Boo apple studio display…..Boooo. What makes you so special? You don’t have a
high refresh rate, or local dimming, or proper HDR support.
That’s what the internet sounds like right now but let me tell you
6 reasons why you should consider the new apple studio display and why its worth it.
Hey, Im jerry and when Apple announced the new studio display along with all the other new
products a couple weeks ago, this was the thing I was most excited for. I, and so many others
have been waiting for years for apple to release a new stand alone display that didn’t cost $5000
without a stand. Waiting for a retina quality display with a good design,
great features, and the consistency we expect from an apple display.
And now we have one but people are so upset about the things it doesn’t have without
considering the things it does have that so many others don’t. So lets go through the 6
things I think the Studio display has going for it that may make you reconsider….boooing it.
First up is the design and it looks amazing, from all sides. The display itself looks like
a solid unibody construction in line with all of Apples most recent products. Flat sides and
sharp edges all around with perforations at the top
and bottom for fans and speakers. And you can’t tell me it does not look good.
If you look online there are a ton of display options and nearly all of them
are made out of plastic, mostly black but some have weird gaming colors all over them.
And hey, if that’s your thing more power to you but that’s not the same market as this display.
The stand design is just as nice and there are of course 3 options including
tilt, height and tilt, or vesa. I went with the height and tilt and it’s awesome.
If you are familiar with iMac height, the tilt stand and the lowest setting of this stand
are Lower than the iMac so you may need to pick up something like this
Kalibri monitor stand which I have been using for about a year and really like it.
But if you have the tilt and height stand like this, it is effortless to adjust back
and forth or up and down. This thing moves so smoothly you can do it with one finger
unlike so many other plastic stands I have used.
In fact, this stand is so solid that it barely moves when I shake the desk
compared to one of the best displays I have used before this.
One thing I will say is that all things considered the bezels could be a little thinner.
I am not sure what they need to be this wide compared to others but they are about the same
as the 24” iMac.I dont think this detracts from the design aesthetic but…its 2022.
The next reason to consider the studio display is the 5k resolution. Yes, there are hundreds
of 4k displays out there and so many people will say that 4k is plenty of resolution. And I would
kind of agree. They look ok but at 27” 5k is just the right resolution for a
Mac display. This give you 218 pixels per inch and when scaled to 2560x1440 that makes text,
icons, and everything else simply, the right size without losing any sharpness.
You can scale a 4k display to 2560x1440 to make things look like the right size
but then they just are not as sharp. Take a look at this text on 5k vs 4k. The test is just sharper
and more clear on the 5k display………the sharpness on this icon is the same thing.
Eyes vary for sure so how much you will notice this difference is going to be very subjective but
there is a clear winner here.
Next, The studio display just has better color accuracy and consistency out of the box
than any other display. Each display is factory calibrated and just looks bright and beautiful.
When I take an apple display out of the box I can feel confident that it is going to have the
same look as all there other apple displays I have whether that’s a MacBook, iPad, or iPhone.
I know that I can edit a video or photo on one apple display and it will look the same on the
others. Other displays are factory calibrated as well like this eve spectrum 4k but as you
can see the colors between the MacBook Pro and studio display are much different than the eve.
I can make some adjustments to the white balance to get the eve more in line with the MacBook but
it will probably never be perfect.
Just knowing that there is nothing else I need to do
feels good. I also know that many of the consumers of my content are on Apple devices and
what I export will be representative of what they…or you, see on your end. I know it will
look right…..or at least the same because I am not claiming to be a great colorist. But, if it looks
good on these displays when I am done it will probably look good on just about any display.
Now, some things that almost every other display lacks….Camera, Microphones, and speakers……That’s
not to say that no display has them but its rare to find 1 or all 3 in a display and
basically impossible to find a display with Good camera, microphones and speakers.
Lets get the camera elephant out of the way. Its
awful right now. We have all seen the reports of issues with the camera in the studio display and
apple has promised that this is an issue that will be fixed. I really do hope they are right and if
the camera quality is SUPER important to you right now I would hold off but for me, the camera is the
feature I least need in the display and its not hurting me right now that it is bad. I do a lot of
conference calls but almost never on video. When I do video calls with family I usually use an iPad.
The microphones, however I use quite often….like 5-12 meetings a day. There
is an array of 3 “studio” mics built in, and like Apples other microphones in Macs, iPads,
and iPhones, they sound perfectly acceptable in the studio display for most non podcast scenarios.
Then….there are the speakers and while I do not think they
can replace desktop audio monitors for real audio engineering,
I think they sound really good. Better than they should in an enclosure like this.
This has apples 6 speaker design with 2 sets of force-canceling
woofers and 2 tweeter that offer great built-in sound and even spatial audio.
When I first listened to the speakers I actually was surprised how good they
sounded with base. Not a heart thumping base but
a clear low sound with miids and highs that never distort now matter how high the volume.
They sound slightly better than the 24” iMac to my ears and for most people who want a clean desktop
setup, who are not audio engineers, these speakers will absolutely fit the bill for daily use.
Another area that third party displays can not match the studio display is with macOS
integration. The studio display can be controlled
by the Mac keyboard in a way that now other 3rd party displays can.
You can use the Mac keyboard to adjust the speaker volume and the brightness making it
super seamless. No fiddling around with a monitors on screen display to adjust brightness or volume
output. No double amplification buy adjusting Mac output and display speaker volume separately. Its
so easy and nice to just adjust with the keyboard and know that its going to adjust correctly.
You can even be really granular by holding down the shift and option key.
There are also automatic adjustments for truetone
and brightness that make the viewing experience even better.
No I don’t use truetone or auto brightness because of color grading but for most people
this just works and makes using an external display better. You can let the display and
Mac choose the best brightness depending on how bright your room is and change the color
temperature based on the lighting. You have seen this on Macs and iPads and iPhones for years but
not with external 3rd party displays. And even if they do have auto brightness, its just
terrible, slow, and its big steps between brightness levels.
And this isn’t necessarily a Mac specific thing but with the single cable connection to a MacBook,
the studio display will charge your laptop at up to 95 watts.
More than almost every other display which usually hover around 65watts.
And the last reason you should consider a studio display is the instant wake. Look
how fast the Mac Studio wakes up the studio display….Almost instantly……….Same thing when
connected to a MacBook Pro. You tap the keyboard or Touch ID sensor and you are up and running.
There is no waiting on the display to turn on and connect to the Mac. Its ready to go when you are.
Other displays take many multiples of time longer to wake up and let you get to
work. And it doesn’t matter if you are using USB-C, hdmi or DisplayPort its always slow.
So those are 6 reasons why I think that the Apple Studio Display are worth it…to me….for now……You
will have to weigh the benefits over a cheaper display or one that has the features you want.
For me, this display has more to offer than any other display that doesn’t cost $4k or more.
Would I like to have Promotion, local dimming, and better HDR abilities….Sure,
of course I would. And if Apple releases another display with those features I will
definitely consider it. But what do you think? Are there enough benefits of this studio display
for you to pick one up? Let me know below. Hit the thumbs up button if you liked it,
hit subscribe if you want more videos like this and ill see you next time.