- The new Mac Studio is the darling
of desktop computers lately.
It's got a brand new case, a brand new processor option,
new to recent Macs, it has actually a whole bunch of ports,
and he and I have been getting to know each other
pretty well over the last week.
And I'll have plenty to say about that in the future video.
But inside the box of this new computer
that starts at $2,000, there's nothing else included.
So let's take a look at what I think
are some of the best accessories that you can get
for your new Mac Studio.
So the first thing you're gonna want for your new Mac Studio
is a display.
And what better option is there
than the brand new Apple Studio Display?
Now, there's a lot of reasons to be happy
or upset about this new display from Apple,
including maybe the prices
or the feature set that you're looking for.
But in my opinion, based on the features that it does have,
it actually makes a really good pairing to the Mac Studio.
I have another video on the six reasons
you should consider buying a Studio Display,
so we're not gonna go in depth too much in this one,
but I do wanna point out a few reasons
why I think this is the best display for the Mac Studio.
First, there's the design and build quality,
and no other display besides the Pro Display XDR
which costs $17 billion can match the Studio Display
in build quality and design.
The thing's made out of basically solid pieces of aluminum
from the stand to just the case of the display.
And it absolutely looks amazing,
with its perforated top and bottom for the speakers.
This thing is super solid and sturdy,
and I can shake a desk and the thing barely moves.
The Studio Display perfectly matches the Mac Studio
with its basic silver and black design.
There's no button on the display,
there's no onscreen display to configure anything
on the display itself,
it just connects to the Mac with a single cable.
The 5K display is sharper than any 4K display
you're gonna find on the market.
It has the most consistent and accurate colors
to match all your other Apple devices.
It wakes instantly with the tap of a keyboard or mouse,
and if you want the most minimal desk setup
you can possibly get,
the Studio Display includes speakers, microphones,
and webcam built in.
You can tell me all day long
that there's cheaper 4K displays out there
or ones with higher refresh rate,
but none of them match the build
and the display quality of the Studio Display.
Next, you're gonna need a keyboard.
And this Logitech MX Keys Mini
has been an absolute dream to use for the last week.
I was pretty skeptical when I got this keyboard a week ago,
because I love the Apple Magic Keyboard
and Touch ID built into the Apple Magic Keyboard.
But this guy has features
that even the Apple Magic Keyboard doesn't have
that actually makes it better.
Just a quick comparison,
you can see that the Logitech keyboard
compared to the Apple Magic Keyboard
has a bit of a steeper angle to it.
So if you prefer a higher angle keyboard,
this is gonna be perfect.
There's also a big weight difference
between the two keyboards.
The Logitech is much heavier, with a big built in battery,
and a couple of other features
we're gonna talk about real quick.
So first of all, I wanna say that not having Touch ID
on the right hand side is a bummer.
I love having Touch ID on the Macs.
I wish we had Face ID on the Macs and on the Studio Display,
but I digress.
But even without Touch ID, this keyboard is fantastic.
First of all, the keys themselves feel really good.
I like the keys on the Apple Magic Keyboards
because they feel good, they feel solid,
and they're the same between every keyboard I touch,
whether that's a MacBook, the desktop keyboard,
or an iPad Magic Keyboard.
But something about these keys feels even better.
The keyboard just feels incredibly well-built.
There's the perfect amount of travel on these keys.
I hope you can see this,
but the keys have a little indentation on them.
And I thought that was gonna take a moment to get used to,
but it didn't.
I really took to it instantly.
Now first up, this keyboard can actually switch instantly
between different computers
by using these quick pairing keys up at the top.
That's something that the Apple Magic Keyboard
definitely cannot do.
Next, this keyboard is backlit
and it's got proximity sensors built in.
So when you bring your hand up to the keyboard,
the lights will turn on.
And after you bring your hands away,
they'll turn off automatically.
If you never work in a dark or dimly lit room,
then maybe you don't need backlit keyboards,
but Apple has them on the iPad Magic Keyboard,
they have them on their MacBooks.
Why don't they have them on their desktop?
Similar to the Apple Magic Keyboard,
you get volume and media controls
and even a dictation button.
But on the MX Keys Mini, you get a couple buttons
you don't get on the Apple magic keyboard,
including an emoji key to bring up the emojis when typing.
You get a quick button for taking screenshot.
So you press this button
and you automatically get the cursor to select the area
on the screen that you want,
and it puts it right on the desktop for you,
plus you get a microphone mute button.
Holy cow, this blew my mind.
This mute button is awesome.
This will mute everything on the Mac.
So when you press the button, you'll get an indication
on the screen that your microphone is now muted.
