> Apple, if you ship a monitor with a non-adjustable stand in 2022, please make sure that the default height is at an ergonomic level. It should be at least 5-8 centimeters higher.<p>That's terrible advice. For a non-adjustable stand it needs to be at or near the lowest that people would want, because it is way easier to raise a fixed stand that is too low by putting something under it than it is to lower a fixed stand that is too high. (At least when the stand base is a simple rectangle--it might be harder on monitors that have narrow crescent bases).<p>Bricks are cheap [1] and would be great for raising such a monitor.<p>According to the specs at Apple the top of the monitor when on the non-adjustable stand is 47.8 cm above your desk. They don't give the bezel size but I've seen reviews say it is about 1/2", and that looks reasonable from the photos, so call it 1.3 cm. That would put the top of the screen at 46.5 cm.<p>I just measured my 27" iMac, which has the same size screen and a non-adjustable stand. The iMac top of screen is 49.5 cm about the desk.<p>I found the iMac a little too high. I ended up getting larger wheels [2] for my chair to effectively lower the iMac and putting a pillow on my chair to get a little more height for myself to make the iMac relatively lower. (Those are great wheels BTW. Unlike regular chair wheels these do not seem to end up clogged with hair wrapped around the axles).<p>[1] <a href="https://www.homedepot.com/p/8-in-x-2-1-4-in-x-4-in-Clay-Brick-RED0126MCO/100323015" rel="nofollow">https://www.homedepot.com/p/8-in-x-2-1-4-in-x-4-in-Clay-Bric...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CGZPOK2/" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CGZPOK2/</a>
They sort of imply that only the Studio display would have given him a DPI increase over his previous 27" 1440p display. Any 4k screen would have also done that.<p>Then he concludes that 600nits is unnecessary and that he doesn't need or want the USB-C ports.<p>I have no idea why he went with the apple display instead of any good 4k screen for 400$, or two of them.
I prefer running two 144hz 27” 4k monitors instead. Yeah the 5k to 4k scaling isn’t as crisp as native 2x, but god the high refresh rate really makes up for it.
I remember when bigger monitors had higher resolution. 15 inch monitors were 1024x768, 17 inch were typically 1280x1024 and some 20 inch monitors 1600x1200. Now nearly every panel from 13 inch to 32 inch are "4K" UHD with the exception of 24 inch monitors stuck at 1920x1080, it's sad because true HiDPI options (> 200 dpi) are extremely limited: two Apple screens, two LG screens and one Dell 8K 32 inch screen for PCs.
Shoulda gotten the version with the VESA mount adaptor and just hooked it to whatever nice monitor arm he has. I wonder if you can buy it separately and attach it. Looks like not, there's several big screwheads visible in the photo of the back on Apple's page that don't have corresponding holes in the backs of the other versions. Damn that sure is an Apple move; the Dell monitor I spent $500 on a decade ago came with a crappy low stand that hooks into the VESA mount on the back, which is now hooked to a nice Ergotron arm.<p>It looks like the version with the VESA mount costs as much as the base model, plus a few hundred for a nice desk arm/wall mount/etc if you don't have one already holding up your current screen.
The LG 5K has all the benefits of Retina 5K and most likely is the exact same panel. The biggest downside is the slower USB-C ports (5GB vs 10GB).<p>The camera isn't technically as good as Apple's, but it also doesn't rely on Apple software. It can raise/lower and tilt without paying $400 extra. It has a black plastic frame which doesn't look as nice, but the glass won't chip if you bump your laptop into the side.<p>If I didn't already have an LG 5K, I'd buy the Apple Studio monitor. I used my previous Thunderbolt Display for over a decade. That should be sufficient time for someone at Apple to fix the camera bug.
