Netbooks and mini laptops with a matte screen

If you’ve read some of my posts here on NetBookLive , you’ve noticed I always complain about how glossy most netbooks and mini laptops are these days. You can hardly find some proper matte devices which are a lot better for a couple of reasons I’ve wrote about in my post Matte vs Glossy. However, in this postI’m going to talk only about available netbooks and mini notebooks with matte screens.

These mini machines are meant to be portable. Thus, they will be used in all kind of light conditions, from a dark room during the night, to a bright sunny afternoon in the park. And have you ever tried to use a glossy display outside, during daylight? They are like vampires those ones, barely useless for anything more than mirrors. See the picture below (from here).

Glossy display

That’s why we all crave for matte non-glare displays on these mini machines, and for good reasons: can be used outside in stronger light and don’t catch fingerprints, smears and smudges as easy.

Matte vs glossy

You will notice that on some matte displays, colors are kind of dull and everything seems washed off in bright light. That won’t be so obvious if you for something with good brightness, but that is a characteristic for matte screens. Still, the glossy one will reflect anything in front, although colors are more vivid.

Now, let’s see what are the popular netbooks boosting such types of displays.

10 inchers:

• Samsung N230 (matte plastic outer casing and brushed aluminum interior) and its predecessor Samsung N210
• Samsung NB30 Pro (rubberized casing, waterproof and ultra-tough)
• Asus 1001P (matte plastic case) – only some versions
• Asus 1005PX (glossy casing – only available in some parts of the globe)
• some versions of the Asus 1005PE (available in Western Europe only)
• HP Mini 5102 (premium netbook with metallic casing)
• Lenovo S10 (older devices, with plastic casings – some finishes are glossy) – careful, newer S10-2 and S10-3 models offer glossy displays, only the initial S10 had a matte one
• Samsung NC10 (casing is glossy, older device from 2009)
• Samsung N150 (matte casing also – only some versions come with the matte finish, other are glossy)
• MSI Wind U123 (glossy plastic inside and outside)
• Asus 1015PED – new generation mainstream 10 incher
• Asus 1015PEM – 10 incher with N550 dual-core processor

11.6 inchers:

• Lenovo ThinkPad X100e (great build quality, matte plastic casing, AMD powered)
• MSI Wind12 U230 (glossy plastic exterior)

12 inchers:

• Lenovo X200 and X200t tablet (all top notch devices, especially the last one)
• Toshiba Portege R500 and R600 (premium options with metallic alloy casings)
• Dell Latitude E4200 (pretty poor viewing angles based on reviews)

As you can see, most netbooks with matte displays do come with matching matte casings, but that’s not always the case. And yea, those devices in the 12 inch class are more mini notebooks than netbooks, as they are all expensive, but there are not cheaper options with a matte screen in that category.

Of course, I might have missed some important ones, so if you notice some devices that should be in here and are not, please leave a comment. And updates will follow as soon as i spot new devices that could get in here.

Also, I’m working on a post about how to transform your glossy display into a non-glare one and it should be online soon. Also, a post about the best matte netbooks on the market, so stay tuned, more info on matte mini laptops will follow soon.

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Tags: best netbook, matte display, matte netbook

Last updated: September 20, 2010 | Published: August 18th, 2010 | See the comments or add yours!