"The Apple Studio Display is a Bad Deal"

[Music] foreign so for the past three years the cheapest and only display that Apple's made has been the five thousand dollar Pro display xdr which would cost an extra thousand dollars on top just for the matte finish and another thousand dollars just for the stand so in this new studio display got announced you know it's a very apple design it's a 27 inch 5K screen surrounded by all these little apple bells and whistles and with the stand included for 1600 bucks a lot of Apple Fans were understandably very happy but then after the dust of the announcement settled a lot of us found ourselves asking wait a second is this actually a good deal so now I've been using this display for about two weeks now and I have an answer for you but I need you to understand how I'm getting there so for most people who are not interested and we're never going to buy this screen anyway the is it worth it conversation basically comes down to the spec sheet and just comparing it with other similar displays it's like when you go to buy a house and the appraisal just goes and looks at square footage and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms and materials used and proximity that comes up with a price based on what other houses with the same sort of specs are going for so this new studio display it's 27 inches diagonally 5K resolution 600 nits brightness it's a IPS LCD at 60 hertz with P3 color it's got a webcam up top it's got some speakers at the bottom some USBC ports around the back and it's 1 600 so if I was an appraiser looking for a comparable house I would be looking at the LG ultrafine 5K that is also a 27 inch 5K IPS LCD it's at 500 nits also at 60 hertz with P3 color a webcam some speakers and some USBC ports on the back that's 1 300 but it's also five years old and while there are not that many other 5K displays out there there are a ton of 4K screens and one of those would be the Dell Ultra sharp u2720q that is also a 27 inch IPS LCD panel with thinner bezels also at 60 hertz and also with P3 color and some ports around the back super well reviewed 589 so if you just go by the specs of the panel it's actually pretty clear that this display and the tech you're getting for the price is a bad deal but the second you're actually considering buying a display you realize this it's not just the display specs of the panel that make or break the experience it's all the stuff that surrounds the screen for someone actually considering using it and Apple products they just have a habit of doing this thing where they don't have the best specs on paper but they offer a unique combination of things that make it really hard to do any sort of one-to-one comparison because nobody else has that exact unique combination of things like you know how they make up the most cherry-picked stats in NBA media like oh this guy just became the third player ever to get a triple double before his 26th birthday after eating Apple Jacks for breakfast that morning or like wow there's only five players to play 800 games and join the 13.5 5.9 1.4 49 30 Club anyway that's how it feels talking about this monitor so first of all it's 5K not 4K and like I said there's tons of 4K monitors out there but this one is 5K for a reason it's basically the same panel from the 27 inch iMac which many people including myself really liked even though it's quite old so it's sitting at a solid 218 pixels per inch and it also benefits from being exactly twice the vertical and horizontal resolution of 2560 by 1440. so scaling is super clean and everything looks sharper as a result and then as far as single backlight LCDs go it's pretty solid it's got bumped up to 600 nits which is plenty fine indoors as long as they're not near any windows I have not had any issues worse than normal with ghosting or light bleed as you see with some LCDs but obviously it's nowhere near something like a mini LED display with separate backlight zones that can do really good HDR and then this one I've been testing is the Nano texture version which is a 300 dollar upgrade it's extremely good at killing Reflections and it's impressive that it's this good for 300 bucks when the same treatment on the pro display was a thousand bucks but honestly I still probably wouldn't recommend it unless you literally work with a window like right behind you or something because the version without Nano texture is always going to be slightly sharper and punchier and much easier to clean but speaking of upgrades this monitor which has the stand permanently attached so you know it's included which is nice but uh it has height adjustment which is cool right it's nice but the the base version doesn't have that and so this just just the ability to adjust height is a 400 upgrade to this stand so the version without high adjustment is a little bit low and I think a lot of people started to notice that and you know the IMAX didn't have height adjustment but just for a monitor this expensive to have to spend 400 extra dollars to be able to do this seems kind of ridiculous even though you can go to an Apple store if you do get buyer's remorse and have them add it after the fact but hey if you do it's a really solid stand all metal perfectly balanced and spring-loaded to hold the panel firmly in place it's actually more sturdy in my experience than the pro display xdrs mostly because it doesn't have to rotate and just the overall build quality of this monitor is top of the line it is built so well and of course this will never show up on the spec sheet and this isn't even something traditionally that matters all that much with a monitor something you don't touch you know a phone you want to be built well things you hold and carry but this is just going to sit on your desk but they went over the top with the build quality the overall design