> As soon as I started using the Studio Monitor it felt like I had put glasses on. Every other screen looks blurry now.<p>This is literally how I felt about moving from these 27" 5K screens (I had Apple's iMac Pro and also a couple LG UltraFine external monitors), when I moved to a 31.5" 8K screen (Dell UP3218K).<p>The difference is every bit as dramatic as going 4K → 5K.<p>I had literally just gotten my first prescription glasses a month before getting the 8K. I don't need them at all on the 8K; I put them back on when I use these horrid, blurry 5K panels — panels that I used to love, mind you, and proclaimed "I think these are good enough; with my middle-aged eyesight I don't need anything better."<p>I was dead wrong.
I don't have any USB-A requirements on my desk now that I got a new USB-C enclosure for my local backup disk - however, USB-A ports are still useful for most of the userbase... did this monitor team not get the memo about ports being back in vogue for Apple?
“Man doesn’t bite dog” isn’t much of a headline. The Studio Display is great. Not cheap, but if you sit in front of a screen all day, and you enjoy a good 5K display, definitely worth it. The great loudspeakers and microphone system is an added bonus, and the camera is good, if not great.
It does sound like there are alternatives:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei_2sWzzar0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei_2sWzzar0</a><p>It's super disappointing that the pro colorist chooses LG over the Mac (and someone at dell must be super sad to see their $4k screen lose to a "cheap" apple monitor!) as you'd expect Apple to fuss over such details and go all in on calibrating monitors before shipping.<p>But it looks like they didn't calibrate anything. Monitor, sound or camera.
I'm still weirded out by the fact that it has an entire computer in it. I mean, I'm sure other monitors have CPUs to drive their menus and all, but this has an entire A13 SoC - the same thing as an iPhone 11 or 9th gen iPad. I'm curious to see what hacks emerge - like, can you turn this expensive monitor into a budget iMac, or a giant iPad (without touch input)?
I don't particularly like the Apple Studio Display, but this post is wrong on the ergonomics. Generally the <i>top</i> of your monitor should sit at or just below eye level.
We're living in the past, and it's terrible you have to choose between high DPI and high refresh rates. Buy a high DPI monitor and edit text for an hour and you can never go back. Play a game at 144hz and you can never go back. But you can't have both at the same time, and that's not even mentioning the beauty of doing all of this on an Ultrawide. Either way you're going to be shelling out a fortune and waiting or top of the line graphics cards which will only be getting more expensive.<p>I thought I was young enough to be living past the era of dial up, but now I realize my own dial up is the display.
My only quibble with this review is the USB-A port thing. 6 devices is a lot, but even if that were the real number, if the problem is the type-C connector, you can buy very inexpensive cables or even "caps" (like $5 maybe each) to get your USB-A device into a type C port. This is a thing on your desk, so there's no reason not to have it just plugged in all the time with a new, inexpensive cable, or have the cap on the end of your existing cable.
Guy was on a non-4k Monitor saying the Apple Studio 5k was more crisp. Oof.<p>For me...<p>I like 2 monitors. Just one is a huge loss to productivity.<p>I like 4k Monitors. Anything less is unusable.<p>I like 144hz monitors.<p>I like matching monitors. I find that if I mix 4k and 1080p I am prone to headaches.<p>I like monitors where the top is roughly eye level, or even a little bit higher, when I'm sitting down. I feel this helps my posture.<p>I hate monitors with any sort of light on them that's not coming from the screen. Power lights on the front that are on when I use the monitor make them unusable for me.<p>I just go with whatever 2 monitors I can afford that match the above criteria.<p>I expect to pay $750 to $1,000 per monitor. So $1500 to $2000 when I buy new monitors.<p>I expect the monitors will last around 3 years... likely they can be re-homed after, but like most things I don't think they hold up for me personally after that time.<p>I couldn't ever afford 2x Apple Studio Displays... I mean... even if I could, I would have more sense.<p>At one point in the past, about 5-7 years back, the job bought me 2x Apple Thunderbolt Display... and frankly it was nice, but the monitors were so low to the desk they had to be stacked on reams of printer paper to make them usable. I thought it was funny the company spent like $3k on monitors and I still had stacks of printer paper on my desk.
