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Nano-texture display
- Thread starter Macintosh101
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Unfortunately in the long term, shiny keycaps can never be avoided. It's a drawback of Apple's use of ABS plastic for its keycaps. The shine the keys eventually develop happens due to friction between your fingers and keys, literally wearing away the surface of the keys. It's bugbear of mine and I wish Apple would address it some way.The Nano Texture display, being etched rather than coated, is more durable than a glossy coating.
1. It is less likely to pick up oil than a glossy display.
2. While the provided cloth makes cleaning fairly easy, it's not as effortless as using Apple's Polishing Cloth, especially when dust is present. With the provided cloth, I have to remove dust with my fingers before wiping away oil, whereas the Apple Polishing Cloth cleans everything in one swipe, highly recommended that you use Apple's Polishing Cloth.
You may consider using this:
MacBook Pro keyboard cover, screen protector and cleaner
Display screen protector, cleaner and refinisher for MacBook Pro. Custom sizes available for any laptop computerwww.radtech.com
I clean oil off my keyboard everytime I close the lid. You don't have to do that but I really hate shinny keycaps.
I suggest you use light feather duster to regularly remove dust particles. It makes maintenance very quick and easy.The Nano Texture display, being etched rather than coated, is more durable than a glossy coating.
1. It is less likely to pick up oil than a glossy display.
2. While the provided cloth makes cleaning fairly easy, it's not as effortless as using Apple's Polishing Cloth, especially when dust is present. With the provided cloth, I have to remove dust with my fingers before wiping away oil, whereas the Apple Polishing Cloth cleans everything in one swipe, highly recommended that you use Apple's Polishing Cloth.
You may consider using this:
MacBook Pro keyboard cover, screen protector and cleaner
Display screen protector, cleaner and refinisher for MacBook Pro. Custom sizes available for any laptop computer
I clean oil off my keyboard everytime I close the lid. You don't have to do that but I really hate shinny keycaps.
I use a very thin silicone keyboard cover which prevents the shine. Works well.
I think there is no way for Apple to use PBT keycaps because the keycaps must be thin for better backlighting and color consistency. The keycaps would definitely still shine, but at a much lower rate (I did some experiments).
I found what I thought might be kryptonite for nano displays: bold fonts in a Terminal window with Homebrew profile (green-on-black like an old-school terminal). So I went to the Apple store and put a nano and non-nano 14" MBP side-by-side and took these photos, click for full resolution pics:
It seemed to me that both were equally blurry on the bold fonts (e.g. "DESCRIPTION"). That might be partly my astigmatism. It doesn't really look the same in the photos as it did to my eyes.
The nano is on the left, glossy on the right.
This might have something to do with the angle of camera being straight on the glossy DESCRIPTION but at a angle on the nano DESCRIPTION.
Interesting. Compared to other matte laptops I have used, I am very impressed with the nano-texture. What laptops are you using that come with such great matte screens?
are you sure one is nano? Both look glossy here
Just received my M4 Pro MBP 14 and LOVING the nano-texture display. It actually arrived yesterday but I didn't have time to unbox and set it up until this morning at work. I have a corner cubicle with large windows and a lot of natural light. The nano-texture display is beautiful and so much easier to view and read compared to my previous glossy MBP.
I still have noticeable glare on my two matte Dell work monitors but no issue at all viewing the nano-texture display! I am also super happy to have silver again, as opposed to the previous Space Black.
I still have noticeable glare on my two matte Dell work monitors but no issue at all viewing the nano-texture display! I am also super happy to have silver again, as opposed to the previous Space Black.
If you compare displays in a dark room, the glossy may appear slightly brighter, but when there is a fair amount of ambient light, the nano advantages will far outweigh that. In bright to very bright settings, you will need to set the glossy to much higher brightness to overcome reflections and achieve reasonable readability, while the nano will be awesome.
So if it's a bright patio, I would definitely choose the nano. If it's a dark patio, you can get either.
