I have had the Apple Studio for a full 3 month now and in that time it has been
the single best external display I have ever used with a Mac, which is good, but
also bad. Seriously, Apple’s first -first party display in years is so good that there are just
no other displays on the market that can match it. And no this display is
not perfect and it does not have every display feature imaginable but pound for pound there is
no better external display for Mac…….But lets start with what this display is NOT……
This display is not your everyday PC display, or a cheap display or an insert feature here
display. The Studio display does not have a slew of input ports like HDMI, DisplayPort,
or god forbid VGA and it’s not going to play perfectly with a Windows PC. For example
you can’t adjust the brightness of this display through Windows. There is no on-screen display,
menu or button that allows you to change any settings as all adjustments are done with a Mac.
This display does not have a high refresh rate display like
a top tier gaming display or even Apple’s own pro motion displays on MacBook Pros
and iPad Pros. This is a standard 60hz refresh rate, and it’s fine, I guess.
There is no HDR support on this display either because it is a regular old LED backlit panel
with lights at the edges so there is no local dimming or individual pixel dimming like you
get with OLED. That’s not to say this panel looks bad, because it doesn’t and it has MUCH
better uniformity and contrast than any cheap display you will find on Amazon, or Costco,
or whatever. The Studio display will play HDR content on YouTube but it's not really HDR.
So, now that we know what this Studio Display is NOT, I bet you want to know
what makes this display so great. But before I tell you what’s great and why it's the best
external display for Mac, let’s look at the things that are not so great about it, first.
And the first not so great thing about the studio display is the Camera,
yes, the built-in ultra wide camera on the studio display is not a good camera.
The quality is just lacking no matter what you do and no matter how much light you add to your room
the video still looks grainy and soft and artificial. And that is after the
software update that Apple released to fix among some other things the Camera quality.
The camera does have center stage built in to help keep you in frame as you move around in the scene,
or adjust for multiple people but I don’t know why that would be more important
than good picture quality. The camera on the M1 iMac, which is
a much thinner device has an exponentially better camera than what the Studio display has.
And speaking of Camera updates, it’s so weird doing software updates on a
display like this. The Studio display has basically an iOS computer inside
running an A13 chip that controls the video, camera, mics, and speakers and
just like an iPhone or iPad it is going to be getting a number of software updates.
And yes, it is probably good that Apple has a mechanism in place to do software updates,
even for the display but it is very strange when doing a software update on a desktop display
where you can’t do anything with it for 20 minutes or more. The updates
take a long time and there is nothing you can do except sit quietly or walk away..
When it comes to the price of the studio display, I don’t think the pricing is great. This display
starts at $1600 for a tilt adjustable stand or vesa mount. And that really is an OR statement
because you can’t get the stand then choose later, for free, to switch to vesa, or visa versa. What
you buy is what you get unless you take it to an apple store and pay them to swap it which
probably means swapping the whole back case. Or just giving you a new display…..for a fee….
I have the height and tilt adjustable stand here which runs at a $400 premium
over the base stand PLUS you can get a nano texture anti glare display for another $300.
To be fair, the Studio display does have more to it than many cheaper displays, which we will get
to, But even at the base price of $1600 you could get 3-5 4k displays if that is what you want.
Lastly, I don’t like how hard it is to get one of these things.
We are more than 3 months out since release and if you order a Studio Display today you are looking
at 10-12 weeks to get one. Of course there are a ton of reasons for this and I was going to make an
il-timed joke about how its harder to get a studio display than an abortion, gun, or baby formula,
but I am not going to do that.
OK, so now what is so great about this display? First off, something you absolutely will not
find on any other display, period, is this level of build quality. I love the look of
this display. The outside is all aluminum with a big black apple logo on the back,
an all aluminum stand, and a minimalist front with uniform bezels all the way around.
Walking into my office each day and seeing this on my desk just makes me
feel good. It's a crazy, irrational feeling that I get from this.
I love the clean look of the stand that isn't plastic, colored, or covered in logos,
and the perforations on the top and bottom for the fans and speakers, respectively.
It is just a very solid, very clean design that again, no other monitor comes close to.
Just looking at the stand, which is probably overpriced, there is no other display that has
a stand this fluid, except for the pro display XDR, but that aside, you can adjust the height
and tilt of this display with a finger. Every other display I have ever used has a more rigid
adjustment making it difficult to get the exact height or angle you need. It always moves just
a little too far and then you try and move it back and it again goes a little too far the other way.
It's annoying. But the studio display can be adjusted easily and correctly the first time.