I bought a very slightly used Iiyama 5K monitor (XB2779QQS-S1 with Displayport 1.4) for 450€. While it does have some stuck pixels, they are so tiny that you only notice them when you are looking for them.
1800€ is insane.<p>I also use a 27" 4K monitor. The difference between the two isn't that great. 5K is mostly useful for 4K video editing.
PS: It sounds as if the author would have had a great experience with a 350€ 4K monitor, too.
> for video conferences it makes every person sound like James Earl Jones.<p>I think there's a typo here. This should go in the "Pros" section
My understanding is that the webcam issue has been essentially (not officially) confirmed as being a software bug. Which makes this kind of vitriol pretty unnecessary:<p>> There is a product manager at Apple who, for some reason, hates webcam users with a burning passion.<p>It also makes perfect sense, since the actual specs of the camera should be giving a much better picture.
I’ve been researching good monitors to upgrade from my Acer UM.CX2AA.P01 34” When the studio display got released I started to get excited. After all the reviews I’ve read I will definitely NOT buy it. Thanks for writing this!<p>Planning on saving up until the Pro Display XDR gets updated and getting that instead.
The Bjango team posted a chart for best monitors based on resolution:<p><a href="https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/" rel="nofollow">https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/</a>
> Its only competitor is the LG UltraFine, which is not much cheaper and lacks other features. If you want a 5K retina display the Studio Display is the best choice.<p><i>At this price range</i>.<p>The XDR is a credible competitor to the Studio Display and if you read reviews from people who have adopted it for their primary development workstations, they are holding on to those as well.<p>The XDR Pro Display, like the Blackmagic eGPUs of yore is wildly underrated in describing its value to developers.<p>The display, it's fantastic $1000 stand, and the Blackmagic products (that greatly enhance performance of Intel-based macs) are completely buried under hair pulling around sticker price.
This might be a bit off-topic, but since we’re talking big screens: I also have a 27“ display. I mostly work with emacs and a couple of shells, both in the kitty terminal. For emacs, this is great, but for a terminal, it really feels dumb, if you have a 3x2 terminal window and write something into the lower left one. It’s so far at the bottom and you have this huge real estate… I started to use a 1x3 terminal window. The bottom row is where I can glance at and the top one is where I swap out the terminal windows.<p>Anyone know of a new paradime for text based computing one huge screens? Sounds too niche, right? ;-)
I wish they made the screen 120hz and support hdmi or display port. 5K@27” has the sweet advantage of integer downscaling to 1440p, which is quite ideal for games unless you have a really top of the line graphics card.
It seems like those writing about this monitor are like "look it's got all these problems, but at least it doesn't have a notch so I'm keeping it."
Wow. Just checked the Apple site and this guy is right, Apple wants $400 for a height-adjustable monitor stand! Why? Also the web cam is crap? Really?<p>Okay, maybe it's not as bad as $699 for wheels for the Mac Pro, but that isn't right either! Consider that Apple is selling the iPhone SE for the same price that they're selling an height-adjustable monitor stand and <i>less</i> than for what they're charging for wheels! Can anyone explain this pricing?
To the author: get some glasses and stop being stubborn! The screen will look even nicer if you do. I held out for years and I curse myself for it. I don’t get headaches from squinting and craning my neck now. Also, out of curiosity, why is your laptop keyboard covered with paper? Bonus: why this display over a cheaper M1 iMac?
For me it's inconceivable to go back to a 60hz monitor in 2022 - using one feels like something is broken, just scrolling code or website is wrong. The fact that apple ships a 60hz monitor for the amount of money they ask for is.....silly.
Imho the Apple Thunderbolt Display is still a great (and way much cheaper) alternative for those of us who can't care less about refresh rate or pixel density.<p>If this one had a bigger size (say, 32 inches) and a more 'squared' ratio, I'd consider it an upgrade.
The piece of paper on the MacBook with the cut out fo the TouchID is interesting.<p>Is it because the keys are as ugly and scuffed as they are on my MBP and you can't stand to look at them?