Any Positive Reviews of the Apple Studio Display?

[chikorita157]

I don't think it is. It's taking that one aspect that the ASD does better out of the equation and then putting the rest of its features in competition with the more varied 4K market. If you value 5K over anything else, then your options are just very limited and the ASD is just as good (and bad) as most everything else with 5K res.

I'll gladly compromise by going from 5K -> 4K but gaining high refresh rate options and a lot lower price in the process. 4K to me is sharp enough and if I want more desktop space I can pile on more displays on my desk while still being way under the cost of one ASD.

Still, comparing 5K and 4K is still comparing apples and oranges. The point is, 4K will never be as good as 5K on macOS because of how macOS handles scaling, but looks fine on Windows. Since I spend a good amount of time on the computer for productivity, 1440p scaling on 4K will never give the best experience compared to 5K. Also, you have high end 4K monitors costing as much as a 5K monitor like the UP2720Q with simular color and cost, but vastly inferior resolution.

Since the ASD was hard to get a hold of since people are buying them up and the growing popularity of Apple Silicon Macs, I do hope there are more manufacturers that would build 5K displays that work better on macOS along with more affordable options. The options that are currently available that work best with Macs are limited and the 4K option is just compromised and in my opinion, does not give the best experience.

 

[edanuff]

Still, comparing 5K and 4K is still comparing apples and oranges. The point is, 4K will never be as good as 5K on macOS because of how macOS handles scaling, but looks fine on Windows. Since I spend a good amount of time on the computer for productivity, 1440p scaling on 4K will never give the best experience compared to 5K. Also, you have high end 4K monitors costing as much as a 5K monitor like the UP2720Q with simular color and cost, but vastly inferior resolution.

Yes, 1000x this! I suspect most ASD owners have owned 4K displays before. I've been using 4K displays on Macs since 2014 and at one point or another have owned Dell, LG, Samsung, and even Eve Spectrum (144Hz 4K). 1440p was intolerably blurry on any of those, I had to run at 200% 1080p and live with the UX being too large. The ASD is the only display short of the XDR that makes the UX look normal size and without blurring.

 

[chikorita157]

Yes, 1000x this! I suspect most ASD owners have owned 4K displays before. I've been using 4K displays on Macs since 2014 and at one point or another have owned Dell, LG, Samsung, and even Eve Spectrum (144Hz 4K). 1440p was intolerably blurry on any of those, I had to run at 200% 1080p and live with the UX being too large. The ASD is the only display short of the XDR that makes the UX look normal size and without blurring.

I noticed how burry 1440P is with 4K as I decided to buy a new monitor for my father. The monitor I bought is a LG 27UP650-W. I noticed how burry the text is at 1440p since I am so used to 5K and it can't really compare. I just can't get over how blurry it. It looks good at 1080P, but looks too big. Still, I think 1080P 2x scaling will be good for my father as he just only uses it for internet and will look better than the 23" TN Dell monitor that is currently connected using a lower resolution.

1440p native might look good if you mess around with the terminal command to enable antialiasing for text to make it decent, but 4K for anything above 24" isn't that great as there is too many compromises, unless you want a larger UI at 1080p 2x at 27". The monitor is completely unusable at its native resolution.

 

[CubeApril]

Unusable feels like a pretty big stretch -- I've been using my Macs with dual 27" 4K monitors since the introduction of the Dell P2715Q back in 2014. It did definitely get worse once they removed subpixel rendering and limited your options for font smoothing, but it's absolutely fine for most people. I still use a 27" 4K screen as my secondary monitor. My employer is uses all Macs, and so thousands of engineers are using 4K 27" screens without complaint.

That said, 5K is undeniably better and 100% worth the extra $1500 to me over similar 4K productivity monitors, at least for my primary monitor. Whether I can stomach spending that much again for my second monitor, probably not. 4K @ 27" just isn't bad enough or blurry enough to justify that cost again. What I imagine will happen is that I'll just keep using the ASD until they release a 5K screen with ProMotion and mini-LEDs and then the ASD will be relegated to being my secondary screen.