aesthetic so in a world of basically all plastic monitors this one's Full Metal Jacket sharp Corners the Precision drilled perforations at the top for ventilation all of it kind of is in a class of its own and I love it they left enough room inside for a power supply to be built in so there's no power brick or wall wart this is probably the best looking and Best Built monitor out right now now of course yes you'd have to really care about something like that to spend extra on it if it's just going to sit on your desk but there also is a catch and it's a really weird weird decision but the power cable is not removable I mean when you look back here it's a black plastic Circle that looks like it should be removable and it turns out if you pull really hard you can actually rip it out the back but it's pretty clear it's not designed to be removed by the user this is from the same company that designed a new magsafe connector for the new iMac this is a super baffling Choice turns out there's a special tool required to remove the studio display properly I don't count that as user removable we've all seen what a normal removable monitor cable looks like but now instead it's kind of in this homepod situation where like it's clearly not meant to be user removed and so now if the cable does get damaged at all if you run a wheel over it or a pet shoes on it or something you have to send the whole thing back to get repaired thumbs down now Above This panel is a 12 megapixel Ultra wide camera with center stage and triple microphones all powered by a literal a13 bionic chip for those who remember correctly that's the same chip that powered the entire iPhone 11. now while this is basically the same webcam Hardware as the new iPad Air it looks substantially worse like it's just flat and grainy all the time in any lighting I throw at it maybe I just got my hopes up too high I mean I knew it would be softer because it's cropping into a 12 megapixel Ultra wide frame so there's less pixels a new wouldn't have shallow depth of field or anything it's not a big sensor but I mean the mic sound pretty good as you can hear but it there's just no Shadows it refuses to let anything dark actually look dark which for me is not great apple is actually promising a software update that may help things imagine that a software update for a monitor apparently it has 64 gigs of onboard storage for some reason but yeah bottom line is it's it's convenient that there's a webcam built in but there's definitely still a market for like an opal C1 type webcam the stuff that looks way better than this but then there are the speakers so they're all situated in the bottom of the monitor here there are six total for Force canceling woofers and two tweeters they say it's the best computer speakers they've ever shipped in any of their systems and it's true it's 100 true this thing I've compared it to the 16-inch MacBook Pro these are substantially louder they fill a room if you wanted to they can create a somewhat convincing Dolby Atmos surround setup if you want it's it's really good so for built-ins they are above and beyond the rest they don't sound as good as dedicated speakers but if you really want good built-in speakers then yeah if you're into that please do it by the way Apple should just make speakers right I mean the homepod doesn't count they should right they should just make speakers so anyway if you want a monitor for the panel quality and the panel quality alone then there are lots of others just like this for way less money but if you're one of the surprisingly large group of people who are waiting for a monitor that would work really well in this apple ecosystem World Of Products then this is just what you've been waiting for it's pretty much made to be used with the new Mac Studio hence the name I also plugged into the MacBook Pro which charges the laptop at 96 Watts but hilariously I really just didn't think it was that great of a pair I mean it looks great next to it but the MacBook Pro has a much brighter higher refresh rate mini LED display that just looks way better to me and was preferable for me to use so I just ended up wanting to use the promotion of the laptop screen all the time but then you know just for fun you can plug it into an iPad and it works perfectly normally mirrors and charges the iPad and we also plugged into a PC and it worked like a normal monitor at full 5K resolution and it does actually use the speakers and the webcam but without any of the processing or or Center Stage that comes from lighting up that a13 what an odd combination of parts for real honestly for nearly two thousand dollars if you just close your eyes and say okay it's 2022 and apple is going to make a studio display you'd expect mini LED maybe or maybe promotion or maybe it might have face ID or a good webcam or just any combination of those things instead it has none and a non-removable power cable and a non-user upgradable stand Todd that is a rare swing and a miss for me someone who works in a studio but the real question the real question is is the studio display a good deal or not well is the Rolls-Royce Ghost a good deal because it's the only four-door sedan with suicide doors and a 6.7 liter V12 for under four hundred thousand dollars does that make it a good deal or how about are the Nike hyperadapts a good deal because they are the cheapest best self-lacing shoes you can get right now for 350 dollars does that make them a good deal I guess what I'm trying to say is maybe it doesn't really matter if it's a good deal or not if it's exactly what you want like if there are other cheaper options it doesn't really matter because there's only one that does the exact thing that you want it to and so that's what this is for some people you're probably just going to want to get this one but yeah no it's not a good deal [Music]