Nano texture is like a matte screen protector the same way a Ferrari is like a Fiat. Sure they’re both cars, but folks who can afford and appreciate a Ferrari are busy enjoying their cars while those who can’t think they’re a waste of money and feel the need to share their opinion.
Everything can be considered a waste of money of you either a. can’t afford something and/or b. can’t appreciate something. One can argue Apple products as a whole are a waste of money, for example.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Everything can be considered a waste of money of you either a. can’t afford something and/or b. can’t appreciate something. One can argue Apple products as a whole are a waste of money, for example.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I don't see it as a waste of money...
I get annoyed just seeing my own reflection on my current MBP display (dark mode apps + sitting in front of a bright window), and Christmas has been annoying, hard to find a spot to sit in my living room where there isn't some kind of Christmas lights reflecting on the display. This wasn't an issue on my previous systems with matte panels. I can't wait to get a system with nanotexture.
(But I have a M2 Max system, so while I may have no problem dropping down an extra $150 for me to upgrade to a nanotexture panel in my next system, it is *not* worth $4K+ right now to buy a whole new laptop just to get it. I'll have to wait a few years yet for the upgrade to be more "worth it" in other areas too.)
Matte screen protector instead? Meh. Leaving aside the issue if I would even be satisfied with the image quality with that sort of setup... I already have to periodically clean the screen because it gets keyboard imprints on it. Adding something to make the screen *thicker* seems like it would just make that worse because it would touch the keyboard even more readily.
I get annoyed just seeing my own reflection on my current MBP display (dark mode apps + sitting in front of a bright window), and Christmas has been annoying, hard to find a spot to sit in my living room where there isn't some kind of Christmas lights reflecting on the display. This wasn't an issue on my previous systems with matte panels. I can't wait to get a system with nanotexture.
(But I have a M2 Max system, so while I may have no problem dropping down an extra $150 for me to upgrade to a nanotexture panel in my next system, it is *not* worth $4K+ right now to buy a whole new laptop just to get it. I'll have to wait a few years yet for the upgrade to be more "worth it" in other areas too.)
Matte screen protector instead? Meh. Leaving aside the issue if I would even be satisfied with the image quality with that sort of setup... I already have to periodically clean the screen because it gets keyboard imprints on it. Adding something to make the screen *thicker* seems like it would just make that worse because it would touch the keyboard even more readily.
The nano texture screen is amazing (at reducing glare). I'm using a Dell UP2720Q with MBP 16 with M1 Pro. The Dell screen is matte of course. But compared with the nano texture display on my new MBP 14 with M4 max, the latter is way better. It happened to be a bright sunny day. I took the picture with all nature lighting. It's obvious which is better.
Apple appears to have done a great job at finding the right balance in dulling reflections without causing too much diffusion.
This alleviates the issue that other matte screens and screen protectors have, which is the diffusion is so strong that it creates a haze over a large areas of the screen under bright lighting conditions rendering it unreadable and negating the advantages of matte over a reflective glossy screen.
The nano texture also appears to have less of a dirty/rainbow effect on white background compared to the typical matte screen.
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The M4 Pro MBP 14 has considerably better battery life than my previous M3 Max MBP 14 and I think this is partly due to the nano-texture display. When in the office, located near a wall of windows, I have to turn the M3 Max to maximum brightness to fight the glare. However, the nano-texture brightness level can be set much lower and still comfortably see everything on screen sans glare and reflections.
I use terminal a lot (I'm an old school unix guy) with that colour scheme and have no issues with nano texture.
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The screens are identical behind the glass (both 1600 nits), the nano texture gets microscopic etching into the glass to diffuse light hitting it rather than directly reflecting it into your eyeballs. Essentially, at a microscopic level, it isn't a flat surface, so light hitting it from outside doesn't bounce off it in a straight line, it is scattered.
Photos don't really do it justice, and it may or may not be useful to you. If you work next to a window or outside it is SO much better than the glossy for reducing eye strain.
yes with a glossy screen you can mess with the tilt angle, turn the laptop slightly etc. to reduce glare, but in an office with multiple lights and a window its sometimes impossible to get rid of the reflections enough and still get a good view of the screen.