Is it just me or does the "glass" display of the MBP feel really plastic?

I actually just made this observation right now as we speak on my bros mbp.....if you lightly knock on the screen it has a very significantly plastic feel to it. I guess its a form of glass still?? If you gently push against the screen with your finger, then even more so you get a plastic-y feel from it because the screen kinda pushes in and out, as if its a plastic layer atop the actual screen almost, or something, i dunno lol. It feels flimsy, not like solid, hard glass.

Without telling us what model of MacBook Pro you're talking about, we have no idea. Assuming it is a new or very recent one, I'd say you've had your first introduction to Gorilla Glass, which is a glass polymer designed to be strong and flexible:

it was purchased from apple in summer 2011. whatever this 'gorilla glass' is, it feels really cheap. id rather proper, real glass, but whatevs. i mean, if it contains polymer then that's basically plastic right there no? i was just surprised since apple has made such reputation over the years for the mbps having a 'glass' screen. i dont think you can really call it glass in all honesty.

Gorilla glass is a costing applied to the screen to make it able to del with things that might otherwise scratch it. The iPhones and IPod touch also have this. They also have a little bit of a give to them, but the MBP glass is way bigger and will have more give..

It is definitely glass and not some hybrid.

badzula said:

it was purchased from apple in summer 2011. whatever this 'gorilla glass' is, it feels really cheap. id rather proper, real glass, but whatevs. i mean, if it contains polymer then that's basically plastic right there no? i was just surprised since apple has made such reputation over the years for the mbps having a 'glass' screen. i dont think you can really call it glass in all honesty.

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A quick search will show you its anything but cheap and more resilient than a standard glass screen.

Glass does flex, as well. It's not as rigid as one might expect. Watch the glass in a glass door as it is opened and closed. It flexes quite a bit. So I would expect the glass on my MBP to flex if I pushed in center.

fair enough i guess

badzula said:

it was purchased from apple in summer 2011. whatever this 'gorilla glass' is, it feels really cheap. id rather proper, real glass, but whatevs.

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No you wouldn't. With a glass panel that thin, the first time you closed the lid too hard or the machine got bumped around in a laptop bag, you'd be picking glass shards out of the keyboard.

Why would you touch it anyway? It's not a touch screen and it's not meant to have your greasy fingers on it - especially since it doesn't belong to you.

mean, if it contains polymer then that's basically plastic right there no? i was just surprised since apple has made such reputation over the years for the mbps having a 'glass' screen. i dont think you can really call it glass in all honesty.

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Lots of things have polymer coatings on them, that doesn't change their inherent properties. For example, nearly all cars made in the past 60 years or so have "safety" glass. What is it? A layer of glass sandwiched between layers of plastic. You wouldn't refer to that as plastic, would you?

Not sure pure "solid, hard glass" has been used in anything in the past 50 years or so.

The substrate of gorilla glass is glass which (from my limited understanding) has been put through a particular ionization process and been coated.

To say it is not glass would be akin to saying that the substrate "sheetrock" (or any other substrate for that matter) after you tape, bed, apply a texture and paint, or install a wallpaper on it, is somehow no longer sheetrock.

As far as I know, Apple only uses GG for their iOS devices, not their notebooks. I can't seem to find anything online that suggests that Apple uses it elsewhere (please correct me if I'm wrong).

vansmith said:

As far as I know, Apple only uses GG for their iOS devices, not their notebooks. I can't seem to find anything online that suggests that Apple uses it elsewhere (please correct me if I'm wrong).

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Regardless of the brand name, it's laminated safety glass of some sort.

Not laminated in any tradition sense. Hardened and perhaps coated for some purpose, but not laminated like a windscreen glass.

cwa107 said:

Regardless of the brand name, it's laminated safety glass of some sort.

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No doubt but I am "Mr. Semantic" after all.

vansmith said:

No doubt but I am "Mr. Semantic" after all.

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Point made!

Gorilla Glass:

Gorilla Glass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What Is Gorilla Glass?
Gorilla Glass - What Is Gorilla Glass?

- Nick