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Apple Studio Display - Owners Thread
- Thread starter KPOM
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I ordered mine on March 8 as well (nano-texture, height adjustable ASD). Original delivery date was March 31 - April 7. On April 6, the delivery estimate changed to April 15 - April 22. Later on April 6, though, it went from Processing to Preparing to Ship and I saw a charge on my CC. It can take an arbitrary amount of time in "Preparing to Ship" -- up to 4 days even -- although I hope it is shorter than that.
I recently downloaded MultiSoundChanger.app to control the sound from two Studio Displays. Controlling the sound from a multi-output device is its main purpose I believe. It has media key support so your standard volume keys will work, and also has a replacement sound menubar item.
First impressions:
Note: I like to have everything wired and also use ethernet and no WiFi at home. Just in case you mention that the cables here look messy.
- Lovely to look at. Something I missed from day one of my Dell P2715Q.
- Sturdy, no wobble or anything. I had the Dell on an monitorarm and it was shaky all the time. Especially when moving the standing desk up and down.
- I love glossy, all edge to edge glass, screens. Something I missed from my Dell too. I know that people have different opinions about this. The colors really pop.
- I like the thicker bezels, yes you read correctly, I prefer to have a black bezels all around that are big and not thin. It adds a great contrast and the picture looks more immersive. In comparison, I use the Huawei MateView with very thin bezels at my second Homeoffice and I prefer the bezels of the Studio Display.
- Contrast, Brightness (too bright actually) and Colors are just great for my use case. I have it connected to a M1 Max with XDR screen.
- 5K over 4K is a huge plus. One of the reasons why I got this Display anyway.
- Speakers are great and more than good for YouTube, video calls etc... although I'm continuing using my Bowers & Wilkins MM-1. I like how the Studio Display and the external speakers on my desk matches in terms of design.
- Webcam is very bad. I can't imagine that a software fix will make it look good.
- I have a non hight adjustable stand on the display and continue using my little shelf which I used before.
- Best of all features and this is a major one: No more connection issues. No matter which non-Apple display I connected to my MacBooks, I always had issues to get the external display to turn on. The workflow in most cases was to turn off the monitor from standby, open the MacBook lid, turn on the monitor and then close the lid again to get it working. No more of that annoying thing! I use my setup in clamshell mode only.
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the bezels are good but not as great as the XDR,
but I agree (less bezels than the XDR is not good, bezels are important)
Just to add, the MagSafe charger had stopped working again earlier, and when I unplugged the thunderbolt cable connected to my laptop (also providing it with power) the MagSafe charger started working again. I honestly think there is a software power management issue going on rather than a fault with our Studio Display’s.
Yep that’s exactly the issue I have. If I disconnect the thunderbolt cable the MagSafe charger starts working again. However first thing this morning everything was working perfectly until I disconnected and reconnected the thunderbolt cable and then the problem came back again.
The thing is that every other peripheral seems to work perfectly except for the MagSafe charger that only works intermittently. I think you are right and it’s definitely firmware but this is what happened. I was on the call to a Apple support senior advisor for two hours yesterday and again for an hour this morning. We tried every scenario including optimised charging on and off, plugging into all the USB ports, adding peripherals, removing peripherals. They remote connected to my MacBook and took lots of screenshots and sent them to Apple Engineering. It was clear that even when the MagSafe charger wasn’t charging that the magsafe could be seen in the screen diagnostics. They put me through to after sales support and after sales support extended the return period to 30 days to give more time to isolate the problem. Then tech support called back and said that engineering haven’t heard of this issue and want my display returned to them so they can run checks and tests to determine whether it‘s firmware or hardware.
Anyway UPS pick up my monitor tomorrow and as soon as Apple receive it they’re shipping out a new one.
Should the Studio Display automatically adjust brightness, when connected to a MacBook in clamshell mode? Mine doesn't appear to be, I've ticked/un-ticked the box several times. It just sits at whatever brightness level I set with the slider.
Anyone else noticed this behaviour?
Anyone else noticed this behaviour?
I have chosen Retina over size. I currently have a pair of LG Ultrafine 32UN880-B with my Mac Studio but before that, I had an iMac 5K + 1 x 32UN880-B. The iMac 5K was my main monitor but now that it is sold and gone, I miss it a LOT. When your eyes get used to the sharpness of Retina displays, there is no way you can downgrade to a 4K monitor, no matter the size or how good/accurate it is. On March 31st I placed an order for a pair of ASD VESA mount and can't wait for them to arrive. I'm keeping one of the 32UN880-B and maybe I would end setting it up on top of one of the ASD
Yes, it should. There's a sensor on the top left of the ASD. I can cover it with my hand and the screen gets dimmer.