 

[chikorita157]

Unusable feels like a pretty big stretch -- I've been using my Macs with dual 27" 4K monitors since the introduction of the Dell P2715Q back in 2014. It did definitely get worse once they removed subpixel rendering and limited your options for font smoothing, but it's absolutely fine for most people. I still use a 27" 4K screen as my secondary monitor. My employer is uses all Macs, and so thousands of engineers are using 4K 27" screens without complaint.

That said, 5K is undeniably better and 100% worth the extra $1500 to me over similar 4K productivity monitors, at least for my primary monitor. Whether I can stomach spending that much again for my second monitor, probably not. 4K @ 27" just isn't bad enough or blurry enough to justify that cost again. What I imagine will happen is that I'll just keep using the ASD until they release a 5K screen with ProMotion and mini-LEDs and then the ASD will be relegated to being my secondary screen.

I use a 1440p monitor as a secondary to show a Twitter timeline, other documents, music player, and things like that. I do want to go all 5K for my setups down the road. Sure, 4K will be alright for a secondary, but at that point, I think it’s just better just to use a 1440p monitor and not worry about the headaches of macOS scaling with 1440p scaling on 4K and the performance and graphical issues that is associated with it. If it’s a secondary screen, one wouldn’t care too much about sharpness. 1440p screens are usually cheaper than 4K screens as well.

However, I would never consider a 4K as a main screen as reasons mentioned. The main screen is obviously what I will look at the most. Since I develop software, there is a benefit of having 5K as I can test apps and design UIs at the proper DPI at 1:1 pixel mapping on all Apple devices, although iPads and iPhones have a higher DPI than 218. You can’t do that on a 4K screen with 1440p scaling as the pixels are not 1:1. Still, I think there needs to be more options for 5K screens or monitors optimized for macOS besides just three options (Ultrafine 5K, ASD, and XDR). 4K isn’t going to cut it.

 

[kasakka]

I use a 1440p monitor as a secondary to show a Twitter timeline, other documents, music player, and things like that. I do want to go all 5K for my setups down the road. Sure, 4K will be alright for a secondary, but at that point, I think it’s just better just to use a 1440p monitor and not worry about the headaches of macOS scaling with 1440p scaling on 4K and the performance and graphical issues that is associated with it. If it’s a secondary screen, one wouldn’t care too much about sharpness. 1440p screens are usually cheaper than 4K screens as well.

4K scaled to 1440p will still look sharper than native 1440p without scaling. But I suppose if you have a 1440p screen already then keep using that.

However, I would never consider a 4K as a main screen as reasons mentioned. The main screen is obviously what I will look at the most. Since I develop software, there is a benefit of having 5K as I can test apps and design UIs at the proper DPI at 1:1 pixel mapping on all Apple devices, although iPads and iPhones have a higher DPI than 218. You can’t do that on a 4K screen with 1440p scaling as the pixels are not 1:1. Still, I think there needs to be more options for 5K screens or monitors optimized for macOS besides just three options (Ultrafine 5K, ASD, and XDR). 4K isn’t going to cut it.

Any design apps will generally ignore DPI scaling for everything but the UI. While MacOS will still render at higher res and downsample to native resolution, IMO it is a complete non-issue and with how easy it is to adjust scaling settings if needed, you can easily go back and forth.

The default scaling level for my 2019 16" MBP is not the 1:1 scaling setting but the one above that so even Apple seems confident it's not a problem for users.

Similarly for scaling the Apple iOS emulators support multiple sizing modes, including pixel accurate. Considering content on these is pretty much always DPI scaled by design, pixel level peeping is usually not necessary. Or you can always connect a real device instead which at least for me is the primary way to test iOS apps as it's generally a more pleasant user experience since you can poke at the screen like a real user would.