So no app will be able to hear you.
And for somebody who spends hours and hours
every workday on meetings, this is so nice.
I don't have to go hunting around
for the application window and find the mute button
in Teams or Skype or whatever I'm using.
I can just hit the button on the keyboard
and instantly, I'm muted.
The best part about this keyboard
is that it's actually cheaper than the Apple Magic Keyboard.
It does not have the Touch ID,
so I guess it's time to re-enable the Apple Watch Unlock
for the computer.
When it comes to a mouse for the Mac Studio,
I actually like two options;
the Apple Magic Trackpad and the Logitech MX Master 3.
These are my go-to tag team devices for controlling
any of my Macs lately.
The Magic Trackpad is exactly what you know
from an Apple Trackpad.
It's big, it's glass, and it's multi-touch.
It is fantastic.
You can swipe up and down, left and right,
and it all works just flawlessly with Mac OS.
And there's the MX Master 3,
which is, I think my favorite mouse ever.
I've been using it for about two years,
and it is just the right size.
This mouse is very customizable using the Logitech software,
and it has some features that other mice don't.
First of all, there's the scroll wheel on the top,
which you can set between ratchet and free flowing.
And when you set it to free flowing,
this will actually scroll
like when you're flicking on the track pad
or on the screen of an iPad.
It will just use inertia and keep going.
Then there's the side scroll wheel,
which is nice for moving left and right on a zoomed-in photo
or for moving left and right on a video editing timeline.
There's also a multifunction button on the mouse
where your thumb sits, and that can be used
to perform different gestures on the Mac,
like going to Mission Control
or bringing up the App Launcher.
So the regular MX Master 3, the one that's not Mac specific,
can actually connect using either a USB dongle or Bluetooth.
Personally, I think that the USB dongle
provides a better signal for the mouse than Bluetooth,
and that's been the case for Macs over time.
So it's super easy to just stick this in the back of the Mac
and not even think about it.
I like to use both devices because I like to use the mouse
for precision pointing
when I'm trying to click little tiny buttons
or trying to do photo editing.
And I do like the track pad
for quickly swiping around the interfaces
and zooming in and out of things.
I think together, they make the best combination
for mouse devices for the Mac Studio.
Next, I wanna talk about storage.
And the Mac Studio, for $2,000,
comes with 512 gigabytes of storage.
You can upgrade it from there.
You can add a terabyte for $200,
all the way up to eight terabytes for $2,400.
Now, if this is going to be your only computer for years
then you should probably consider getting that
internal built in storage because it's really fast,
and it's super simple.
You don't have to have other things
connected to your computer.
But if you're like me and you have multiple computers
or change computers frequently,
then this is a fantastic option.
This right here is a four terabyte NVMe drive from Sabrent.
It's the Rocket Q version.
This tiny little stick with chips glued onto it
has four terabytes of storage.
And normally, this would go on the inside of a computer.
However, you can actually get enclosures
to put this in and connect to your computer.
The case that I'm using here was actually recommended
by Kevin Ross, which if you haven't checked out his channel,
he does a lot of awesome SSD comparisons
along with other tech.
So definitely check out his channel.
But this ACASIS NVMe enclosure is USB 4.
So it actually gets up to 40 gigabytes per second.
To install the drive, all you need to do
is pop off the back, take the drive,
and just insert it into the slot,
and then it comes with a screw
that you can screw it down with as well.
Now, just how fast is this drive
connected to the Mac Studio with USB 4?
Well, I copied this 192 gigabyte file in under one minute.
And that's because the Sabrent Rocket Q drive
that I put in here actually has a super fast
SLC cache built in that's really big
compared to the size of the drive.
So you're almost never gonna run out of speed
when copying files to this.
And that includes even just daily work.
So you can video edit on this thing.
You can do anything using this drive.
And what's perfect about this enclosure
is that it fits perfectly underneath the Thunderbolt Cables
on the back of the Mac Studio
so you can keep it hidden and out of sight.
One other storage recommendation real quick
is this OWC Envoy Pro FX.
This is a Thunderbolt drive,
which also gets up to 40 gigabits per second.
And this was actually the drive that scored the best overall
in my previous Thunderbolt drive test.
This thing is built super solid.
It's all aluminum,
it's got some heat dissipating fans on the sides,
and if you're looking for a drive
that you don't have to build yourself,
you don't have to buy the enclosure and the drive separate,
this is a fantastic option.
So let's say you don't take my recommendation
on the Apple Studio Display
or the speakers in the Apple Studio Display
just do not meet your needs,
then I definitely recommend you check out
the Kanto YU2 speakers.
I've been using these speakers for a couple of years
and I love them still.
