It's the other way around, I think, there are technological challenges to using Matt coatings

The issue is, like you said, the smearing and contrast, which was a bigger issue with newer, high DPI displays.

That being said, I do believe there are solutions - I have used 4k Matt displays that don't have the aforementioned issue, I think most glossy displays are there for there as a form over function thing.

Glossy displays are still annoyingly reflective and good antiglare coatings are exceedingly easy to damage

I disagree with that. Take a look at MacBooks for example - excellent screens that are glossy but not very reflective. Never seen anything better on a laptop.

Have you ever tried working outdoors on a glossy screen? You will wish very fast it was matte.

If by outdoors you mean coffee shops and so on, it's fine. But yeah in the open it is bad, like most cell phones etc. I don't consider that a common use case. If you do field work, get some shade behind/over you. Plenty of reasons for that.

The only technical limitation we have is that matte displays collect dust etc. so they are not suitable for touch-devices.

Why some manufacturers would want to use glossy on any non-touch device is beyond me.

> Why some manufacturers would want to use glossy on any non-touch device is beyond me.

Colour vibrancy and sharpness. A matte screen is literally a defuser between you and the actual content.

And unless you are i a pitch-black room that is exactly what you want.

And displays arent high-resolution enough for it to be a big deal anyway.

Exactly what I wanted was a MBP2015 13/15 inch with "retina display" ie. 2560x1600 px glossy with anti reflective coating (the first iterations would have the coating get loose but I was able to get free replacement on both). Not matte. Its what I got (both 13" and 15"), though they're showing their age. With brightness on full, there's barely any reflection (I get easily distracted and I don't notice it). If Mac ecosystem is a must, the spiritual successor would be a M1-based laptop. These have, on paper, even better screens.

For me, I prefer to keep my screen brightness at 50% or so. In that case a glossy screen is just a distracting mass of reflections, where a matte display is pleasantly usable. Color accuracy isn't an issue for anything I deal with, so the more comfortable appearance of the matte display is a clear winner.

For my digital-artist friends, they do prefer the over-bright glossy displays since it's actually a critical need for their process.

Glossy with anti-reflective coating is in my experience just a poor after-market matte filter.

As someone who wears glasses, I can attest that wear-resistant AR coatings are a mature technology. They can be applied to plastic and to glass. I suspect the only problem is that they’re not particularly cheap, and an extra $30 BOM cost is a big deal.

All recent MBPs have this, and these are known for their fantastic screens. Nothing Windows (nor Linux) comes close to it. But of course, you are entitled to your informed opinion. Please share with us, which specific laptop screens you prefer.

MBP is on 7th place or so?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Best-Notebooks-with-the-Be...

I mean it is great and all top places are pretty similar, but "nothing comes close" is just completely wrong.

Yeah, MBPs have always had a terrific reputation. Even when they were using TN panels...

Utter garbage in my opinion.

There never was a technical limitation, matte coatings were a deliberate design choice and continue to be. Maybe some people like the "pop" of a glossy display but the rest of us don't like to suffer from glare and reflections while we work.

I don't understand why you'd want to deliberately diffuse the output of your screen? Like if you wanted it blurry you could have done that in software.

> I don't understand why you'd want to deliberately diffuse the output of your screen?

I already said why: reflections and glare make for a terrible work experience. That's why matte is the default preference for most people.

> Like if you wanted it blurry you could have done that in software.

The "grains" (for lack of a better word) in a matte coating are truly microscopic. They don't make anything blurry. I get the impression that either you're just trolling or you've never actually seen a matte display.

I guess the diffusion is a bit like a sub-pixel sized blur, but you can’t reduce reflections in software though.