Channel: Marques Brownlee

Views: 4,757,990

Keywords: Apple Studio Display, studio display, apple display, MKBHD, Studio display review, Studio display vs, Studio display camera, webcam, speakers

Id: yoigsHYc77s

Length: 12min 18sec (738 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 22 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Advanced_Path]

Having the A13, they could have added AirPlay or a full-on  tv inside.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/uslashalex]

I want to like this. It’s just way too much.

[u/[deleted]]

I think Apple made a display that falls in-between two ideal products... a consumer friendly sub-$1000 monitor and a genuine 'Studio' name worthy display ($2000-2500).

HDR, high refresh, better webcam would have satisfied the latter... smaller screen, bigger bezel, lower res would have been 'ok' for the former.

Instead we just have unflattering comparisons coming from both directions. A rare miss by Apple in terms of product positioning - I think they should have went high-end first... then a few years later go budget / small.

[u/sawtooth]

I've had three 5k iMacs over the years and over time, they've all yellowed around the border. It's subtle, but against a bright white webpage in full screen, it's not hard to spot. I wonder if this 5k display will have the same issue. I hope not. Would love to pair this with the new 16-inch MBP.

[u/wapexpedition]

To all the people that bought a Studio display and are offended by this:

It’s a great product. The build quality is great. The panel is decent. The features are cool and unique.

It’s still a bad panel for the price. That’s the biggest issue people like MKBHD have. If you’re happy with it, just enjoy your product and live your life. People criticising a product that you bought shouldn’t affect you and your enjoyment of said product.

[u/car1os]

What good monitors do you guys recommend? I’m looking for one at least 27” for work and photo editing.

[u/delirious_mongoloid]

It's weird that a laptop has a noticeably better display than a monitor aimed at professionals.

[u/cartermatic]

At $1199-1299, I probably would have bought a Studio Display, and I would have gladly given up the A13 chip to get there. At $1600, I'll just keep waiting for the monitor I really want to arrive.

I don't really see the point of CenterStage on a display that I'm sitting directly in front of and not moving much when using. CenterStage makes sense on iPhones/iPads because you're generally moving more with those. But my movements while sitting in front of my monitor are so minor that I don't really need to always be perfectly in the center.

Spatial Audio is cool...but I have AirPod Max's that sound better. And if I don't want headphones I play to my HomePod.

HeySiri I don't need because again...I have a MacBook, iPhone, or HomePod I can use Siri with. I personally only ever use Hey Siri to turn my lights on in the morning, and off at night.

Yes, the aluminum build looks better and doesn't wobble, but I also don't really care if my monitor wobbles. I touch my display literally twice a day and that is the only time it'll ever move.

What I do want is HDR and ProMotion. I know it is difficult to do 5k @ 120hz over a cable, but why can't I have the option for 5k 60hz or 4k 120hz and the connections I need for that? I'd love for both modes: 5k60 that I can use at work, and 4k120 that I can use to game and get it all done with one display.

I saw someone on HackerNews sum this product up well:

The Apple Studio Display is a very Tim Cook sort of product. Cook is the supply chain and logistics wizard who saw Apple into the behemoth era, and the mentality he brings to the company is all over this device. The 27" panels from the now discontinued iMac in that size meet the A13 Bionic at end of life, and the same front-facing camera they put on everything else. The Studio Display is a bit like a restaurant serving chicken soup a few days after featuring roast chickens.

I'm surprised they didn't ship it with FaceID immediately, but I presume they have to iron out the kinks since it's never been used on the Mac before, and everything is there for them to turn it on in an update.

I can get a lot more display for $1500 (MSI Prestige 5k2k), and I'm left with a hunch that Apple's third modern display is going to be the first one I find at all compelling.

What Apple has done here is provide an obvious purchase for someone who would have gotten a 'big' iMac or iMac pro: the Mini for the former, the Studio for the latter, and the Studio Monitor. If you want the monitor to have great color range and accuracy, and good speakers, and a better webcam than a laptop which won't look up your nostrils, it strikes me as a reasonable price, I happen to just want my monitor to be a monitor.