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Turning glossies matte

Many laptop and LCD screen owners dream of being able to wave a magic wand and turn their glossy screen to a matte one. All sorts of crazy ideas and methods on how to do this appear on the net, so we thought an article on the question might be of interest.

Florent Alzieu
Published: September 09, 2009

Different methods

First of all, note that there will be further additions to this article as time goes by, as we add new methods. We are nevertheless going to dismiss the craziest ideas or those that are difficult for you as an individual to put into place.

Don’t try sanding or sandblasting the panel. There are two good reasons for this: sanding your screen is not something we think apt or effective and sandblasting is too messy after the event and would in any case cost too much.

Consideration of the issue started because of the lack of matte screens on general consumer laptops. If you’re a regular reader of our articles, you’ll know that we’re firmly opposed to glossies. We would at least like to see consumers given the choice, but this would seem to be an impossibility according to manufacturers who tell us that there's only a demand for glossy screens (this in spite of the fact that they admit personally to preferring matte).

So as to take some action and save you from experimenting with any hazardous solutions on your latest highly priced 15-inch MacBook, we decided to take a closer look at the question ourselves.

The objectives

There are several. For the solution we're testing to meet with our approval, we require the following conditions to be satisfied:

1) Make sure the operation costs less than replacement of the panel by a specialist

2) Conserve good brightness levels

3) Conserve as wide viewing angles as possible

4) Retain colour quality

Now then, let’s kick this into gear!