I have chosen Retina over size. I currently have a pair of LG Ultrafine 32UN880-B with my Mac Studio but before that, I had an iMac 5K + 1 x 32UN880-B. The iMac 5K was my main monitor but now that it is sold and gone, I miss it a LOT. When your eyes get used to the sharpness of Retina displays, there is no way you can downgrade to a 4K monitor, no matter the size or how good/accurate it is. On March 31st I placed an order for a pair of ASD VESA mount and can't wait for them to arrive. I'm keeping one of the 32UN880-B and maybe I would end setting it up on top of one of the ASD
I feel you about retina, I work on a macbook pro late 2013 retina, and last week I buy a LG 34 wide monitor, the true? I hate it... I ending turn my neck to much, I even can get easy access to my files on right of the desktop and the 2013 retina looks better, I return that thing.
First I now realize that I don't need a wide monitor, I need a standard 4:3 monitor and possible I feel the 32 too big, so I'm thinking on the 27 studio display, I just wish that the studio display was a Mini LED, I want pure deep backs like the XDR but...
Overall for that reason I ask, just curious.
Interesting, where about is the sensor? I've tried covering the top left area and can't seem to make it work. I've just restarted my display and it's now (kinda) working...
In a pitch black room except for display it only seem to go this low which feels too bright still.
I only knew about it because I saw a reviewer mention it. If you take a photo with flash you can see it.
For video piece, I've gone with the low-cost and low-tech KVM solution of the magnetic USB-C connectors. I have personal M1 MBA and work M1 MBA. I have magnetic USB dongle in each, and then the other end on the TB cable connected to my ASD.
I just unplug from one laptop to the other.
I have never been a two screen person...I feel like that's a young man's game. When I worked in the office, I'd use one monitor (maybe 20"?) and my laptop screen below the monitor. The past 2+ years working from home on just MBA screen, very rarely used a monitor.
For home use, I spent 10 years on a 21.5" iMac.
So the 27" on my ASD is huge for me and I'm still adjusting, figuring out where to put windows, etc.
Why the cable is black, grey
I'm on the same boat, I don't like two monitors, I even don't like have the macbook pro open beside a monitor, I like focus on just one monitor, so possibly 27 is enough for me and don't need 32.
One thing is for sure, I'm sick to work on 15 inch, is too small. I do front end dev and ui design.
I'm on the same boat, I don't like two monitors, I even don't like have the macbook pro open beside a monitor, I like focus on just one monitor, so possibly 27 is enough for me and don't need 32.
One thing is for sure, I'm sick to work on 15 inch, is too small. I do front end dev and ui design.
I’m not sure if this warrants its own thread, but I have an anecdote that might be helperful/interesting.
So I got my ASD a few days ago, and am very happy with it. I’ve had something weird happen that might be interesting (and potentially helpful) to a small nice of people here: people who connect their ASD to a regular Windows PC. Not boot camp or anything, just a desktop ATX Windows machine.
I had mine setup to work with an LG UltraFine 5K. There’s a special “Thunderbolt Addon card” that many motherboard vendors sell, that allows you to convert two DisplayPort connectors to one Thunderbolt 3 port. The LG UltraFine used two DisplayPort 1.2 streams to actually get 5K working, otherwise it falls back to a single 1.2 stream, for a max 4K resolution.
Anyway, after using the ASD with my mac, I decided I wanted to play some games, so I booted up my windows machine, and hooked up the cable previously plugged into my UltraFine 5K — and it worked like a charm. Nice! Great speakers, 5K monitor, working USB-C connectors, the works.
But here comes the weird part. I update the monitor to 15.4, so I could use Center Stage (which I later found out I had to toggle on myself). Update works, nothing weird. Until I connect it to my windows machine. Usually I plug it in later, and I see the WIndows login screen and am able to log in — not this time. I see the login visual for a split second, and the display blacks out. What the? So I start thinking about all the things it could be, and even tried another thunderbolt cable (since that was an issue in the past; you need to carry that full bandwidth, or it won’t work well).
Now, I mentioned before that the add in card had two DP cables, doing DP1.2 streams. So I pull one out, just to see if it would still give an image. It does! And surprise, surprise, it’s 5K. Over one single DisplayPort cable.
So hopefully someone else who has this issue could stumble onto this post to help them.
Another interesting conclusion to draw from this is that it has to be at least a DisplayPort 1.4 stream, since that enables native 5K60 support.
So I got my ASD a few days ago, and am very happy with it. I’ve had something weird happen that might be interesting (and potentially helpful) to a small nice of people here: people who connect their ASD to a regular Windows PC. Not boot camp or anything, just a desktop ATX Windows machine.
