Apple Studio Display Review: Nothing to See Here

https://www.theverge.com/22981744/apple-studio-display-5k-monitor-webcam-speakers-review

by trauco • 4 years ago

45 45 4 years ago

As someone who semi-regularly looks around to consider upgrading my monitors I have to say this article seems pretty terrible. Finding a monitor that is the right size, has the right resolution, connects via a cable/standard you want, has the right refresh rate, etc is hell, especially if you want 4-5K+. I ended up settling on 3x2K 27" about 3 years ago but was interested in the Apple Studio Display. I think it's a little outside my budget to grab 3 of them but the way this article brushes it off as uninteresting is astounding to me.

The real issue is that $1,599 is a lot of money, and here, it’s buying you panel tech that is woefully behind the curve.

Behind what curve? It's $300 more than the LG UltraFine's I can find online and has about the same panel tech as far as I can tell. While the LG UltraFine is older it's still unmatched from what I understand listening to various tech podcasts. It's damming to me that the Verge couldn't/didn't mention a single other monitor that has all this better tech they allude to.

For those of you that don’t care about pixel-perfect macOS with no scaling, $1,599 will sound frankly ridiculous, and there are lots of other fascinating displays to think about, including a number of OLEDs, some neat ultrawides, and plenty of displays that support higher refresh rates.

Links please? When I search for "27" OLED 5K" I'm not finding much at all. I don't want an ultrawide/curved/>27" display.

* LG UltraFine 5K 27" [0] for $1,319

* I see mentions of "Iiyama ProLite XB2779QQS" [1] but it's unavailable [2] and I've never heard of this brand

There are $379 TVs with more advanced local-dimming backlights than this.

This is such a silly argument, show me a 5K TV with local-dimming for $379. I don't know much about display tech but I do understand there are tradeoffs between refresh rate, resolution, LCD/IPS/OLED, monitor size, monitor price. You cannot simply adjust those various value to what you want (like taking them all to the max) and find a monitor that exists. There are tradeoffs all over the place when it comes to monitors. Finding a semi-related (no, TV's are not the same as monitors) product that has 1 specific feature and using that price point is disingenuous at best.

I understand the arguments about the webcam but it feels like they hang a lot of the article on that feature and I, for one, don't care. You could remove the camera/mic/speakers and it would still be attractive me even at the same price. Would I like it to be cheaper? Always, but if wishes were horses...

[0] https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07XV9NQSJ/

[1] https://www.techradar.com/best/best-5k-and-8k-monitors

[2] https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B078WBRTPB/

tshaddox• 4 years ago

Yeah, the worst part is this:

For those of you that don’t care about pixel-perfect macOS with no scaling, $1,599 will sound frankly ridiculous, and there are lots of other fascinating displays to think about, including a number of OLEDs, some neat ultrawides, and plenty of displays that support higher refresh rates.

Umm, yeah, the form factor and resolution are all the matter with this display. That sentence is like saying "For those of you that are vegetarians, $15 for a hamburger will sound frankly ridiculous." Of course there are much cheaper products that don't have the thing that is the only reason anyone would even consider buying this monitor.

pclark• 4 years ago

Alienware just shipped a 32" curved OLED PC monitor — it's clear that 5K monitors are not really going to be a thing, presumably because of GPU/connector constraints — I would assume there'll be more QD-OLED screens, including hopefully a 27" non-curved.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/9/22966303/alienware-curved-...

A 60Hz 5K vs. a 180Hz 4K OLED, I may pick the latter, despite desperately just wanting a good 5K.

turtlebits• 4 years ago

The new Alienware is 1440p, not 4k.

nomel• 4 years ago

It's damming to me that the Verge couldn't/didn't mention a single other monitor that has all this better tech they allude to.

