, I almost got a 17" since it had matte. And the day I went to do that online, Apple added the matte option to the 15" since I preferred the smaller size. I have been thrilled so far.

I just ordered a new i7 15" with the HD matte which will arrive this week. (My wife gets last years 15" as she only uses it for email and web surfing and I use photoshop and lightroom plus play games.)

I also have the older cinema display in matte on my Mac Pro which is great. At work, I recently got the newer glossy display which I also love. Since I have light control there, I don't mind the glossy. It looks great - a lot better than the Dell screen I was using with my MBP at work. I also really like the reduced clutter of the way the cable system works.

But if you travel with you MBP, I cannot imagine getting glossy. Sitting next to a window on an airplane would be almost impossible with the shade open.

Hello,
I have a glossy 15" MBP at work at my university and my home computer is a 17" MBP so I can compare both screens. I definitely like the matte screen more. The reflections on the glossy screen can be very distracting in some situations.

I LOVE my matte display 17" as well. Can't STAND working on wife's glossy 13" MBP. I don't like having to adjust the angle every 5 minutes. And I still think the overall "all alumininum/grey" look is better than the "aluminum body/black display" scheme.

I have both. My desktop machine is an iMac with the glossy screen -- but my laptop the new Core i7 17" MBP ordered with the matte finish. Here's why:

I do a lot of work with photography. IF you are in complete control of the lighting in the room, then the glossy screen offers a better picture and more accurate color. But I did say "IF". The machine I own with a glossy screen is in my office with controlled lighting and is situated in a way such that I don't have reflections on the screen.

The "problem" with laptops is that they're portable. You will not be able to control the lighting everywhere you go. If you try to use a laptop outdoors on a sunny day, the reflections are so bad that it's nearly unusable. It doesn't matter if the sun is behind you or in front of you. If it's behind you then the glare on the screen is too strong. But if it's in front of you, the sunlight on YOU is so strong that you present a very obvious and strong reflection on a glossy screen that is very distracting and difficult to see through.

The outdoor/sunny-day problem is probably the most extreme, but I've found that just using a glossy screen in bright rooms, near windows, etc. can create distracting and unpleasant reflections.

Matte finish screen really don't have problems with this. I think the matte finish is easier on the eyes in all situations -- but keep in mind that it slightly diffuses the screen and I believe it results in slightly less accurate color (but still more than adequate for most people).

I've been waiting and waiting and guess what? Yeah waiting for Apple to put the Matte option on the 13" MBP. Looks like it's never going to happen. I'll stick with my matte finish on my ol' 12" PowerBook.

The more I work with my girlfriend's 13", the more I wish they made a high resolution 13" macbook...

The issue is that it's now necessary to have the hi res display--which will make text and even the interface too small for a lot of eyes; I've seen it in an Apple store--to get the anti-glare screen on the 15".

And simply turning the hi res down to "normal" res doesn't work well. It leaves a display fuzzier than having the "normal res" MacBook Pro. LCDs want to run in their native res. It's a shame and a puzzle that the regular res 15" no longer has the anti-glare option, but there it is.

Guess I'll have to live with the glossy.

I've been living with a high resolution matte display for nearly 3 years now. What I did was to take steps to make the text larger, which you can do for nearly any application. For example, in Safari, go to Preferences>Advanced and check the Universal Access box. That will let you choose fonts up to 24 point, and every Safari page will load with the size font you choose. In Mail, you go to Preferences>Fonts and Colors and select what you want. There is also a magnifier you can put in your Mail toolbar to enlarge the messages you occasionally get in a tiny font.

You can't enlarge the menu bar, and you can't enlarge the left column of the Finder window as far as I know, but otherwise you can make just about anything else comfortable to read and still stay on maximum resolution.

Good luck!

Open Mail, and then click on "View" in the Menu Bar and select "Customize Toolbar". You will get a window with a whole bunch of icons that you can just drag to the toolbar. The one with the little "A"/big"A" is the magnifier. You can also put the little hammer in the toolbar so you can open the window with all the icons from the toolbar instead of the menu bar. You can also remove any you don't want. I decided to remove "Reply All" because it's nothing I ever do, and it's nothing I want to do accidentally.

I've had my hiResMatte for just over an hour... and it's just fabulous... couldn't be happier!

'Spent 2 hours in local Apple Store trying to convince myself I didn't "need" the hiResMatte... failed!

I am 24 hours into the matte hi-res 15" display, and I'm also very happy. I'm 42, so not the greatest vision even with glasses. However, I'm not having any issues with the higher pixel count so far. I did some of the suggestions on this thread to goose up a font size here and there which probably is helping. Prior to switching to a MBP last year, I was on a 15" Dell with 1920x1200 resolution. Now that was tiny! In fact, comparing my 2009 15" MBP (which goes to my wife - in fact her files are transferring over to the old machine as I type this) to the my new 2010 MBP side by side, the 2009 machine almost looked a bit comical because it seemed almost oversized in terms of icons and fonts. I accept that might be some sort of brain gymnastics to make sure I am happy with the purchase!

I suspect at some point Apple will offer the matte in the lower resolution and/or 3rd party fix-it companies will offer to switch the display out. In fact, couldn't they take a matte from last year and put it in place of the hi-res matte? Depends on the pin configurations I suppose, but the panels seem the same physical size from the outside.

Short story: Happy. We'll see what a week of office and road work brings.

My 2007 MBP has the 1920x1200 resolution display, so I can relate to tiny! Then I look at my old 12" iBook screen with the 1024x768 resolution and I wonder how I stood it for as long as I did. Big, but awfully grainy. I really love my hi-res display, and would never go back to one that is not hi-res.

Tim Campbell1 wrote:
I have both. My desktop machine is an iMac with the glossy screen -- but my laptop the new Core i7 17" MBP ordered with the matte finish. Here's why:

I do a lot of work with photography. IF you are in complete control of the lighting in the room, then the glossy screen offers a better picture and more accurate color. But I did say "IF". The machine I own with a glossy screen is in my office with controlled lighting and is situated in a way such that I don't have reflections on the screen.

I think the matte finish is easier on the eyes in all situations -- but keep in mind that it slightly diffuses the screen and I believe it results in slightly less accurate color (but still more than adequate for most people).

I think it's the other way around... glossy screens over saturate colors resulting in less accurate color making them less suitable for photographic editing and screen to printer matching (but still more than adequate for most people).

Al / Fine Art Printer