On the backside you do get a built in USB-C hub with 3 ports next to the thunderbolt connection
and these ports support up to 10gbps which is perfect for running an external SSD
and something like a mouse dongle.
I personally also use a CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 dock for the additional ports and SD card
readers but if you don't need all that then the built in ports will be great.
Now I mentioned before that the built in camera is not great but if you can set
aside the quality of the camera because maybe you don't care that much about the quality or maybe,
like me, it's just not something you use a lot, then the fact that it just HAS a built
in camera and microphone for the instances you need it IS great. This means that you do not
need to go out and buy an external USB camera that sits on top of the display like an eye
sore and then needs a cable running down and to your computer, or even the back of the display.
When the need arises for work, or personal you can fire up your favorite video call app and
be good to go. No troubleshooting or trying to make sure you have the camera selected as
the video input. It just works.
The speakers in the studio display, on the other hand, more than “just works”. The speakers in this
display are fantastic. They are clear, they are loud enough, and they have a full sound.
The speakers give out more bass than a device of this form factor should be able to deliver
and they fill my 14ft by 14ft office with plenty of sound.
I have used them for video and audio editing, watching videos,
listening to music, whatever. The speakers just deliver. These are simply the best built-in
speakers I have ever used on any computing device, but I will say that good external speakers will
always produce more volume and more response but since I have started
using the Studio Display I haven't had my beloved Kanto Yu2 speakers connected at all.
This also means that with a camera, mic, and speakers all built in, the studio display
can give you a more compact, clean setup than any other display, which is great.
And Finally, we should talk about why the display…on this Studio Display… is great. We
talked about what features this display does not have, but what it has is arguably more
important, in my opinion, which is resolution, brightness, color accuracy, and consistency.
These panels are 5k panels which means they have a native resolution of 5210x2880
pixels which is 218 pixels per inch and more than ANY other display you can get at 27”. At
the default Macos settings this means that every pixel the computer draws is actually displayed by
4 physical pixels in this display giving you much sharper images and text at this size.
I spent years trying out different displays and there is nothing as crisp and sharp at 27” as this
display and the 5k iMacs. The studio display also gets up to 600 nits of brightness which
is brighter than any other external display I have seen with SDR content. This display can
get bright enough to be comfortable no matter how much light you have in your room or office.
I cant even use this thing at max brightness because
it burns, so I usually have the displays set to around 50%.
If you are comparing against any sub $1000 display you will see that most of them are
in the range of 250-350 nits max brightness which can be limiting depending on your setup.
These displays are each factory calibrated for p3 wide color which may or may not
mean something to you but if you are a professional photographer or videographer
you might appreciate the wide colors you can get from these displays. But for regular people this
is important because it means that Apple tries to get all of their displays to look the same.
So if you take a photo on your iphone or make some edits to a photo on one device, that photo
will look the same on all your apple devices. You don't have to worry that one display has a
completely different color temperature or balance. For me, the fact that most of my
viewers are probably watching on an Apple device means that the videos I edit on
this studio display will look basically the same on your end, and I love that.
So, the Studio display is great because of the built in features, the design,
and the display consistency but the number one reason the Studio display is the single
best display I have used with a Mac is because it works. Unlike so many displays I have tried which
have had issues with turning on, or distortions, or flickering, or other anomalies, It works every
time I wake up my mac, or turn it on. There is no delay to get it turned on and up and running.
I am still getting comments every day on previous videos where I show all the issues I have had with
external displays and Macs. The problems are not limited to M1 or Intel and date back to at
least Catalina. Constant troubleshooting is needed sometimes to get a third party external display to
just work with a mac. So many people struggle with this but the Studio display has not had 1 single
issue in the last 3 months like this. It works consistently, every day for me and that's why it's
the best display I have used with a mac. BUT….this is BAD because it proves that Apple is not putting
in the effort to make sure that industry standard displays work correctly with MacOS
just as well as their own displays and makes the starting price of $1600 that much worse.
So, it's up to you if the tradeoff for simplicity, usability, and the best build quality you can find
is enough to justify the Studio Display and If so this is the single best display you can get
for a Mac. Yes it is expensive and no it does not have every display feature imaginable, but, for
the best Mac experience, pound for pound features and quality, and a design that is just a pleasure
to use, there are no other contenders. Let me know what you think below. And if you want to see what
else pairs well with the Studio Display for your desk setup, check out this video right over here.
Hit the thumbs up button if you liked it, hit subscribe if you want and ill see you next time.