I'm not sure why anyone would listen to the Verge for anything related to tech. They're infamously incompetent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFB5SlXhykQ

vladvasiliu• 4 years ago

I quite agree with your overall sentiment, but

* I see mentions of "Iiyama ProLite XB2779QQS" [1] but it's unavailable [2] and I've never heard of this brand

Iiyama is actually a quite reputable brand. However, the other part of your point stands: IME this model is impossible to find (in France), and I've been eyeing it for a while.

srvmshr• 4 years ago

Iiyama is very Japan specific, but they are incredibly good & reasonably priced for their quality. I own a 32" & can vouch for it

thirdsun2• 4 years ago

Thank you. As someone that values pixel density and wants a 5k / 27" display I thought I was crazy walking into any reddit discussion on this topic. It's refresh rate over everything else over there. An attribute I couldn't care less about. I need 60 Hz and, probably, native 24p for the occassional film I don't want to watch on the big screen but other than that it's sharp text I care about.

Meanwhile people act as if there are countless other 5k / 27" on the market or suggest that 5k at any ridiculously large display size is just as fine. Most people don't seem to be aware of how resolutions, display sizes and scaling behavior on macOS interact and depend on each other.

joshstrange2• 4 years ago

Exactly. I don't dismiss people that want certain feature that it doesn't have or want better display tech but for my eyes I want 5K/27" and 60hz is perfectly fine. I honestly can't tell a difference between my M1 Max and my 2019 MBP display (w.r.t. refresh rate). Same as I couldn't tell a difference between my iPhone 13 and my iPhone 12. My eyes might just be shit but refresh rate doesn't really make a difference for me.

Personally I'd just as well strip the camera/speakers/mic out of the ACD but I understand there are compromises you always have to make. The fact that some many people are up in arms that this display didn't have the exact specs /they/ wanted is just childish. Especially when there doesn't exist comparable 5K/27"'s for much cheaper.

arvinsim3• 4 years ago

I need 60 Hz and, probably, native 24p for the occassional film I don't want to watch on the big screen but other than that it's sharp text I care about.

If you care about 24p then you need a display that can support 120hz

jerlam• 4 years ago

I know someone who is in the market for this display - they currently have the now-discontinued 27" 5K iMac and want to upgrade. They want the highest resolution and color accuracy for photography and don't care about HDR, refresh rates, or integrated speakers. This review, like many others, seem to assume that this is a mass-market product and should fit every possible use case.

Tech reviewers: Apple doesn't make "pro" equipment

Apple: Here's a monitor specifically for pro photographers

Tech reviewers: This monitor is bad for gaming and watching movies

The webcam seems like a pretty big fail though.

DHPersonal• 4 years ago

If the software issues are true and can be repaired with a firmware upgrade then I don’t think it will be a problem for long.

londons_explore• 4 years ago

Is guess they are trying to so something clever, but it isn't working, and this is some fallback mode.

Remember that when reviewers are sent hardware to test, the software teams are often the last to complete their bits. Probably the day before this hardware shipped, some manager had to make the call at midnight to 'just emulate a 640x480 Logitech, we'll have to release the proper version in an update'.

_abox• 4 years ago

That monitor is much too expensive for just gaming and movies anyway.. You could nearly get a whole 27" iMac for that price.

LCD tech has really come a long way since then (not even to mention OLED :) )

Tagbert5• 4 years ago

I wouldn't use this monitor for gaming and movies either. It's really for a computer display where you want crisp text and reasonably accurate colors.

Current rumors are for a higher end version coming out in the next few months that would include mini-LED and would have Promotion 120Hz refresh rates. that monitor is likely to cost significantly more than this one though.

ricketycricket• 4 years ago

There is no 27" iMac now.

fomine33• 4 years ago

In other words, iMac 5K is steal.

pxmpxm3• 4 years ago

86% adobe rgb reproduction is not something you'd use for professional work. IIRC wife's NEC from couple years back comes in at 99% and an external puck to calibrate it.

On a semi related note,my LG 55in oled TV is by far the best monitor setup I've had.

floydnoel• 4 years ago

Can I buy the iMac? Haha. This (1600+) monitor is basically that, but with the iMac removed. Same screen size, same resolution, roughly the same panel as the 27” 5K iMac that is now discontinued. Price is even in the same ballpark, especially if you want a tilting stand. Same lack of HDR.

To really step up to a professional quality screen, you’ve got to shell out for the Pro Display.

I really hope Apple announces a new large iMac soon. A Pro Display iMac would be amazing!

arvinsim3• 4 years ago

Seems too specific for photography.

