Poll: *** The official Studio Display thread (it has the 27" 5K iMac screen and everything!) ***

[HACO]

Wait, let me get this right.

you said he said a thing which led you to saying that thing shows he doesnt know what he's talking about, right? And when it's pointed out that thing you claimed he said was 100% incorrect...you still think he doesnt know what he's talking about?

It's clear you have an issue with MKBHD, but nothing you've said explains why. You think you know why, but everything you've just claimed is incorrect. I'm starting to think you have an issue with him just because he doesn't agree with you.

No. I already admitted he didn't want them all, just more stuff. My focus was on the two bit features that he expected: MiniLED or 120Hz. He said he expected this $1600 5K 27" from Apple to have ProMotion (120Hz) or MiniLED (or other stuff, which I already said fair).

I explained why expecting those two features in a $1500 5K monitor from Apple means you don't know what you're talking about:

As for the actual two features, "expecting" a $1600 colour accurate 5K monitor from Apple of all people to have MiniLED means you have no idea about monitors, 4K ones from ASUS or Lenovo cost $3000. And "Expecting" it to have 120Hz is another level, such panel doesn't even exist on the planet and there's no interface that supports that bandwidth.

Like I said earlier, expecting Apple to take the $3000 4K ASUS ProArt (with MiniLED), upgrade it to 5K and maybe add 120Hz to it and sell it for $1600 means, once again, you don't know much about monitors.

If you like to refute any of this, on the actual substance rather than what MKBHD may or may not have said, happy to discuss with you.

It's clear you have an issue with MKBHD, but nothing you've said explains why.

I don't have any issue with him. Like most YouTube tech reviewers, he makes very nice videos, is an excellent presenter, and his videos are superficial without any in-depth substance, but that is maybe the key to his incredible success.

As for why I disagree with him, I expect a tech reviewer to understand the industry, and if they say they expect a feature I believe they should understand what that feature actually does to the cost of the product, as well as what similar products with those features cost. He quite clearly did not. Nothing personally against him, just a sloppy video, like most YouTubers do all the time.

 

[HACO]

The point he was making is the screens in those devices are better not that this monitor should have those features.

When he used this screen with a MacBook Pro, he ended up just using the laptop screen as the primary display because it’s just better. It sort of defeats the purpose of plugging in an external display.

His summary is clearly that it’s just too expensive unless it’s exactly what you want because it’s the only one of its kind on the market (hence the Rolls Royce analogy). Everyone else should just continue to buy non-Apple monitors for less than 1/3 the price.

Don't disagree. If you don't want 5k, don't buy this. That's not the problematic parts of the video. I said this before he released this video.

I completely disagree, none of those things are minor points, it’s a £1500 LCD screen, literally £100 less than the base 5k iMac, the execution should be perfect.

Even a £200 screen I got from Amazon for my wife’s home office has a full hight swivel and tilt stand and a vesa mount. The basic stand will fail even the most rudimentary DSE assessment in a business setting so it’s just not fit for purpose and basically forces you down the monitor arm route or the £400 upgrade. Unacceptable.

Fair. No product is ever perfect, I care about what I buy a product for. I don't care if a feature I never wanted in a product isn't perfect, or is awful. I was unhappy with my monitor's stand 10 years ago, I bought an arm. Still use it today so I don't care about any stand. I wouldn't buy a £400 stand. If Apple charged extra for the VESA mount it would have been a major issue for me. But since they don't, I don't even think about it. Most bundled monitor stands suck, they're flimsy and in strange shapes, so investing in a proper arm/stand is a good idea and they last for a long time

Apple spent actual time in their keynote talking about the webcam, it’s still poor. Again they spent actual time in the keynote talking about how great the speakers are and they sounded worse than you get in their laptops.

I don't care what Apple spends time during their keynotes, it's usually emojis and iMessage. I don't buy monitors for its webcam or speaker, and this should again be judged in context of the competitors, which if they have webcams or speakers they are also not good. I'd rather it didn't even have those to begin with.

The proprietary cable is not a minor point, if it gets damaged, the entire screen needs to be returned to apple for a repair. Not to mention Apple will stop supporting it in a few years meaning it could become E-waste because of a power cable. How is that even remotely acceptable in 2022?

Not really because it detaches and there will be third party ones. It's stupid, but again a minor point to me.

Btw Apple Cinema displays (from 2000s) also had a proprietary power cable, you can still find compatible replacements for them. So this is just concern trolling.

There are so many red flags with this product.

There are. But if you want 5K, you have no other choice. If you don't want 5K, all the other issues are irrelevant because even if everything else was perfect, you should still not buy this.

