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

[HACO]

Hoping to get my order placed within the next couple of weeks and then it'll probably be at least ten weeks before everything turns up. There's a possibility there might be two displays, not just the one listed here.

Spoiler

Fancy stuff. But I do recommend the vesa mount for the displays with a couple of proper monitor arms. Will give you much more flexibility.

 

[HACO]

I don’t think I need it. My iMac is almost perfect on my desk, it’s just a little high and due to the design of the studio monitor, it sits slightly lower than the iMac. It should be bang on for me.

Nice. I know I'd have been disappointed with how low the display sits. But I have serious problems with most stands I did have a couple of books under my old iMac to bring it higher.

 

[HACO]

Slight hijack, but what monitor arms are you using? All the ones I have looked have the arms drop on dual 27inch monitors which is what happened with the ones I used at work.

Very old ergotron model, I think I got it back in 2010. They are more expensive than typical ones but well worth the price and they last forever. Use two separate ones instead of a dual one, it gives you more flexibility as well.

 

[HACO]

You've got me intrigued now. Due to the style of my shack, If I were to go with VESA and arms, one of them would have to be a stand and one could be clamped to the edge of the desk. I couldn't clamp one to the back of the desk because it's custom made out of a very thick worktop and fixed to the wall. Is there a current equivalent to the model you have?

https://www.ergotron.com/en-gb/products/product-details/45-241

This is very similar, and looks nicer than older models too (especially the black and white colours). There are also extensions if you want to extend them further.

There is also a dual version that's unlike most other dual arms, it has two entire arms rather than just one arm with two display mounts. This supports 2x27" screens. https://www.ergotron.com/en-gb/products/product-details/45-245

And an extension arm if you want to use the dual one on the edge and extend them to the middle: https://www.ergotron.com/en-gb/products/product-details/45-289

These are not cheap and cost 2-3x the typical ones, but they have 10 year warranty and are incredibly well built. Wouldn't surprise me if mine lasted another 20 years.

 

[HACO]

How’s everyone finding the Studio Display now?

I'm very happy with mine. It's exactly what I wanted, just a bit more expensive than I wanted it to be but whatever. It's obviously not as good as the screen on the new Macbook Pros but at this price no screen really is. It's the only thing that wouldn't feel like a downgrade when coming from a 27" 5K iMac, although it's not a big upgrade either.

Still wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is happy with 164ppi (27" 4K). They can either save money or pay extra for other features like local dimming or 120Hz. But for looking at text, this is as good is it gets right now (unless you go above £3000).

We just put in an order for 10 of these at work to replace our Huawei Mateviews.

 

[HACO]

Just had my first major issue with my Display - sound cutting out for no reason. FaceTime also throws a fit maybe because it's trying to use the camera. I'd try turning it off and on again but there no power button...

#ThinkDifferent. Crawl under the desk and unplug/replug

 

[HACO]

As everyone is waiting with bated breath for my latest update, I better update you. I unplugged the monitor and left it for a minute before plugging it back in. This time I saw the three "loading" dots onscreen and thankfully the sound is now working 100%.

It may just have been a coincidence but the wobbly happened when I opened up FaceTime. A continuous tone almost like an alarm sounded and video completely froze. FaceTime hung and I had to Force Quit it. The continuous tone continued until I rebooted the Mac Studio. On trying FaceTime again, the video was very jerky. Sound was a complete mess. In short, perhaps the monitor got stuck while doing an undocumented firmware update.

Seems like we need a few firmware updates before these issues are sorted out.

 

[HACO]

There's a topic for studio display.

Gaming performance being disappointing is completely expected and normal. Response times are in the 10+ milliseconds range.

 

[HACO]

Updated to it. Noticed no difference at all, but I've never used the webcam

 

[HACO]

How are people finding the screen? Any issues or fan noise?

I'm very happy with mine. Fan noise is completely inaudible, they're probably spinning at very low RPMs.

 

[HACO]

I've got a Studio Display coming and I want to pair it with a Mac Mini. I do think there will be a refresh at some point but who knows when. M2 maybe, but probably not until the back end of the year. I'm thinking base M1 Mac Mini with 16GB @ £808 via HE pricing will be a good options as I store everything in the cloud. I'd love 32GB RAM but that isn't going to happen outside of the pro devices and I don't need that kind of processing power or to spend that kind of money. The display has always been the most important thing in any of my setups and the ASD should be more than I'll ever need.

