Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Apple Studio Display is hard to justify”.
( calm drum music ), The Apple Studio Display, brings out lots of emotions for people.. It’S either the screen we’ve all been waiting for, or the biggest disappointment in technology. In the past decade. The Studio Display the Apple Studio Display Biggest disappointment of the last 10 years.. Yeah. ( test screen beeps ), But like many devices, we’ve seen come from Apple over the past many years. The story is a little deeper and more annoying, because those buggers in the glass circle are masters of getting you to pay more than you otherwise would want to, and damn it you’re gon na like it, because it’s the best, monitor there is.
Right.. So the expectation is that this monitor is perfect, but it’s not and that’s the tension.. So I’m gon na show you my nitpicks about the Studio Display and a very suitable alternative- ( air whooshes ), Not from Apple., Looks like the cable’s already attached., Oh right and then there’s that., (, calm, music fades, ), (, dull, music ). Allow me to at least briefly explain why everyone is so. Mad. Apple has a pretty long, in-storied history of making very nice quite expensive monitors for their desktops..
There’S the Portrait Macintosh Display from the late 80′ and then the larger-than-you-ever-thought-possible Apple Cinema Displays, through the odds all the way to the Pro Display. Xdr. 32 inches 6K resolution mini LED contrast, ratio, HDR brightness, its $ 5,000 price tag was defensible, but still quite dear..
Everyone else who wanted an Apple display had to either get the 5K display built into the iMac or settle at the Apple Store checkout for a $ 1,300 LG, 5K UltraFine display. And the display-shaped hole in the Apple lineup felt like a major oversight.. I already lamented about this last fall when I pitched some, admittedly strange alternatives which I will still defend, but don’t worry because Apple have finally, given us their answer., The $ 1,600 Apple Studio, Display. ( paper, thuds ) On paper. It’S what I’ve been asking for.
A new Thunderbolt display, with the lauded 5K resolution in a well-built, attractive enclosure.. It’S certainly much more attractive than the old LG 5K UltraFine display, which LG still sells, though no longer through the Apple Store.. Despite the new Studio Display being an all-new product from Apple, it essentially uses the same LG panel that is found in the UltraFine and the iMac, though, in here it’s about 100 nits brighter.. That paired with the anti-reflective coating that Apple puts on their glossy screens means that you can place it opposite a window and never notice..
It also means that nano-texture is really not worth it. Unless you absolutely know you need it. The 200 pixels per inch. Look nice crisp and is perfect for MacOS, but accuracy Eh. I still have to figure that out in another video. So subscribe.
If you wan na find out how to calibrate an Apple monitor, even if it turns out to be perfectly accurate, that should be a given at this price and not really enough to justify the $ 300 price increase alone.. So what else is there ( intense drum music )? The new Studio Display has all the latest technologies fitted within a very thin package.. There are the best speakers, you’ll ever hear, built into a monitor. They’re good enough that I don’t think you’ll need to buy another pair..
Next, the webcam gets Center Stage, which is probably the best place for it.. This is the webcam and microphone of the Apple Studio Display. There is lots of commotion going on behind me. As you can see, and the Center Stage camera is pretty nifty.. When I tested it in a Zoom call. I found that it works as good or better than any of the other webcams.
I tried and that’s with harsh window light. Others have not found the webcams as compelling and their screenshots do show some stark differences., There’s room for improvement for sure, but after some Zoom compression, it’s not really that bad. Same goes for the microphone. All of these fancy new features are enabled by an A13-powered logic board, running iOS, and if that goes wrong, you can only reboot the monitor by pulling the power cord as there’s no off button.
( fast drum music stops ), And that’s my thing about this. Monitor. Apple might think they put lots of thought into the features. But when you start zooming in on the design details, you’ll find that they’ve received little attention..
It’S not actually all that innovative where it matters. ( emotional, guitar, music, ), The fact they were able to fit the power supply they did behind this panel is mighty impressive. It’S nice too, as you don’t have to deal with the giant power brick dangling somewhere, but that convenience is compromised by the fact that Apple attached, a not-for-you-to-remove cable to power, the display.. This was a problem they already fixed with the LED Cinema display, but somehow we’ve regressed back to this hassle.
(, calm, uplifting, music, ), Here’s a free idea: what about powering the monitor through Thunderbolt from the Mac Studio? The USB-C standard supports enough to power a display like this. So could you imagine a single-port solution like the old ADC connector And then for laptop users. Apple could flip the script, offering an external power supply with ethernet like the iMac and then make the Studio Display. The perfect hub.
Speaking of hubs, while the USB hub on the back of the display, now supports up to 10-gig speeds. The Thunderbolt input is in completely the wrong spot.. Why is it over here ( wheezes ), with the downstream ports? It should be tucked in behind the stand with the power cord.. Everything going into the monitor should go through here.
(, calm, uplifting, music, ), (, scoffs ). Look how much better this immediately looks. ( scoffs ), The included Thunderbolt cable – is also annoyingly short. That means you can’t really put the Mac Studio or a MacBook on the left side of your screen. And if you have two screens, you’re gon na have to put the computer in the center between them. And if you want three screens, you’re gon na need to buy a longer cable, which Apple will sell to you for $ 130. (, calm, uplifting, music fades ), Then there’s the whole stand. Situation.
