> What do you mean by this? Are you saying the Macbook has a special display mode that only activates when it detects sunlight (as in lumens? or?)?
Yes, if automatic brightness is on, the screen will exceed its standard SDR range in daylight, just like the iPhone. Otherwise you need special software to manually increase the SDR brightness into that higher range, maxing out at 1600 nits.
> I meant more that high brightness with a direct light source into the eyes can be pretty uncomfortable compared to reflected diffuse sunlight
The discomfort would come from a mismatch in brightness: a 2000 nit screen sounds incredibly painful to look at because in normal conditions your pupils are adjusted to an indoor room and you're looking at a 2,000 nit screen, which is terrible.
But ambient light on a clear day is something like 30,000 nits, so your pupils are already significantly narrowed: a "mere" 2000 nit screen will still look kind of dim if anything.
e-Ink sits around 40%-50% reflectivity and still looks fine in those conditions.
(Blue light, contrast, and the nature of the reflections themselves also play a role so it's not as simple as "more nits is better", but you need to be in a certain ballpark of brightness to even play, which is why I'm saying old devices aren't in the running here.)
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> Like what? Are you saying my current Macbook is actually more readable in sunlight than old matte displays, I just don't realize it...? If so, hmm, I'm dubious but I will take it out again and try to compare it again without nostalgia, as much as I can. Or is there an objective measure of sunlight readability I can refer to?
It's hard to capture in a single measure because there's two parts to the equation:
- reflections from the surface
- being bright enough for your eyes to make out details at all
Back in the day the brightness would be roughly equal for both a glossy and a matte option, so matte would be strictly better.
Now brightness has advanced enough that a newer glossy panel + modern anti-glare coating + modern bonding techniques are. enough to overcome the difference in reflections vs the old screens.
You should look at even the glossy non-Retina (which was almost universally hated) vs the glossy Retina to see how dramatic the changes in anti-glare tech were at some points in the last decade: https://cdtobie.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/reduced-reflectance...
A modern matte screen would have the advantage if it had the same brightness, but afaik no one actually makes a matte screen that gets as bright as the new XDR Macbooks do: the closest are all glossy displays too.
Hmm, this is new to me, thanks for the explanation! I never used automatic brightness, and the manual adjustment never let me set it high enough. I'll have to try it outdoors again with the automatic on (or find that special software that lets me go up to 1600 nit). I'll also bring a last-gen Windows matte laptop out again just for comparison :)
Brightness aside, though, a huge thing for me and glossy screens is the specular reflection. Even when it's not the sun, having a tree or a sign or the person behind me reflected in my screen is very distracting.
Yes, if automatic brightness is on, the screen will exceed its standard SDR range in daylight, just like the iPhone. Otherwise you need special software to manually increase the SDR brightness into that higher range, maxing out at 1600 nits.
> I meant more that high brightness with a direct light source into the eyes can be pretty uncomfortable compared to reflected diffuse sunlight
The discomfort would come from a mismatch in brightness: a 2000 nit screen sounds incredibly painful to look at because in normal conditions your pupils are adjusted to an indoor room and you're looking at a 2,000 nit screen, which is terrible.
But ambient light on a clear day is something like 30,000 nits, so your pupils are already significantly narrowed: a "mere" 2000 nit screen will still look kind of dim if anything.
e-Ink sits around 40%-50% reflectivity and still looks fine in those conditions.
(Blue light, contrast, and the nature of the reflections themselves also play a role so it's not as simple as "more nits is better", but you need to be in a certain ballpark of brightness to even play, which is why I'm saying old devices aren't in the running here.)
_
> Like what? Are you saying my current Macbook is actually more readable in sunlight than old matte displays, I just don't realize it...? If so, hmm, I'm dubious but I will take it out again and try to compare it again without nostalgia, as much as I can. Or is there an objective measure of sunlight readability I can refer to?
It's hard to capture in a single measure because there's two parts to the equation:
- reflections from the surface
- being bright enough for your eyes to make out details at all
Back in the day the brightness would be roughly equal for both a glossy and a matte option, so matte would be strictly better.
Now brightness has advanced enough that a newer glossy panel + modern anti-glare coating + modern bonding techniques are. enough to overcome the difference in reflections vs the old screens.
You should look at even the glossy non-Retina (which was almost universally hated) vs the glossy Retina to see how dramatic the changes in anti-glare tech were at some points in the last decade: https://cdtobie.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/reduced-reflectance...
A modern matte screen would have the advantage if it had the same brightness, but afaik no one actually makes a matte screen that gets as bright as the new XDR Macbooks do: the closest are all glossy displays too.