Should you buy the Apple Studio Display in 2024?? 2-year ownership review

two years is exactly how long I've owned the Apple Studio display I purchased it March 17th of 2022 it is March 17th of 2024 so exactly 2 years I have one year remaining on my Apple care warranty and I have used this monitor extensively for those two years for coding for video editing for photo editing and even gaming there are things that I really like about this Monitor and there are things that I really don't like about this Monitor and today I'm going to cover all them over the course of 2 years so that you can get a sense of whether or not this monitor is right for you in 2024 and to be honest your money is probably better spent elsewhere this video is not sponsored I purchased the Apple Studio display with my own money and I produced this video with my own funding so if you want to show your support and help me in continuing making these videos For Your Entertainment drop a like and leave a subscribe I purchased the base configuration for my Apple Studio display which set me back $1,600 this included the standard glass as well as the standard screen which just has a pivot nothing else there's also other options available such as the nanotexture glass and a stand which will pivot and tilt and go up and down that will set you back $2,300 even today in 2024 this monitor's Clarity is honestly one of the best parts of the monitor it's 5K 20 27 in which produces a pixel per inch of 218 which makes this amazing for viewing text and actually coding is one of my favorite things to do on this monitor because that text is so clear it is truly deserving of the retina name it honestly makes it a little difficult to go to a monitor outside the Apple Studio display for coding because it is noticeably less clear and to do that it's hard to get out of the Apple e EOS system when we're talking retina displays they really have that market reeled in the monitor also gets plenty bright it gets up to 600 nits of brightness so it is plenty viewable in the daylight having the standard glass there is a bit of Reflections but I haven't noticed it being too distracting there's no HDR though so if you're wanting to consume media that has HDR content you're going to be stuck with standard dynamic range and in addition to that it's only 60 htz there's no promotion here which was a big disappointment even in 2022 when this monitor came out because the MacBook line had the promotion with 120 HZ this monitor gets 60 htz and it is noticeably slower I played games on this monitor with a Windows laptop connected via Thunderbolt cable and Not only was the refresh rate very low but the latency is just a abysmal on this Monitor and it makes everything a blurry mess it is really hard to game on this monitor with the refresh rate and that latency another weak point of this otherwise stunningly clear display is that it's IPS IPS is such an old technology by now when this monitor came out they shifted the MacBook line to mini LED and that that just looked excellent there was also oleds on the market at the time which have infinite blacks they look even better than manyi LEDs and then this monitor releases in 2022 with an IPS screen and it was just a slap in the face this monitor's IPS screen does it so dirty however this is probably the best IPS monitor that you can buy right now a big drawback of ips is it cannot get truly black there is always a bit of gray with that backlight and this is no exception that backlight is noticeable especially compared to an OLED like this aw3 c25 qf from Alienware the blacks on it are just pure black and here they are next to each other and you can really get a sense of how different those screens are that's my laptop screen as well which is also an IPS and it's noticeable compared to the OLED the black black uniformity however on this IPS is absolutely amazing the backlight is there but it is consistent all across the panel which is actually really really hard to do and I haven't seen that in any other IPS outside of this Monitor and to me that really speaks to the build quality of this monitor there is no argument that the Apple Studio display is extremely wellb built the material is these single blocks of aluminum there is no flex it is very durable you knock on it there is absolutely no flex at all completely solid and it is so thin so flat so well engineered and it just looks awesome the stand is super solid the hinge inside the stand is just so smooth you can effortlessly tilt this Monitor and it feels like it's floating on air it just feels perfectly balanced they put so much R&D into the engineering design of this Monitor and it paid off it looks stunning there's no panel gaps the front glass is a single piece and when you press the corners it is just perfectly solid very very well built there's also a couple fans inside to dissipate heat through the entire chassis of the monitor I don't love the stand for a couple reasons one of which it just looks look ugly as hell I think that's my opinion I think it looks pretty ugly and it just tilts it doesn't pivot it doesn't swivel it doesn't height adjust it just tilts which really limits the versatility of this monitor the aw 3225 qf has height adjust it has tilt it has pivot however it doesn't have rotation but that's fine it has more options than this and it's $400 less there's not many monitors that are made out of this quality of aluminum either that Alienware monitor is all plastic it is an absolute Turtle killer plastic everywhere plastic on the back and it creaks you move the monitor it creaks plastic on the stand and to top it off it's not solid plastic it's pretty flexible and it creaks a lot not very well built compared to this monitor even though there's a $400 difference I want to talk about the speakers on this monitor though because probably my second favorite thing about the Apple Studio display is its speakers and when it came out Apple advertised this new speaker