If anyone reading this is interested in throwing caution to the wind and doing a hardware startup: I'd <i>love</i> a 24" eInk display or two, connected via USB. Ideally usable in either portrait or landscape orientation. Sure, the refresh rate would be super slow, but I'd use it for documentation and other reference material while actually coding on my macbook or one of my external LCD displays.
One point against matte screens that you need to consider...<p>Matte screen coatings eliminate reflections by diffusing them over the entire field of view. As the total brightness of your room increases, matte screens diffuse all of it evenly, eliminating reflections but also losing contrast ratio.<p>As the total ambient light increases, your screen's contrast ratio can drop from 800:1 to 50:1 (or worse). Any contrast ratio lower than about 300:1 can cause eye strain.<p>End result: with a typical screen of about 200cd/m^2 a matte coating is totally unusable if your room is brighter than about 1000 lux but falls below 300:1 contrast around 450 lux (typical office lux is between 350 and 500).<p>In summary... you need to know your environment. Matte screens work great in dark rooms with lots of spot lights to cause reflections. Glossy screens work great in bright ambient conditions with even lighting. Semi matte works well if you need a balance.
It’s just opinions. There isn’t any answer there. (I’m not even sure there is one. The difference may be too small to be able to say that in general, one or the other is better. Maybe it’s really down to opinion.)
Whatever idiosyncratic stuff you do that helps you get into the zone for a long coding session is perfectly fine.<p>Shortly after landing my first job out of college, I picked up Orbital's first two albums and listened to them nonstop with a bit of Autechre and Aphex Twin while coding. After I left that job, I misplaced the Orbital albums, but kept listening to Autechre and Aphex Twin while doing other stuff.<p>Last week I picked up Orbital 1 and 2 again, and put them on while coding. <i>BAM</i> right into the zone. Probably won't work for you, but it works for me.
If you can control the lighting conditions then glossy is probably better.<p>If you have less control of lighting, or of position of the screen, or etc then matte is probably better.<p>This is assuming both glossy and matte monitor are equal for everything else.
> Is a glossy or matte LCD screen better for long coding sessions?<p>Better for you than screen choice: standing desk - you will code better and faster<p>Better for you than screen choice: inject 2 minutes of getting up and walking around every 15-20 minutes of your "long coding" session - you will code better and faster<p>Better for you than screen choice: start your long coding session after 30 minutes of moderate exercise (walk or bike ride) - you will code better and faster<p>-- after the above is in play --<p>It probably won't matter which one you choose.
I've recently had the pleasure of purchasing the 30" matte Dell U3011 IPS and the 27" semi-glossy Samsung S27B970 PLS.<p>There are pros and cons to both. The anti-glare coating on the Dell makes black text on white background look absolutely rubbish, fuzzy and hard to read. You can sort of get used to it, but every time you switch back from using the semi-glossy Macbook it looks terrible. Black themes don't suffer from these problems nearly as much.<p>With the Samsung, colours look <i>much</i> more vibrant and text is sharper. Reflections are very much an issue, especially with black themes. In very bright conditions with visible light sources the screen becomes almost unusable.<p>Overall, if I could control my lighting, I would go with semi-glossy. Otherwise I would suffer the Dell's anti-glare.<p>I find that both fuzzy text and reflections lead to eye strain and headaches. If they could tone down the anti-glare strength (but still leave <i>some</i> AG coating) I would probably go for that in all circumstances.<p>On an unrelated note, I do prefer the 30" pixel pitch (.25 mm) to the 27" (.23 mm). At the given viewing distance the .25mm pixel pitch more closely matches my Macbook's, meaning you can use the same font sizes for both.
The mention of "wide screen" in the second most voted comment reminded me of my biggest pet peeves for monitors in 2012 - the disappearance of 16:10 monitors.
I have both and well, glossy blows: not only it reflects nearly everything around it more than a CRT would but its also a dirt magnet.<p>Too bad these days a lot of laptops, specially mid to highend models come with glossy screens. Unless you're working in a cave you'll get reflections all the time.
I've noticed that at least some of the MacBook Air screens -- and the Retina MBP screen? -- are glossy, but with an anti-reflection coating. I've been wondering for some time why Apple hasn't been using using AR coatings on their glossy screens. These coatings used to be standard on high-end CRT monitors.<p>Anyway, I'm glad to see Apple coming around on this. Interesting, too, that they don't seem to be talking about it at all. Maybe they're worried that advertising some of their screens as AR-coated will draw attention to the fact that others, such as their 27" Thunderbolt monitor, are not. (I tried to use one of those for a few days, and gave up; the reflections were driving me nuts.)
I think the general quality of the screen is <i>far</i> more important than glossy or matte. It's like asking if a 2 liter engine is better than a 4 liter one. In what chassis? At what weight?<p>The latest Apple displays I'm using that are glossy easily trump my 30" Cinema Display in terms of being pleasant to read. They might be better in matte but the underlying display quality and technology has proven to be far more important than the coating.
Did everybody get so busy that they forgot how to find things out for themselves?<p>Try both. Figure out what variables you have to control for and control for them. If you can't tell, it probably doesn't matter.<p>Obviously some people prefer one or the other. If glossy gives you headaches and matte doesn't, does it matter how many people prefer glossy? So why ask them when you can get the data yourself?<p>If you think the difference affects your health and performance, isn't it worth the experiment? If it doesn't, why bother asking?