It’s just a shame because pretty much everything else Apple has released in the last couple of years has been killer but every now and again they do something like this to remind you what they really want to do with their mainstream products but can’t because of the backlash it would generate.

Don't agree. Mac line has been great, the rest have been very mediocre.

 

[Somnambulist]

People wanted the Pro XDR with Pro Motion for well under half the price that retails at…

As it stands it’s kind of a classic Apple quandary where you’re having to pay more than you feel you should for a display that’s already been around for a long time, but there’s little alternative if you want that sweet doubled 2560x1440 scaling. Under a grand they’d be less grumbling, but it’s understandable after all this time people expected something other than an Ultrafine 5k in a (pretty) frock.

I might think about one once there’s used ones/refurbs floating about in a year or two…if there’s no competition released by then, but of course there’s no guarantee of that either and it might be a long wait for something akin to a big version of the MBP displays.

 

[HACO]

People wanted the Pro XDR with Pro Motion for well under half the price that retails at…

As it stands it’s kind of a classic Apple quandary where you’re having to pay more than you feel you should for a display that’s already been around for a long time, but there’s little alternative if you want that sweet doubled 2560x1440 scaling. Under a grand they’d be less grumbling, but it’s understandable after all this time people expected something other than an Ultrafine 5k in a (pretty) frock.

I might think about one once there’s used ones/refurbs floating about in a year or two…if there’s no competition released by then, but of course there’s no guarantee of that either and it might be a long wait for something akin to a big version of the MBP displays.

Price of used LG Ultrafine 5Ks have also dropped, they used to go for about £1200, even the ones with scratches on the screen were going for close to £1000. But they've dropped to about £800 now. The issue is that you don't know what you're getting, lots of the early revisions developed pretty bad image retention issues or dead/stuck pixels.

 

[Somnambulist]

Yeah I have no doubt it will be way more reliable and w/better QC than the Ultrafine and more akin to just a standalone 27” iMac display. It’s a shame you can’t repurpose an old one of those to be an external display for an Apple silicone machine; my understanding is it’s only a certain generation of old iMacs and even then both machines have to run the same OS.

Just have to wait and see if this causes any competition to crop up, but it seems unlikely given the direction the monitor market has mostly gone in (which is no doubt caterers towards what sells the most).

 

[HACO]

Yeah I have no doubt it will be way more reliable and w/better QC than the Ultrafine and more akin to just a standalone 27” iMac display. It’s a shame you can’t repurpose an old one of those to be an external display for an Apple silicone machine; my understanding is it’s only a certain generation of old iMacs and even then both machines have to run the same OS.

Just have to wait and see if this causes any competition to crop up, but it seems unlikely given the direction the monitor market has mostly gone in (which is no doubt caterers towards what sells the most).

I'm hoping this release reignites the 27" 5K market, and we see some competition. Last time when the 27" iMac came out the usual suspects (Dell, HP, etc) did make 27" 5K monitors for a while (ordered the same panels as Apple), but they were too compromised. They need two cables, software issues, major QA issues, etc... Not cool. Not all GPUs could handle 5K, and Windows struggled with resolutions above 5K. They were discontinued pretty quickly.

This time a single HDMI 2.1 can handle the signal and modern GPUs have no issues, lots of other laptops also have Thunderbolt, and Windows 11 does 5K just fine. So If they show up there's a much better chance for success.

With DP 2.0 we also do 32" 8K without any DSC with one cable. 2x scale on 4K on a 32" would be very sweet. Sadly the only 32" 8K monitor right now costs £3500 and requires two cables.

 

[Bluecube]

Has there been any mention of the speaker quality? While not a major concern for me, it would be nice to know what they're like as the MBP speakers are surprisingly decent.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Yes, not as good as the recent macbook pros. Highs are not great.

 

[Irish_Tom]

Still undecided about this.

I’m now thinking of getting the Studio as my primary display, combining it with my current Dell P2715Q and getting another Dell second hand — there’s one near me on Market Place for £250.

The other option is getting 3 Dell U2723QE or Huawei Mateviews for the same price as the Studio display.

I had the P2715Q paired up with a 27” iMac for a few years and it’s now hooked up to my 24” M1 iMac, so I know it’s decent enough. I can definitely tell the difference in pixel density between the screens, so I wouldn't want to use it as my primary display, but for secondary information, it will work fine.