I mean, it lacks 10-bit color and 120hz(for 24fps playback) that video editors want.

And why wouldn't photographers want HDR?

unicornporn2• 4 years ago

Oh my gosh. Buy a Eizo CG-line monitor if you're shopping at this price. Built in hardware calibration and very good gray uniformity. No, not 5k but quite frankly I don't have a preference between UHD and 2560x1440 for photography, video and general use. True colors reign.

closetohome2• 4 years ago

If all you want is a low-resolution monitor with good color calibration you can pick up an old Cinema Display for a couple hundred bucks that will do the same thing.

GekkePrutser2• 4 years ago

Not really. Those things were TN and they had CCFL backlight which yellows over time.

unicornporn2• 4 years ago

I'm not sure you know how built-in hardware calibration works. A built-in arm on the CG swings out at a set interval and automatically creates a LUT for the screen.

headhuntermdk• 4 years ago

Not sure why you are being downvoted. I purchased a Eizo CS monitor and I couldn't be happier

fomine33• 4 years ago

For coding, I'd take high resolution than accurate color, without thinking. So it depends on use case.

Tagbert5• 4 years ago

Obviously something wrong with the driver for that camera. The same camera produces very good video in the iPad Pro.

As for the rest of the Studio monitor, it is a huge relief to finally have a true 5K display from Apple. The only other maker, LG produced a half-hearted effort that suffered from ghosting, backlight bleed, wobbly stand, and loose ports. Those quality control issues are usually things that Apple gets right an has done so in the similar 27" iMac for several years. No one else makes an equivalent monitor. Yes, there are lots of cheaper 4K displays out there. Some smaller, some larger. 4K is never quite right for a Mac OS display larger than about 24 inches.

I see a lot of recommendations for wide-screen monitors instead. I've tried a few of those and they almost always have limited vertical resolution and the text rendering is soft enough that I have to enlarge the text to read it clearly. I do this on the Samsung widescreen that our office supplies.

I know that the trend is toward higher refresh screens, and I have a couple of screens with 120hz refresh. Both of those are much smaller screens. It might be nice to have higher refresh but I don't actually miss it. 60Hz works well and if the alternative is a higher price, then, no thank you.

Similar on the HDR for the screen. This IPS screen has a really great image and reasonable dynamic range for this kind of tech. It might be nice to have more, but everything suggests that mini-LED would be more expensive at this size and OLED is still subject to burn-in for the kind of static images on a computer screen. Maybe if I was trying to watch a lot of movies on this screen, I would value the HDR more, but I don't. my computer is a work device. Entertainment happens elsewhere.

The price is higher than the typical mass market 4K display. It is a little more than the only other comparable monitor, the LG. Yes, it would be nice if it were cheaper but it could have been more expensive and easier rumors had the price considerable higher. This is a price that I could afford. Of course not everyone can, though Apple customers do tend a little higher on the income level than a Windows user for personal purchases. If I were going to use this for work, I would definitely invest the money. For just personal uses, I'll probably stick with the existing monitor, but keep on eye on this and maybe look for a refurb unit in a year or two.

FYI the Ars Technica review of the Studio Monitor is a much better look at this product. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/03/studio-display-revie...

coolso• 4 years ago

If I could afford this monitor I totally would buy it. I purchased one of The Verge's recommended monitors and returned it immediately for a replacement. The replacement had the same issue the first one did, albeit less severe (bad color uniformity in the bottom half of the screen). It also has a design flaw: like with most monitors, the matte coating is easily visible, in the form of what appears to be very fine sparkly dust on the screen.

Given that The Verge isn't high on the Apple Studio Display, quite frankly I'm more inclined to believe it's an excellent monitor.

All of these review sites are getting quite tiresome.

vondur• 4 years ago

I'm thinking there is something wrong with the camera on that particular monitor. I really doubt Apple would release a monitor with that bad of a camera built in. We see this in Mountain Bike reviews once in a while where the frame breaks during testing. Looks bad in the review, but isn't what typically happens for everyone else.

