I want to switch from my Macbook M1 Max as I do not need it for work any more. However I love the screen and everything I’ve seen on Windows laptops doesn’t come anywhere near. I saw this laptop on Youtube randomly and liked the idea behind it, however the screen looks really bad on the video.
Is it possible to get a glass glossy display and not that horrible plastic matte one?
Is the screen backlit or FALD? Just I cannot live with grey blacks any more that backlit offers.
Will there be an OLED option if it is backlit?
Usually I do not like OLED as it always burns in all my experiences with it. However with this laptop it would be an easy replacement so I wouldn’t care.
There is a Display deep dive on their blog, that answers most you could ask for:
So far they haven’t announced anything. I think they are going for a productivity focused laptop first, where a matt screen is the more practical options.
From the way they have written their blog post, it sounds like HDR capabilites weren’t their focus. So it is likely an backlit/edgelit screen.
Nothing has been announced so far.
They did write, that the necessary connections for a touchscreen are there, which means that either they or someone else could create a touchscreen panel in the future, those are almost always glossy.
Second time I’ve seen someone say touchscreens are always or almost always glossy. Is this from experience? Any chance you know of a source with numbers?
Sent from my matte touchscreen Thinkpad. I’ve come to enjoy having the touch option, but I really don’t want glare.
I can’t really provide a source for that, so it is mostly from experience. But the most compelling reasons I’ve heard are:
Matte screen get a coating, that makes them matte. The oils in your finger would slowly remove that coating, giving you some shiny spots on the screen.
Matte screens are harder to slide over with your finger, as they are rougher.
I find my matte touchscreen easier to slide my finger across than glossy phones or tablets. Glossy can sometimes have the feeling of slight resistance / sticking when you start to slide, whereas that happen to a lesser degree on matte. As to the feel, it’s the opposite of rougher to me. Feels nicer, silky.
Asked a friend about their touchscreen laptop. They’ve had 2 matte, 1 glossy. I’ll have to ask if they’ve experienced any issues with the matte ones.
I guess I stand corrected. There are laptops out there with matte touchscreens. Maybe companies shy away from it for cost reasons?
Glossy screens look better to the average consumer, especially when they walk into a store and compare laptops. So you’d probably find matte screens on more business oriented devices.
I just do not like matte because they look like crap in a bright room as the light diffuses over the screen and washes it out. Where modern glossy glass screens like on the new Macbooks do not have any downsides over them. The old ones would reflect like mad and not get bright enough to overcome the reflections. The modern ones have antiglare coatings and do like 1000+ nits so you cannot see any reflections and look really nice. However with the matte there is nothing you can do when the panel is basically a diffuser.
Anyways the answer I got is disappointing about the screen. I’ll just have to find another option or wait for an OLED upgrade option or something. I do not understand why they didn’t do this in the first place? Surely they know by now that no one likes backlit screens? The whole reason phones all went to OLED.
I’d buy OLED only if it came with a 10 year unlimited warranty. In my opinion, it’s still got a huge durability disadvantage. If Micro-LED screens (non-organic) come into production, that might be worth another thought. Until then, LCD it is. And matte, as overcoming reflections by increasing the screen brightness will unnecessarily eat into the battery capacity.
Just my 0,02€, but either glossy or OLED display would be 100% show stoppers for me. YMMV.
I do think having a matte screen is helpful for productivity purposes. But everyone has their own preferences. I hope you find something else that suites you.
Just as a reminder, the macbook pro screens also do not get brighter than 500nits for SDR content, same as the framework. So you’ll only get the brightness benefit while watching movies. But 500nits is already plenty bright and will consume a decent amount of power.
OLEDs are still a whole lot more expensive than traditional LCD panels. The FW16 is already a bit more expensive than spec-comparable laptops, so only an expensive OLED option would have eaten into their preorders, while most probably don’t even need an OLED screen. Even in this community i bet most active posters are enthusiasts of some sort, who might prefer better screens, but the average Joe maybe doesn’t even notice.
Keep in mind that Framework is still a teeny tiny company compared to the big players, so “just giving us more options” isn’t feasable for them, even if they really want to (which I’m sure they do). They probably did some market research and concluded that a matte LCD screen is the most popular option within their own capabilities.
The up-side is, that you can easily get a FW16 now and possibly upgrade to a different screen later, which is never an option with any other laptop out there.
Users seemed to hate the original glossy screen present in the first FW13s - there were many forum posts asking for its removal, so they switched over to a matte screen with the FW13 13th gen, with the glossy screen optional through the Marketplace. On the FW16, the matte screen is standard.
True, I guess that counts towards market research for the 16
But yes, everybody has different needs, but they can’t do everything all at once from the start…
