During Expo week, Derik DeLong wrote about TechRestore and the Delorean time machine adorning its show floor booth, before casually mentioning the company's matte screen replacement service. After reading this, I told myself I needed to get over there right away and check this out, given my undisguised hatred for all things glossy. (OK, all things except the relatively small and easily-repositioned screens on iPhones.)
Toward Expo's end, I managed to work my way over to the TechRestore booth...where I then had to promptly pick my jaw up off the floor after seeing their matte-screen equipped MacBook Pro. This is, quite honestly, the machine I feel Apple should have launched as the new Unibody MacBook Pro. The engineering of the new bezel (in a nice matte black finish) is perfect; it looks just as good as the one on the stock MacBook Pro machine sitting next to it in TechRestore's booth.
I took a picture (click the image to the left for a much larger version), but really, the image is somewhat disappointing because, well, because it looks just like a MacBook Pro should look. The picture doesn't do justice to just how nice the machine looks; the flat-black bezel and matte screen look like they've been there since day one.
The new screen is somewhat more flexible than the original--not surprising, given the support that was provided by the now-missing layer of glass. However, I compared it to my matte MacBook Pro, and the modified MacBook Pro certainly doesn't flex any more than mine does.
So if matte bothers you a lot, as it does me, but you really really want a new 15-inch MacBook Pro (TechRestore told me it's working on something similar for the 13-inch MacBook line), you might want to check out the TechRestore program. Sure, it's more money than is an anti-glare filter, but the end result appears to be well worth the investment.
This story, "Expo Notes: Restoring the Matte Screen" was originally published by Macworld.