The thing is, I look at the current Dell offerings like the U2723QE and I just wonder how much better it is compared to the P2715Q? It seems like display tech hasn’t moved on that much in the last 7+ years unless you’re into gaming. Even the Dell UP2720Q (£1,500) is 4k @ 60hz, just like my P2715Q.

Which makes me think the Studio as the main screen and two "decent" secondary screens will be absolutely fine. It's just difficult getting over that price tag.

Something else did cross my mind. There are a couple of YouTube videos of people who have bought an iMac chassis, and then got the LG panel and a control board from Aliexpress and built their own "iMac display". What I couldn't work out was, why not just get a complete iMac and replace the control board? It seems like much less faff than having to order an extra panel. I'm sure they considered doing that, but I couldn't find a suitable explanation. It is a pain you can use the iMac as a secondary display.

 

[HACO]

Something else did cross my mind. There are a couple of YouTube videos of people who have bought an iMac chassis, and then got the LG panel and a control board from Aliexpress and built their own "iMac display". What I couldn't work out was, why not just get a complete iMac and replace the control board? It seems like much less faff than having to order an extra panel. I'm sure they considered doing that, but I couldn't find a suitable explanation. It is a pain you can use the iMac as a secondary display.

Probably cheaper to get an iMac chassis than a full iMac. Broken iMacs are often scrapped for parts and you can get the case for £50 or even less. Then a brand new 5K panel for about £200. That's £250. Full iMacs go for more than this, even broken ones and you're getting a used panel.

 

[Irish_Tom]

Probably cheaper to get an iMac chassis than a full iMac. Broken iMacs are often scrapped for parts and you can get the case for £50 or even less. Then a brand new 5K panel for about £200. That's £250. Full iMacs go for more than this, even broken ones and you're getting a used panel.

Yeah, fair point, hadn't considered that. Makes sense.

 

[Somnambulist]

The thing is, I look at the current Dell offerings like the U2723QE and I just wonder how much better it is compared to the P2715Q? It seems like display tech hasn’t moved on that much in the last 7+ years unless you’re into gaming. Even the Dell UP2720Q (£1,500) is 4k @ 60hz, just like my P2715Q.

For me:

- Lack of ProMotion on a big display isn't a deal-breaker (indeed the ProXDR doesn't have it either) because most of the stuff I'd be fast-scrolling through is the sort of content I'd likely be looking at on my phone or iPad, plus bigger screen usually means more content on screen and less need to constantly be scrolling fast. Would be nice yes, but even on the MBP the way Apple employs it means not all the software is actually using it yet and the reality is when they pull it off it'll be on the Pro XDR gen 2 first, at a wallet-breaking price.

- The backlighting is dated at this point and this clearly isn't a display that's going to shine when sat in the dark watching media. I guess this is a potential issue if it's the primary portal for watching stuff... but not something I'd notice in the day when most of the use will be happening.

- No HDR. Something I'd notice next to my MBP, but again it's only something that pops up in certain situations (i.e. photo/video) that aren't representative of where most use is occurring.

In most cases I'd probably be very happy with it because the 27" iMac screen has always been a pleasure to look it, and during the day this one can go a bit brighter than the iMacs/Ultrafine. As with you, it's just the Apple tax that's off-putting, but I'm not in any rush so I know I'll be able to get it cheaper down the line if no competition emerges. Yes there's all the 4K OLED monitors with true blacks and fast refresh rates etc, but if most of the time you're working with static elements and care about res (as after all 5K is 50%+ more pixels than 4K), text reproduction etc Apple have sort of got us by the balls unless you go outside the box like with the DIY display route.

 

[HACO]

In most cases I'd probably be very happy with it because the 27" iMac screen has always been a pleasure to look it, and during the day this one can go a bit brighter than the iMacs/Ultrafine. As with you, it's just the Apple tax that's off-putting, but I'm not in any rush so I know I'll be able to get it cheaper down the line if no competition emerges. Yes there's all the 4K OLED monitors with true blacks and fast refresh rates etc, but if most of the time you're working with static elements and care about res (as after all 5K is 50%+ more pixels than 4K), text reproduction etc Apple have sort of got us by the balls unless you go outside the box like with the DIY display route.

Precisely. It's like a hostage situation. And this is also why the LG Ultrafine 5K was so expensive (£1200-1300) despite being in a very cheap package and with serious QA problems. It's a market where there's clearly demand and yet no other products.

 

[Reuben klang]

I’m a weirdo but I enjoyed reading this thread. Learnt a few bits and bobs.

Cheers HACO, every days a school day.

