Hey all.
Just a bit of a rant/open topic for discussion here.
Did I miss something, or are there ZERO matte screen displays anymore?
For the person with a pitch black room, life is easy! You can get a front projection setup, you can use a plasma or, if you don't care about image quality, you can get an LCD (LED backlit or otherwise).
For the person in a dimly lit room (ie. just barely enough light to read by - no more), plasma is your singular best choice.
But what about anything above dim lighting? What about just normal room lighting or (gasp) sunlight?
In the past, I'd recommend that people get a matte-screened LCD. Preferably a full-array, local-dimming LED backlit, matte-screen LCD.
A year ago, there were two good choices: The LG LH90 series and the Vizio XVT3 series.
Now sure, the largest screen size was 55". Sure, the off-angle viewing was still really bad. Sure, there was "blooming". But compared to the washed-out look and grey blacks of plasma or the complete unwatchability of front projection, a full-array, local-dimming LED backlit, matte-screen LCD was the best option!
Today though, there are ZERO good choices for any room that has anything more than dim lighting. Vizio has gone to glossy screens. LG has gone to glossy screens. Sony has nothing but glossy screens. Samsung is all glossy.
So what are people supposed to do?
What are we supposed to recommend?
Are we really supposed to tell everyone that their ONLY option if they want to watch TV is to make sure that they never watch in anything above dim lighting?
I mean, hey, dim or pitch black lighting has always been the ideal option. But c'mon! Let's be realistic!
I just don't know what to do at this point in time. If people have dim or darker rooms, it's easy - get a Panasonic plasma. But for every other situation, there's just NOTHING that I can honestly recommend! Try to find an LH90 or XVT3? That's really the only thing I can say.
Sucks to be a "normal" TV watcher these days