Glossy vs. Matte: the battle for your laptop screen

It's an ancient dialectic that mirrors the struggle between good and evil: glossy laptop screens vs. matte laptop screens. Okay, well, maybe not ancient. Glossy screens first started showing up on laptops a few years ago and helped laptops stand out among their matte peers: Glossy screens sport more vibrant colors, are cheaper to produce, increase screen visibility outdoors and look great when they're not under direct light--for example, on the shelf at Best Buy. The only problem is that most business environments (for example, the desk that you're seated at right now) are lit with overhead fluorescent lighting, which causes huge amounts of glare on glossy screens.

Despite this drawback, more and more laptop manufacturers have been moving toward glossy screens as of late. There was a huge uproar when Apple released their new lineup of MacBook laptops--all of which sport glossy instead of matte screens. Are glossy screens really what users want?

The answer is no, at least not in the enterprise. Lenovo, makers of that perennial enterprise-favorite, the IBM ThinkPad, conducted an online survey, asking whether visitors to their site preferred matte or glossy screens. The results are telling: 86 percent preferred matte displays while only 8 percent declared their love for the glossy screen. The message to manufacturers is clear: give back my matte!

For more on the battle between matte and glossy displays:
- check out Lenovo's Design Matters blog