system they had in the Apple Studio display and I think people were skeptical myself included and the moment I listened to this monitor I was absolutely blown away it was better than my M1 MacBook Pro 16in which already had a revamped speaker system which sounded awesome it was much better than that with bass being very Punchy and everything being so clear honestly took me by complete surprise here's how the Apple stereo display [Music] sounds and here is how the M1 MacBook Pro 16 [Music] sounds and then here's how the Alienware OLED 3225 qf sounds the Alienware does not have speakers the Apple stereo displays I/O is a bit of a hot mess on one hand it's very clean with a thunderbolt Port requiring just a single cable to run from the back of the monitor to your MacBook produces a very very clean look couple that with three additional USBC ports you can plug in additional accessories like an external hard drive a keyboard or whatever you want an audio interface whatever you want but that's where it ends there's nothing else so if you want to plug in an HDMI 2.1 device you can't you don't have an HDMI 2.1 port and that Port selection is very limiting couple that with the fact that this monitor cannot be Jay-Z chained that is a big disappointment for monitor at a $1600 price point starting there's also some appness with the io like the M1 MacBook Pro 16 doesn't have Thunderbolt ports it has USBC 4 and the monitor connects just fine I tried connecting the USBC to my laptop which has a ryzen CPU and it didn't work I connected it via USBC didn't work but I connected it to my laptop that had a thunderbolt port and then it did work display webcam sound everything absolutely worked fine so that is a bit of a gotcha just be careful with that if you plan on using a Windows laptop with this Monitor and if you're using a desktop well you're going to have to find another solution and that brings me to the discussion of using Windows on this monitor you can do it yes if you have a thunderbolt port on your laptop you can use it you can use the webcam you can use the sound you can use the display and it's a pretty great experience you lose out on a couple things like Center Stage Center Stage will not work that is a Mac exclusive feature but pretty much everything else you can take advantage of including gaming and it's a 5k resolution so you're going to need a pretty beefy graphics card here on my laptop I'm using a 3080 TI which is probably not a great 4K or 5K graphics card but here it is in Call of Duty you can see my frames up there in the corner they are under 60 frames per second which makes for um a pretty laggy and choppy experience not the best and then in Hell divers 2 you can see that I'm also getting under 60 frames per second and the experience is about the same so if you're going to be using this with a Windows laptop be sure it has a very beefy graphics card and on both those games I have dlss set to balance so I'm not even running at the native 5K I have 5K down sampled via dlss but I will say that it is great being able to game on this and hear the audio through this glorious [Music] speakers and if you're wondering yes the windows interface will support 5K you can see that resolution there and the max you can set it to is 60 HZ interestingly enough the windows reports this monitor as an 8 bit monitor I can't really say if this is 8 bit or 10 bit I'm not sure I don't think Apple really makes that information available but um if it's 8 bit for $1,600 wow it's pretty disappointing there are more color accurate monitors on the market today for instance the built-in panel on the M1 Max Pro 16in is more color accurate than the display and then further that with the alien rare OLED monitor it has a greater color accuracy than the MacBook Pro has however that monitor being OLED doesn't get as bright as the MacBook Pro or the Apple Studio display but if you're really into video editing and color work then the Alienware OLED is super Superior to both the Apple Studio display and the MacBook Pro so that's something to keep in mind like I mentioned before this monitor has a built-in webcam and Center Stage was a big selling point of this monitor back when it was released and I've used Center Stage maybe twice it's a total gimmick I mean it's cool the first time like walking around the room and seeing the camera follow you but it's it's a total gimmick and the webcam quality is not that great it's 1080P and it doesn't look magical or anything it just looks like a 1080p webcam by now this is my third or fourth video on this Monitor and I think I kind of convey the same message in all my videos is like this monitor has such great potential but it's just not there it's never been there and the price has just been way too high $1,600 is just not a great value it wasn't in 2022 and it isn't in 2024 which is why I don't recommend you buy this monitor there's plenty of good third generation QD oleds out right now that are far less money than the Apple Studio display they're more color accurate you get HDR and it's OLED so you get those pure blacks which is what I'd recommend you put your money towards rather than this it's a very cool monitor it's a very Apple monitor it's very welld designed the speakers are phenomenal but I can't recommend you purchase this those are my final thoughts of the Apple Studio display this will probably be my last video on it since I've made three or four of these videos now I'm looking forward to whatever Apple's next display is let me know what you thought of the video in the comments below if you like the video leave a like and if you want to see more hit that subscribe thanks for watching and all I'll see you in the next one I purchased the Apple Studio display with my own money and I produced this video with my own funny

Channel: Taylor Brauer

Views: 28,059

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Id: 1Rd0goG13uo

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 18 2024