Traster2• 4 years ago

He had 2 review units, seems unlikely to be a problem with both unless it's software.

Tagbert5• 4 years ago

It appears that the early release, demo units had a software problem. Wall Street Journal has confirmed that. I expect that a firmware or OS patch will fix that. The camera is a 12mp camera similar to the excellent one in the iPad Pro and should not be producing that kind of results.

Traster2• 4 years ago

Really the only reason to chase after this display for the screen itself is if you desperately care about having a 5K display that can display MacOS at pixel-perfect resolution with no scaling. I don’t want to discount this: a lot of people care about that a lot, and for those folks, $1,599 sounds totally reasonable considering that the only other 5K option on the market is that buggy LG UltraFine.

Doesn't this just scream "The Mac OS software is bad, so buy our bad monitor to make up for it". There's a reason no one else makes a 5K display, and there's no reason why people should need to worry about buying a specific resolution display. It's just a failure by Apple. Am I missing something?

Tagbert5• 4 years ago

Mac users are used to "retina" resolution where the ppi is small enough that you cannot distinguish the individual pixels at the expected viewing distance. For a stand-alone monitor that is around 218-220 ppi. For a laptop that is around 240ppi and for a phone is is around 320+ppi.

A 27" 5K display is 218ppi. A 27" 4K display is less than that and can be noticeable. In addition, while Mac OS does do scaling at 1x 1.5x and 2x, the 2x is crisper for text. 1x is usually too small for higher resolutions.

Other manufacturers have gotten stuck on 4K for a while. they are adequate for many uses and cheap due to the high production volume. Before that it was 1080p screens and the industry was stuck at that for a long time except for specialized display that were higher resolution. Eventually manufacturing caught up and jumped to the next plateau. I expect it to eventually jump to the next plateau in a few years once we have even faster display connections.

Regardless, it doesn't matter if 5K has any value to you. it does have a lot of value to Mac customers. Of course we'll see how many feel that that value matches this price. I certainly don't expect Windows users to purchase this display though it would for any that have thunderbolt connections.

This is a bit like, "why would you want Thunderbolt, isn't USB-C good enough?" Sometimes it is and sometimes, you want something more.

musicale• 4 years ago

Can it run Doom yet on the A13? :)

GeekyBear• 4 years ago

Microsoft released an $800 webcam yesterday that uses the same sort of AI inference tech to follow a user around the room and zoom in on them. Just the webcam, mind you.

This is using an LG 5k panel that LG sells as an LG Ultrafine 5k for $200 dollars less in a black plastic shell instead of aluminum, and without the fancy webcam tech or unusually good speakers.

The only users who are going to care about this are those who need MacOS' exact 2x pixel scaling that this resolution enables. (Say for commercial printing workflows where high WYSIWYG accuracy still matters) Otherwise, your GPU can scale to fractional pixels that a display can't render accurately on any old display.

thirdsun2• 4 years ago

Otherwise, your GPU can scale to fractional pixels that a display can't render accurately on any old display.

I disagree. This results in a slightly, but noticeably blurry image, particular in text. And it wastes resources by being a constant GPU-bound task.

bofh23• 4 years ago

The webcam should’ve been an external option. If I have two or three monitors, only one needs a webcam.

Perhaps include a soft shoe or 1/4”-20 accessory mount on top for a ball or pan-tilt head along with a nearby USB-C port for an elegant webcam mounting option?

Why does a webcam even need an A13 (the guts of an iPhone 11)? I’d expect plenty of idle CPU and GPU cores in the Mac Studio computer driving the display that could be used instead for Center Stage, spatial audio, and Siri wake word.

All monitors should ship with VESA mounts. The various stands should fasten to the VESA mount. If Apple makes a great VESA stand maybe folks would buy it to use with other monitors?

$400 is a ridiculous premium just to add height adjustability.

I’d also like to see additional standard monitor inputs like HDMI, DisplayPort, and even DVI-I (dual-link and analog) and VGA, with side-by-side and PiP/PoP viewing of inputs.

Also, add a couple of USB-A ports on the hub to power and connect devices with that ubiquitous connector without an adapter.

Apple Studio Display Review: Nothing to See Here

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