I am an owner of an Asus W3V. It's a decent little laptop, except for one thing that really bugs me. The glossy screen.
Now I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to make a screen so reflective that you can see your face in it, but it was a bad idea. Sure, in a perfectly dark room and at exactly the right viewing angle, it looks marvellous.
But at any other time, it's useless.
Most of the time I won't be using the laptop in the dark, which means that I can usually see a reflected outline of my face on the screen. If there is a light directly above you or somewhere behind you, readjusting the screen is necessary in order to prevent you burning out your retinas. And forget about doing any work in front of a window or in natural light. That is unless you prefer looking at the trees outside. It's a lot like looking into a mirror, only I wouldn't pay two grand for a mirror.
Yes, a glossy screen is not really the most practical addition to a device people will spend hours staring at each day. There's not many reasons I can think of as to why people continue to lap them up other than the fact that they are new, and that really there's no other choice.
See if you want to buy a widescreen laptop, it seems to me that the only choices you have in regards to the amount of varnish on your screen are either extreme gloss, or... extreme gloss.
However 15 inch laptops and those with the more traditional "square screens" still mostly seem to come with a normal diffuse display. Whether this is because these laptops are most likely bought by business users who actually want to see what's on their screen in a variety of environments and without constant re-adjustments, I don't know.
But what I would like to know is if there are any widescreen notebooks available that aren't covered in clearcoat. I don't want to have to make a ghetto laptop shade for everytime I want to see what I'm doing without having to visit an optometrist. Staring at this thing any longer than half an hour is enough to give me a headache.
I don't know if this is something endemic to the screen on my W3V, or if it's a propery of all glossy screens, but the viewing angles are just terrible and further compound the screen problem. Horizontal viewing angles are survivable, mostly because it still looks ok from the side, and because I usually look square at the screen. But if you plan to move around in your seat, change position, or get comfortable, as a normal human being does, this will require re-adjustment of the screen so you can once again see what you're doing. Failure to do so will result in an excessively bright region at one extreme of the screen, and an excessively dull region at the other.
Watching a DVD like a normal person is almost impossible for this reason. I usually like to sit down a few metres away from the screen and move around a bit to get comfortable. But forget doing that, because as soon as you move, you can't see anything! This is magnified by the fact that a smaller movement at a distance is equivalent to a much larger movement if you were right in front of the screen. I could probably see better by crawling under the desk.
I have to wonder if people will begin to tire of this marketing gimmick, although it seems to have become the new "standard" in LCD technology. Gloss = brightness, and brightness = better looking, at least in the shop. But I'd rather trade "brightness" for "useability", something that these fancy screens reduce.
Now I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to make a screen so reflective that you can see your face in it, but it was a bad idea. Sure, in a perfectly dark room and at exactly the right viewing angle, it looks marvellous.
But at any other time, it's useless.
Most of the time I won't be using the laptop in the dark, which means that I can usually see a reflected outline of my face on the screen. If there is a light directly above you or somewhere behind you, readjusting the screen is necessary in order to prevent you burning out your retinas. And forget about doing any work in front of a window or in natural light. That is unless you prefer looking at the trees outside. It's a lot like looking into a mirror, only I wouldn't pay two grand for a mirror.
Yes, a glossy screen is not really the most practical addition to a device people will spend hours staring at each day. There's not many reasons I can think of as to why people continue to lap them up other than the fact that they are new, and that really there's no other choice.
See if you want to buy a widescreen laptop, it seems to me that the only choices you have in regards to the amount of varnish on your screen are either extreme gloss, or... extreme gloss.
However 15 inch laptops and those with the more traditional "square screens" still mostly seem to come with a normal diffuse display. Whether this is because these laptops are most likely bought by business users who actually want to see what's on their screen in a variety of environments and without constant re-adjustments, I don't know.
But what I would like to know is if there are any widescreen notebooks available that aren't covered in clearcoat. I don't want to have to make a ghetto laptop shade for everytime I want to see what I'm doing without having to visit an optometrist. Staring at this thing any longer than half an hour is enough to give me a headache.
I don't know if this is something endemic to the screen on my W3V, or if it's a propery of all glossy screens, but the viewing angles are just terrible and further compound the screen problem. Horizontal viewing angles are survivable, mostly because it still looks ok from the side, and because I usually look square at the screen. But if you plan to move around in your seat, change position, or get comfortable, as a normal human being does, this will require re-adjustment of the screen so you can once again see what you're doing. Failure to do so will result in an excessively bright region at one extreme of the screen, and an excessively dull region at the other.
Watching a DVD like a normal person is almost impossible for this reason. I usually like to sit down a few metres away from the screen and move around a bit to get comfortable. But forget doing that, because as soon as you move, you can't see anything! This is magnified by the fact that a smaller movement at a distance is equivalent to a much larger movement if you were right in front of the screen. I could probably see better by crawling under the desk.
I have to wonder if people will begin to tire of this marketing gimmick, although it seems to have become the new "standard" in LCD technology. Gloss = brightness, and brightness = better looking, at least in the shop. But I'd rather trade "brightness" for "useability", something that these fancy screens reduce.