 

[Jimbeam3678]

Precisely. It's like a hostage situation. And this is also why the LG Ultrafine 5K was so expensive (£1200-1300) despite being in a very cheap package and with serious QA problems. It's a market where there's clearly demand and yet no other products.

Why is there no product if there is demand? Is it because its challenging process to make a 5K monitor? Or is it simply there is not enough demand?

Not a question directly at you, just questions which come to my mind after reading this thread.

 

[Irish_Tom]

For me:

- Lack of ProMotion on a big display isn't a deal-breaker (indeed the ProXDR doesn't have it either) because most of the stuff I'd be fast-scrolling through is the sort of content I'd likely be looking at on my phone or iPad, plus bigger screen usually means more content on screen and less need to constantly be scrolling fast. Would be nice yes, but even on the MBP the way Apple employs it means not all the software is actually using it yet and the reality is when they pull it off it'll be on the Pro XDR gen 2 first, at a wallet-breaking price.

- The backlighting is dated at this point and this clearly isn't a display that's going to shine when sat in the dark watching media. I guess this is a potential issue if it's the primary portal for watching stuff... but not something I'd notice in the day when most of the use will be happening.

- No HDR. Something I'd notice next to my MBP, but again it's only something that pops up in certain situations (i.e. photo/video) that aren't representative of where most use is occurring.

In most cases I'd probably be very happy with it because the 27" iMac screen has always been a pleasure to look it, and during the day this one can go a bit brighter than the iMacs/Ultrafine. As with you, it's just the Apple tax that's off-putting, but I'm not in any rush so I know I'll be able to get it cheaper down the line if no competition emerges. Yes there's all the 4K OLED monitors with true blacks and fast refresh rates etc, but if most of the time you're working with static elements and care about res (as after all 5K is 50%+ more pixels than 4K), text reproduction etc Apple have sort of got us by the balls unless you go outside the box like with the DIY display route.

Yep, agree with all of that.

I had a look on Aliexpress; the LG panel, control board & power supply comes to about €620 delivered. Plus the potential for import taxes. Then you still need a housing for it, plus the time required to assemble it all, test it, and there’s obviously no support if it goes wrong. Add in speakers, web cam and Apple Tax and you start to see where the price comes from, although it still feels expensive.

 

[Bluecube]

Just had a despatch email for mine. I hope it’ll arrive tomorrow so I can get the Mac Studio hooked up at last.

 

[HACO]

Why is there no product if there is demand? Is it because its challenging process to make a 5K monitor? Or is it simply there is not enough demand?

Not a question directly at you, just questions which come to my mind after reading this thread.

The demand exists in only one market segment, that massively increases production costs.

Imagine a new IPS 27" 4K panel, targeted for productivity. Once these are built and tested, those which perform best will go into top-tier products (e.g. ASUS ProArt, Dell Ultrasharp), those that fail their test coverage, accuracy or brightness but are still adequate will go midrange products (e.g. Dell S series) and cheaper 60Hz gaming monitors, and the rest (awful performers, pixel defects, etc) can go into low-end office products and lower-end laptops. So you do one R&D and production line for multiple class of products.

People only want 5K at the highest end of the market, and they expect very good brightness and accuracy. If the 5K panel fails, it's very difficult to repurpose it and still sell it at reasonable prices because they now are at the same price as top-tier products of the second-best resolution.

Remember cheaper 5K monitors that came after the 27" iMac back in 2015-2016? Likes of Iiyama XB2779QQS or HP Z27q. These were using panels that Apple and LG were rejecting. They went for about £800 which was £500 cheaper than the LG Ultrafine 5K, but did terribly in the market because at £800 they were in the same price range as the higher end 4K monitors and most people preferred the 4K ones that were brighter and more colour accurate, and often a little cheaper. Also because back then they required two DP connectors (no longer the case with HDMI 2.1).

This is why highest-tier resolution has always been a very tricky market and always came with a huge premium.

Also why we only have one 8K monitor (Dell UP3218K) and despite it having no crazy features (no local dimming, miniLED, simple 60Hz, no HDR, only 400 nits, basic features, requiring two cables, being 4 years old) still goes for £3500, and there's no second-tier class of 8K monitors (yet).

Just had a despatch email for mine. I hope it’ll arrive tomorrow so I can get the Mac Studio hooked up at last.

Nice! What was your delivery window?

 

[Jimbeam3678]

@HACO thanks for taking the time to reply. As always with these things makes perfect sense when it is explained well!

 

[Bluecube]

Nice! What was your delivery window?

23rd to the 30th March so quite pleased it’s on its way now. Won’t be here till Monday though which is a surprise as DPD deliver at weekends too.