Apple’s hardware designers moved the mounting point for their modern monitor, stands from here in the center down to here on the new iMac and now this.. The benefit is a smaller footprint on your desk, that’s great, if you’re, using a yellow iMac at home, but it’s not great. If you need more flexibility., The standard stand is a little low for a tall person like me., So Apple offers a height-adjustable stand, option which uses the same nifty hinge design as found in the $ 1,000 Pro Display stand. And on here it’s $ 400, which is A little dear when you note that the stand doesn’t support rotation.
Even more annoying is that, thanks to all that A13 power on board, the monitor does in fact support auto rotation, which is awesome, but for that you have to opt for the VESA mount. Generally. I wish that VESA mounts and arms would look better from behind here, though, Apple isn’t really helping things.
Again because of the mount placement Apple had to create. This stretched H pattern to move the mount point to the center, but that means now the Apple logo gets blocked a charitable way of putting it is that it’s peeking above the plate. How cute. Oh right – and I almost forgot the worst part. You have to choose what stand you want at the time of purchase because, unlike previous Apple displays, this one has a non-user removable.
Stand. Murmurs exist that you can take the monitor to the Apple Store and have them swap the stand. But I called – and at the time of writing you can’t. (, inquisitive, music ). Look all I’m doing is holding the Studio Display up to the precedent’s set by its predecessors.. Those had great cable management. Those had a user-friendly way to swap the stand for a VESA mount.. So considering that the price has gone up well, then so would the expectation and scrutiny.
If this 5K monitor came out in black with the cylindrical Mac Pro in 2013 for $ 1,600, our collective heads would’ve exploded with glee, but unfortunately the technology to transmit this amount Of pixels didn’t exist, yet. If, in 2016, this monitor had come out in Space Gray alongside the TouchBar MacBook Pro, instead of the LG UltraFine at $ 1,600, we would have all loved and praised it, but it’s 2022 and we’ve already had five years of a $ 1,300 LG UltraFine display and 6 years of the $ 1,800 5K iMac.. This is old display technology and some fancier speakers and Center Stage. Camera isn’t going to make up for that or the poorly-placed mounting point and Thunderbolt input..
So what have other monitor makers been doing in the meantime? Well I’ll show you one of my favorites after a word from this video sponsor Squarespace. These days. If you’re running a business, you need a website and by the way I hate making websites CSS HTML ugh.. So Squarespace is a all-in-one platform for building your business’.
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My favorite, monitor available at the moment is this- ( psychedelic, music ), The Huawei MateView.. This is a screen. That is, unlike any other screen, you can buy.. It has a 3:2 aspect ratio.
It has truly next-level industrial design, that’s just as height adjustable as the expensive stand option from Apple, while being just as attractive. Many people here, actually mistook it for the Apple Studio Display.. It’S more color, accurate and almost as bright as the Studio Display, while costing less than half the price. as far as value is concerned.
This is a truly great monitor, but there are flaws here, too., Unlike Apple, while we put no effort in the garnish. The speaker sounds like it came from a 2005 laptop.. The built-in microphone is awful too, though there’s no webcam anyway., The matte display finish, shows way more glare than Apple’s glossy screens, but perhaps the biggest flaw is the placement of the USB-C input. It’S right here on the side of the stand. (, sighs ), Why That means it’s always visible, contributing to the cable clutter and if you wan na, be able to use these built-in USB-A ports, which is handy, you have to use this plug. (, calm, music, )! Oh and the last issue is that, for geopolitical reasons it’s not available in the US., My fellow Canadians, it’s about $ 900 here, which is sweet., (, calm, music fades, ), (, gentle guitar, music, ), Apple’s external displays have always been quite expensive, but we accepted that For cohesive industrial design, great build quality and advanced technology., But as the display technology got older, the prices at least became more manageable..
The glorious 30-inch Cinema display launched at $ 3,500, but was only 1,700 when it was discontinued six years later.. The last Thunderbolt display, which was great by the way, was priced at $ 1,000.. I think the Apple Studio Display costs too much. It should be 1,300 tops, especially when you consider that before you could get an iMac with this panel for $ 1,800 with a whole computer for only $ 200.
More than this monitor costs. Apple’s hardware engineering has been on a righteous role these past few years. Amazing us, with fast efficient chips, we never thought possible..
This has been great for their computers, but what’s happened with the Studio Display. Is that that philosophy has been applied here too, at the detriment to everything else.. This is an electrically engineered product as opposed to a holistically designed product, and that really is too bad..
( calm, music ) Thanks for displaying this Mac Address.. If you like, my alternative pick for the Studio Display, give this video a like, and if you just wan na get the Studio Display yourself. Well, you might as well subscribe..
Now I’m curious in the comments. How important are displays to you? I think they are a monument of computing on your desk, so they should look and be nice. Do you agree? (, calm, music, ), .