Honestly, as good as the speakers are in the Studio Display,
it's an all-in-one design.
So they're just only going to be so good.
The Kanto YU2 speakers on the other hand are amazing.
They have three-inch woofers, separate tweeters,
and man do they fill a room.
What I love about the YU2 speakers the most
is that they have a USB deck.
When you connect them to the back of the Mac Studio
using USB, you actually have full control
over the audio output using the built in controls on the Mac
or a Mac Keyboard.
The speakers get really loud, they stay really clear,
and I love them a lot and will continue to use them
even with the new Studio Display.
It's so awesome that the Mac Studio
has all of these ports built in now.
You get four Thunderbolt ports on the back,
two USB-A ports, you get a couple ports on the front,
but they can start filling up.
Once you add a couple of displays,
a couple of SSDs, a USB dock, and oh, a mouse dongle,
then you're gonna start running out of ports
and that's where this CalDigit TS4 comes in handy.
Now, full disclosure, CalDigit and I
have partnered on a couple of different things in the past,
and they did send this to me for free
awhile ago for some other videos,
but I absolutely recommend it.
This is a Thunderbolt 4 dock,
which means it works with Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3,
USB 4, USB 3, USB C, all that jazz.
You know what it is.
But it's got 18 ports to totally expand
what you can connect to your new Mac Studio.
The TS4 will actually work with two 6K or 5K displays
through these docks.
So if you have multiple display needs,
you can run them through this dock
and not take up as many ports on the back of the Mac Studio.
You also get a bunch of USB-A, USB-C, audio ports, ethernet,
plus if you're in a really big hurry,
these SD card slots are actually faster
than the ones built into the Mac Studio.
Not by lot, but when you're in a hurry,
every little bit counts.
And the one thing that the Mac Studio
does not have on this front port
that you might really, really want is a headphone Jack.
The next accessory I really love
for my Mac Studio is an iPad.
And this just happens to be
the brand new iPad Air 5 in blue,
but no matter which iPad you have,
it's a great accessory for the new Mac Studio.
When you put it in front of your display,
you can use it in one of two different ways.
You can either use it with the brand new universal control,
which allows you to use the same mouse and keyboard
to control both devices.
So you can just move the mouse down from the Mac to the iPad
and start using the iPad apps built into the iPad.
The other option is to use Sidecar,
which essentially extends the Mac Display onto the iPad,
using it as if it were just a second monitor
connected to the Mac.
For the last couple months, I've been using my MacBook Pro
in front of a 27-inch display,
and I like having that dual monitor setup
with one above the other.
And I think that this will be a great option
as I move away from my MacBook Pro
for my primary desktop use
to be able to have that second display experience.
So whether that's an iPad Pro, iPad Air, or iPad Mini,
or any other old iPad you have sitting around,
that could be a great secondary display for your new Mac.
All right, and last up,
what could make your desktop experience more complete
than a great pair of headphones?
Yes, having a great desktop sound system is fantastic,
especially with those Kanto YU2s.
But sometimes you just need to put some headphones on
and block out the world.
And that's where these AirPods Max come in.
I was actually late to the game.
I didn't get a pair of these until last summer,
right before I went on a long trip
and man were they worth it.
These are the most comfortable headphones I have ever used.
And especially as a glasses wearer,
these just sit on my head, completely comfortable.
I can wear them for hours and hours at a time.
The sound cancellation built into these AirPods Max
are so good.
Others can probably get close,
but these are the first ones that I put on that I'm like,
"You know what? I don't need anything else.
I'm not missing anything."
Using these on a plane, you don't hear anything
except the things that you want to hear.
I love the buttons on the AirPods Max.
I like being able to just turn this digital crown
to adjust the volume, and then press it to play and pause.
And then this button will switch between
noise canceling mode and the transparency mode.
So if you're listening to something
and somebody comes around the corner and says,
"Hey, Jerry, I need to talk to you," whatever,
you hit this button to turn on transparency mode
and you can have a full conversation
because that sound is now being transferred
through the headphones to your ears.
It's really, it's so odd the first time you use it,
but it is so good.
And then with the tap of a button,
you're back into your own world.
So those are the best accessories
that I think you can get with your brand new Mac Studio.
So you may as well pick some of these up
from the links down below because the Mac Studio
doesn't come with anything in the box.
But I do wanna know, are there better options out there
than the things that I've showed you here?
Let me know below.
If you still have questions
or are interested in the Studio Display,
definitely check out my video on the six reasons
you should consider the brand new Studio Display.
Hit the thumbs up button if you liked it,
hit subscribe if you want, and I'll see you next time.