Wait until after WWDC keynote (6pm today) before you order the Mac Mini. A new one likely isn't coming but always a bad idea to order anything from Apple right before an event.

 

[HACO]

Apple Studio Display shortages continue, resllers cash-in (9to5mac.com)

So backordered for 8-10 weeks in the future and they are going for $700-1000 over the retail price on the bay.

Maybe it's time for other brands to consider that perhaps higher resolution monitors are indeed attractive and there is a market. Wouldn't hold my breath, even the LG Ultrafine 5K was always backordered even years after launch.

 

[HACO]

I'm also very happy with mine. Coming from a 5K iMac anything else in the market would have felt like a downgrade. This doesn't seem like a big upgrade over the iMac one either, but it's perfectly fine because I never found the iMac display to be lacking in any way.

 

[HACO]

Can a windows laptop connect to this? Is it over tb? I would like display and Audio.

Getting mixed reviews off of google/yt.

It's possible but apparently there's no easy way to control brightness.

 

[HACO]

Did anyone go for the nano texture screen ? If so is it worth it?

Go to an Apple store and try it. The visuals are not as good as the normal version, they look less bright and less sharp. But they're great at avoiding glare. So only get it if you absolutely need to avoid reflections.

 

[HACO]

I'm tempted to get one of these. I have a Mini with 2 thunderbolt ports and could really do with some more ports. I also want some speakers for just watching YouTube etc. I'm thinking instead of buying a hub and speakers to just get one of these and give my son my dell monitor. The TB ports on the back I would want to plug in my SSD's for back up and Time Machine. Are there any issues with these getting disconnected when your Mac goes to sleep?

My TM backup SSD is connected to the monitor, everything works just fine.

 

[HACO]

Thanks and no issues with my mrs using her windows laptop for work?

Windows should work fine as well. Some features won't work but the screen, webcam and speakers work fine with Windows. It even gets recognised as a G-Sync compatible monitor.

 

[HACO]

Good luck getting it to work with Windows, there's a huge thread on Macrumors about it, it almost certainly won't just work out of the box with a Windows PC.

It actually would just work out of the box as long as the Windows PC has the right connectivity (DP 1.4 over thunderbolt 3/4). Most issues that people have are due to using the wrong cables, USB-C ports and thunderbolt ports that don't have DP passthrough, which is sadly common on Windows PCs.

It was plug and play with my USB C Windows laptop but I couldn't change the brightness. It was locked to max which is eye searingly bright. I'm sure there's a workaround that involves switching to Mac to adjust the brightness and back again.

I'd be tempted to wait for the Samsung S9 5K 27" monitor if you want better cross OS support. Q1 is rumoured for a release date. I'm certainly keeping my eye on it.

Samsung takes on Apple and LG with its own 5K display for creative pros

It’s the same size and same resolution as the Studio Display.

www.theverge.com

There are third-party tools that handle brightness on Windows, there's even a way to get the iCloud windows app work which adds native brightness control on Windows. It's fine if you're buying it for mac and might want to connect a Windows PC to it.

However I agree and don't recommend buying it exclusively for a Windows PC, for that wait for other upcoming 5K monitors.

 

[HACO]

That's the thing, it's quite a minefield as to whether it'll work, and if it does, what's supported. As you say, I wouldn't buy one specifically to use with Windows. Conversely, I was considering building a cheapish gaming PC to use for a couple of specific games but that minefield as to whether the display would work put me off completely.

It's something to be aware of.

Good decision as it wouldn't have worked on a cheapish gaming PC. To get it to work on a DIY PC you need a motherboard with thunderbolt out and DP input (e.g. ASUS ProArt series), those are workstation-grade and quite expensive. It's cheaper to just buy a basic motherboard and a separate gaming monitor!

 

[HACO]

Interesting, I will hold off to have a look at that Samsung then. If I took my laptop into an Apple Store would they let me plug it into the studio display? It would save them sending it to me and returning it!

They'll likely allow it, but don't do it yourself