I'm changing my old Powerbook for a new 17" Macbook pro. You can choose between a glossy or the standard matte display. Does anybody have experience with either and can recommend which one is best for photo editing purposes. Is the glossy display harder to calibrate, or something?
Moreover, you can choose from 100GB/7200rpm, 160/5400 or 200/4200 discs. I use maily Apple Aperture. Will the faster (but smaller) discs be an advantage? The computer comes with 2gig memory
Matte for us photo nerds. Oh, and I'd get the faster HDD if it were me, but some people say it makes no difference. I only care about speed on computers tho....drumming my fingers is no fun and I know I'm going to have to get an external HDD anyhow.
I agree. I would certainly sacrifice hard drive space for speed. Long term storage can always be added externally. Battery life, however, will be slightly less with a faster drive. As for the screen, I have used the glossy screen on the Macbook (not Pro), and it can be distracting with glare. For photo editing, matte is best.
Definitely matte if you want to do any photo editing on your MacBook Pro. I have a MacBook (not Pro) as my travel machine which has the glossy screen. I use it mostly for internet and e-mail. I also download CF cards to it as they fill up and often view images when I'm traveling. Editing is impossible on it IMO. One can do a little photo adjusting, but the results are rarely accurate enough for serious use.
In fact, for photos, the glossy is so bad IMO that I'm adding an external display to leave in my apartment in Bangkok just so that I can see photos better.
Thankfully, the glossy-screened portable is not my image editing machine. I do like the machine for what I purchased it however.
So, do you mean that even after calibration (with an "external tool for the job, of course), the glossy display will be less good for photo editing? If so, because of reflections and flare or because of something else?
CTYankee: Yes I'm the same Ola H. I left the mtb stuff quite a few years ago. Thinking about these suspension systems just took to much of my time. Photo stuff is way less theoretical...
The glossy screen is also very contrasty. That's nice for reading web pages, but it really messes with photo editing. I have an image on my web site that is of a bluish-violet flower. On my calibrated display with my G5 PowerMac it looks just right; on the iMac across the room it looks just right; on a old iBook with matte screen it looks just right... However, on the glossy MacBook screen it looks so contrasty as to appear over saturated and posterized. This may be partly due to gamut too, but I just hope that no one looks at the image with a glossy screen.
