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Comment by throw-qqqqq | Hacker News Reader

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throw-qqqqq·

This topic is very subjective IMO.

Some love the glossy screens, others the matte ones. And this is really what it comes down to for me.

I would try getting a chance to view the difference in person before deciding.

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Yes, I find that there are differences in eye strain between the regular and nanotexture displays, even in a dark room with no reflections. It's worth trying both. One interesting difference between the two that not a lot of people realize is that the light emitted by the regular screen is circularly polarized, while the nanotexture is largely non-polarized.

Can you explain more about what that means / share a link to further reading? Tried searching but couldn't find much online about the light polarization specifically, and am interested in the nanotexture for reducing eye strain.

There's some evidence that CPL emissive screens cause less eyestrain than linearly polarized emissive screens (e.g., https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9010255), although the evidence there is not wildly strong. If you have a pair of RealD 3-D glasses (CPL filters) and look at a nanotexture iPad, you'll see that the nanotex layer decoheres the polarization of the underlying display, which is more like how normal (reflective) paper behaves.

Very helpful, thank you!

Sure. I just wish I could buy both, test for a month or so and then keep the one I like more.

Visiting Apple Store every other day, when I was visiting the US did not help much. So I stayed with standard glass.

Indeed: only trying them both side by side at home would yield a useful conclusion. Trying to gauge which would be better for you from the Apple Store display would be about as useless as trying to decide which big TV to buy from Best Buy based on how they all look in the store, with settings completely other than those you'd use at home.

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