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Comment by seemaze | Hacker News Reader

Do you prefer glossy paper work? glossy book pages? glossy construction documents? The preference for a non-reflective surface for the relaying of dense information has been established for decades.

You know what's glossy? Movie posters and postcards.

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Paper, books, and construction documents all use reflected and not refracted light.

ooh, my feathers were a bit ruffled (for reasons unrelated) when I wrote the above.

I still say for comfortable all day viewing and productivity, there is no comparison. Glossy does have more pop on a phone or watching movies in the dark, but I'd go blind doing that all day every day..

non-reflective surfaces you cite have pigments on TOP. screens have depth causing parallax and light spreading. Your point would be valid if screens were paper-thin and image pixels came out the very surface

You'd need a jewelers loupe to appreciate parallax and spreading. Not a real problem in general use.

i use a matte screen protector on my iphone. without it, i can see pixels. with it, i cannot. no loupe, just my nearsighted eyes

You can see actual pixels on a retina iphone? That is remarkable eyesight. I could do it on old non retina iphones but not on retina models.

Kind of a cool thing about being nearsighted. Without glasses, I can get very close to things and still focus on them, i get to see very small details.

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