MacBook Pro 15" Grainy Matte Display

I spray a glass cleaner onto a utility towel (which does not leave any mess behind), and it works fine. This is what a guy at the Apple Store reccomended to me. No damage to my computer. Looks great afterwards.

You don't even need a cleaner/solution. Spray that same towel with water (not soaked please). That will do it!

Glass Cleaner?! You might want to be a bit more specific there!
No offense but most of the products out there coming under the category of "glass cleaners" would damage an LCD screen. Remember this isn't a CRT monitor with a glass panel.

Normally I just use a microfibre cloth to get rid of dust, or dampen it a little for removing fingerprints etc.

And if people don't mind....could you start unrelated issues on new threads please 🙂

I think it should not matter to you that I asked this question. Unless you have nothing better to do that complain. Everyone else that answered was very helpful. Thank you to all the kind people who responded.

Have people been saying that?? With the grain being a fixed part of the actual screen, it's not really going to look different in any other installed OS. And what has the display of text in Windows vs OSX have to do with anything? O_o
The font antialiasing (font smoothing) comes down to how it's implemented in the operating system, it's software based and not related in any way to lcd grain issues.

About the RAM and resolution, that really confused me, what exactly are you saying? Are you complaining that the resolution size, or/and the quality of colours when viewing movies???

Here's my reply from my understanding of what you said; the amount of memory your video card has doesn't mean you'll have different resolutions. Yeah the video card does play a part in how the rest of the display hardware will work, but the display panel itself will also have limitations.
As far as I know most other laptop manufacturers are making machines with 15" screens, that support upto 1280x800 resolution. If you want 1440x900 you get a 17" PC laptop. But yes I know, Dell (and others?) have reduced the pixel size on their higher end screens to squeeze in more resolution on screens.

Personally IMHO, things are already getting to be small on the 15" MBP, I don't want to have to squint at even higher resolutions. I take your point though, that you want more options.

Erm, if you notice I also replied to your issue first off, I wasn't mad at you. I just said that polite reminder to you also because it can get confusing when there's numerous issues on one thread, which sound similar, and get people confused about what we're really talking about.

Also, if you had started a new thread, you would have been able to reward those helpful people by giving them points. 😀

From the Apple Discussions ' Help and Terms of Use'

" Why reward points?
The reward system helps to increase community participation. When a community member gives you (or another member) a reward for providing helpful advice or a solution to their question, your accumulated points will increase your status level within the community.
Members may reward you with 5 points if they deem that your reply is helpful and 10 points if you post a solution to their issue. Likewise, when you mark a reply as Helpful or Solved in your own created topic, you will be awarding the respondent with the same point values."

" Threadjack—To wrongly post a dissimilar issue in an existing discussion, distracting from the true focus of the discussion. If your issue has any significant difference from a similar topic, then you're probably better off posting a new topic to focus attention on your particular issue."

If you have a machine running two OSs, and with one of the OS you can see pictures, movies, and text better, that tells you something; perhaps video drivers are not correct with one of the OS.
Have you installed an OS on a machine that has a high end video card or perhaps a new wide screen monitor, but the OS does not have the "best" driver and you have to download from the video card manufacture's web site and update the drivers?

The Dell D810 laptop that I use from the office is a 15" machine and is meant for office/business use. Is not the XPS series where you get the high end quality. I was comparing that 2nd category model with a 128 MB of video RAM can give me a higher resolution than my MPB with 256 MB RAM. Oh and by te way! If I increase the resolution to the max I can then change the font to be big enough so I don't have to squint. The end result is crisp text and high resolution for videos and pictures.

I visited a MAC store today and compared the screens. Definitely the 17" screen is the way to go (nice and sharp image). But I'm not going to get me such a big machine, then where's the portability? I also compared with other 15" and the ones in the store looked better than mine (still grainy screen) not too far, but there is a difference. Like I said, the BIG difference is between the 15" and the 17". Didn't compare to the MB.

Ah ok, thanks for clearing that up 🙂

Hmm maybe Apple should source it's displays from the same place Dell gets theirs hehe

The only way I see my screen being a little bit better is if I calibrate it, but that still won't change the fact it can't show full 16million colours >_<

Btw, I just realised, do you have font smoothing off in windows? Maybe that's what you meant when you said text is sharper?

As to seeing pics and movies better, I dunno, can't say it's been better or worse for me. Actually it's been worse when working on photos or graphics that have really fine gradients or gradations - again because of the lack of 16million colours.
Yet in terms of general vibrancy, saturation and brightness, my glossy screen is nice (but supposedly not good for proper graphics work if you want true representation of colours).

I did not really notice the uneven lighting too bad when I was sitting up next to my computer, but when I was about ten feet away looking at my screen, I could notice it a lot. It was a huge difference. Those who don't notice it right away, step about ten feet or so back, and it hsould become a lot more noticeable.