I had mine setup to work with an LG UltraFine 5K. There’s a special “Thunderbolt Addon card” that many motherboard vendors sell, that allows you to convert two DisplayPort connectors to one Thunderbolt 3 port. The LG UltraFine used two DisplayPort 1.2 streams to actually get 5K working, otherwise it falls back to a single 1.2 stream, for a max 4K resolution.
Anyway, after using the ASD with my mac, I decided I wanted to play some games, so I booted up my windows machine, and hooked up the cable previously plugged into my UltraFine 5K — and it worked like a charm. Nice! Great speakers, 5K monitor, working USB-C connectors, the works.
But here comes the weird part. I update the monitor to 15.4, so I could use Center Stage (which I later found out I had to toggle on myself). Update works, nothing weird. Until I connect it to my windows machine. Usually I plug it in later, and I see the WIndows login screen and am able to log in — not this time. I see the login visual for a split second, and the display blacks out. What the? So I start thinking about all the things it could be, and even tried another thunderbolt cable (since that was an issue in the past; you need to carry that full bandwidth, or it won’t work well).
Now, I mentioned before that the add in card had two DP cables, doing DP1.2 streams. So I pull one out, just to see if it would still give an image. It does! And surprise, surprise, it’s 5K. Over one single DisplayPort cable.
So hopefully someone else who has this issue could stumble onto this post to help them.
Another interesting conclusion to draw from this is that it has to be at least a DisplayPort 1.4 stream, since that enables native 5K60 support.
I found the angles on the 32 inch to be too extreme at the edges. That is why curved displays were invented. I ended up pushing the 32 inch farther back and decreasing the scaled resolution.
Now with a 27 inch I have the same scaled resolution and no longer have the viewing angle problem. For a non curved display I think 27 inch is the sweet spot.
Well, tilt adjustable nano ASD’s are available in CA Apple stores, just not The Grove.
No sign of height adjustable.
So… like a real nutcase… I ordered a tilt adjustable being delivered to my house by courier tomorrow at 10am! And yes I have a height adjustable on order.
I figure I can quickly ascertain whether I like the nano texture at all, and then return it within the 2 week window if/when the height adjustable arrives.
Worst case I hate nano surface, and return the tilt one and cancel the height adjustable order that’s still “Preparing”…
Best case I love the nano surface and return the tilt one when the height adjustable arrives.
FYI, any of you buying this on AMEX should know there’s an AMEX Offer to BestBuy this month with +1 membership point (so 2x total) for any purchases at BestBuy. Opt-in needed. Would give you a few thousand extra AMEX points if you can buy it at BestBuy; their in-store stock seems to be tracking closely with Apple’s.
And with that, I resign to being a total nutcase about this monitor and I should be committed!
I’ve waited so long for this product - tried the LG 4K and 5K, assorted Dell’s, and settled on an iMac M1 but frankly just want a properly functioning retina screen! Sheesh.
No sign of height adjustable.
So… like a real nutcase… I ordered a tilt adjustable being delivered to my house by courier tomorrow at 10am! And yes I have a height adjustable on order.
I figure I can quickly ascertain whether I like the nano texture at all, and then return it within the 2 week window if/when the height adjustable arrives.
Worst case I hate nano surface, and return the tilt one and cancel the height adjustable order that’s still “Preparing”…
Best case I love the nano surface and return the tilt one when the height adjustable arrives.
FYI, any of you buying this on AMEX should know there’s an AMEX Offer to BestBuy this month with +1 membership point (so 2x total) for any purchases at BestBuy. Opt-in needed. Would give you a few thousand extra AMEX points if you can buy it at BestBuy; their in-store stock seems to be tracking closely with Apple’s.
And with that, I resign to being a total nutcase about this monitor and I should be committed!
I’ve waited so long for this product - tried the LG 4K and 5K, assorted Dell’s, and settled on an iMac M1 but frankly just want a properly functioning retina screen! Sheesh.
Hello I’m torn between adjustable height or not. Can someone post a picture withe the new 16 inch MacBook Pro open under the studio display with adjustable height please ? I wish to work like that but I’m not sure the height is enough (don’t want to put an ugly vesa mount or put something under the one without adjustable height
I’m torn between adjustable height or not. Can someone post a picture withe the new 16 inch MacBook Pro open under the studio display with adjustable height please ? I wish to work like that but I’m not sure the height is enough (don’t want to put an ugly vesa mount or put something under the one without adjustable height 
After raising my Studio Display with the tilt only stand by 8.5cm by a monitor stand, the bottom edge of the display is just above the top edge of my 14-inch MBP.Hello
Thanks for the update, as it happens I also need to return this display as I spotted a cluster of dead pixels/dirt this morning: