It’s been about a month since Apple revealed the Studio Display and somehow,
it’s managed to be more controversial than the Mac Studio that it launched with,
and that’s probably for two reasons, the price tag and the spec sheet
that on the surface seems underwhelming compared to the LG 5K display that it’s meant to supersede.
So what I’m gonna try to do in this review is not only explain exactly why the Studio
Display costs a huge $1600, but also why there are actually quite a few people out there
who are willing to pay that much FOR this display.
And before you call me crazy because this display has “basically” the same panel as the old LG 5K
display, I can tell you for a fact that it’s not, because we’ve actually had the LG 5K in our office
since it launched 5 and a half years ago from when we worked for Appleinsider.
And if you’re wondering if the Studio Display is truly worth the extra $300,
I can tell you right now that the answer is YES.
But before I explain why, I want to give you guys my thoughts on the
Studio Display after using it for over 3 weeks, so let’s jump right into that.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve had this new Studio Display set up literally right next to
my iMac Pro, which packs essentially the same 5K display that went into the LG 5K Ultrafine…
and let me tell you right now, the difference has been light and day.
I won’t too much into the display panel comparison just yet, but all I can say is
that I’ve found myself occasionally mashing the brightness key on the iMac Pro because it just
looks dim and gray in comparison to the bright and white Studio Display.
But in terms of the overall aesthetic, the Studio Display just looks so much more clean
and minimalistic compared to the iMac Pro because first of all,
the bezels are MUCH thinner, and it obviously doesn’t have a chin.
The top and bottom are lined with circular vents for things like the speakers
and exhaust vents, and I really love the shape of the stand because it matches the overall design,
and the build quality of the stand is unmatched
because it’s literally solid aluminum with a minimalistic and really strong hinge.
Going around back, it’s simply the most beautiful backside you’ll see
on any display, being incredibly minimalistic.
So in terms of the design, I think Apple absolutely nailed
their goal of making the display fit perfectly into their Mac lineup,
and I think there are people out there who will literally buy this display
over other much cheaper options because of the design and premium build quality itself.
And that’s one of the reasons why it makes sense to pay the extra $300
compared to the LG 5K because that display is built mostly out of plastic, including
parts of the stand, and that actually leads to a couple of different issues.
First of all, it shakes and wobbles like mad as you can see in this comparison
to the Studio Display which sits incredibly still.
On top of that, the bezels on the LG 5K are made of plastic which honestly makes it feel pretty
cheap compared to the new Studio Display which features a solid piece of glass
covering the entire front, including the pure black bezels which look a lot more premium.
As far as the ports, the ones on the Studio Display are at least twice as fast in terms
of transfer speeds when connected to an external SSD, which is really convenient if
you want to use the display for accessories instead of buying an additional USB-C hub,
and of course, it also supports 96W of pass-through charging for your MacBook.
Now another massive difference that I noticed was actually in the speakers,
which are absolutely great, giving you very clean vocals,
sharp highs, excellent mids and a wide range of frequency reproduction.
**************
Now while the LG display’s speakers get louder, the quality is nowhere as good.
The only bit that was lacking on the Studio Display was the bass reproduction that I
wish was a bit more deep and loud, but other than that, the sound quality is excellent!
Now in terms of the new 12MP ultrawide webcam, I honestly feel like Apple made a huge mistake
by going with the ultrawide instead of a standard zoom camera because when you’re
not taking advantage of the new center stage ultrawide feature, the image crops in quite a
bit which leads to lower-than 720P quality that doesn’t look that much better than the LG 5K,
so I really think Apple should’ve just stuck with a standard 12MP camera instead of ultrawide.
But nevertheless, I honestly believe that the difference in design,
build quality, ports, and speaker quality is enough to make it worth spending the extra $300,
at least for people who care about those things.
Now of course, we’ve also got a lot of display panel differences than the
spec sheet would make you believe, so let’s go through all of those.
First of all, it’s been confirmed through teardowns
that the Studio Display uses a brand new panel
even though it boasts the same 5K resolution, and that kind of makes sense because the new display
is somehow quite a bit brighter while at the same time having much deeper contrast.
And I’m not even kidding, I can easily tell that the blacks on the old LG display
look a bit gray when compared to darker blacks on the Studio Display,
and that difference alone makes the colors pop more and really makes the image look a lot better.
But going even further, Apple has dramatically reduced the reflectivity of the new display
compared to the LG 5K which by itself can make the display look a lot better,
especially when used in a bright room.
And to put the cherry on top, the extra 100 nits of brightness is a much bigger
deal than I initially thought it would be, and it’s actually the reason why HDR content
looks so much better, because Apple is using a method called EDR to simulate HDR content and the
extra brightness makes a world of a difference, looking better than many other displays out there
that claim to support HDR yet only have up to 3 or 400 nits of brightness.
So with that said, if you combine all of those differences, then it’s pretty
obvious that anyone willing to pay $1300 for the LG 5K display should really consider
going up to the Studio Display instead to take advantage of all of these differences.
And a huge overlooked benefit of paying Apple extra cash for the Studio Display is that you
also get Apple’s higher level of quality control, since there were many complaints
of backlight bleed issues and other quality control issues with the LG 5K display like
WiFi signal interruption, and so far, the Studio Display seems to solve all of those problems.
Now on top of that, another benefit that you get with the Studio Display is resale value because
it’s actually Apple-branded and people recognize and pay for that because they know they can trust
Apple’s build quality and the actual quality control including how Apple does an excellent
job with calibrating the colors out of the factory compared to a lot of other displays
that require you to manually calibrate the colors if you’re doing serious work on them.
And all of those things I just listed are the reasons why someone would be crazy enough to
pay $1600 for an Apple Studio Display, because there are a lot of professionals out there who
do photography, videography, 3D modeling, CAD, and different types of work, and they would much
rather just pay more for a super high-quality 5K Apple display they can simply plug in and trust.
And that right there is the target market for this display,
so to someone who just needs a simple display just to satisfy the requirement of throwing pixels
up in front of their eyes so they can browse the web, of course this display is gonna seem
grossly overpriced, and for a person like that, yes, it is… and they’d be much better
off with a basic 4K display like this 27” Dell monitor for $380 on Amazon.
But nevertheless, I will admit that this display is still overpriced at $1600
considering the fact that you used to be able to buy an entire 27” iMac for $1800.
And if you’re looking for an explanation as to why this display costs
$1600 in the first place, there are two main reasons for it.
First of all, inflation and supply chain shortages have been squeezing profit margins
for many companies including Apple, so the $1600 price partly has to do with Apple
making sure they’ll be hitting their target profit margins even if things get worse.
And second, multiple teardowns including the one from Quinn at Snazzy Labs have confirmed that the
Studio Display is overengineered, to say the least. In fact, this display is jampacked with
more logic board and various components than Apple’s actually 24” iMac computer.
But wait, this display is technically a computer because it comes with an entire A13 chip
straight from an iPhone 11 to support features like center stage, spatial audio, and Hey siri,
so it literally runs iOS, complete with 64GB of storage that is mostly unused…
So technically, this display is a giant iPad, and Apple literally could run it as
a giant iPad if they wanted to, but they obviously won’t because a lot of people
would simply buy the display without the Mac, which would make Apple lose potential revenue.
So yes, Apple overengineered the crap out of this display compared to the LG 5K,
regardless of whether you wanted it to or not, and maybe it’s because it was initially meant to be
an iMac like Quinn from Snazzy Labs was thinking, as well as my own theory I posted to Twitter just
after the event, so maybe we’ll see a lot of these internal parts instead of the future 27” iMac.
But with all of that aside, overengineered or not, I think there are definitely a lot of
professionals out there who care about design, features, build quality and control quality,
and to them, the $1600 Studio Display is gonna be well worth the cash.
So hopefully you enjoyed this review, and if you did, go ahead and click that circle above
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