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Apple Studio Display Successor Now Expected Early Next Year
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There are no Retina 27" 5K OLED desktop monitors (any refresh rate) on the market. None at all. See the WikiPost.
There was one prototype in the news early this year, via Samsung Display (scroll down to *27" 5K Panel Coming in the Future*). Possible production next year. They are coming, but they are not here.
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It could be possible Apple lowers the price a little, while still adding more functions. I wouldn’t see them lowering it to much, if at all, but either way I’m definitely interested.
That's what I heard as well, and it's not bad, but it's not quite as good as I'm used to.
The colors, black levels and refresh rate do make up for it though, especially for gaming purposes. But for work, could consider getting an ASD to improve text clarity further.
I think yeah it depends on the panel. My M4 iPad Pro has perfect sharpness for finer text. But most QD-OLED monitors seem to have problems with text fringing, even more noticeably so for thin and smaller UI menus and texts.
Speak for yourself. 4k at 27" was the single best upgrade I have done. I cannot see a difference between that and a 5k at 27" display.
I'm guessing based on how Apple work, we'll get that new panel which will be very impressive and a new webcam. And that'll be it.
I'd love them to do a larger sizes well just like the used to do way back when, but I can't see that happening unfortunately unless they do a new XDR.
And until they sort out the poor font scaling support in macOS, this will still be the best all rounder for Mac users, despite the price.
I'd love them to do a larger sizes well just like the used to do way back when, but I can't see that happening unfortunately unless they do a new XDR.
And until they sort out the poor font scaling support in macOS, this will still be the best all rounder for Mac users, despite the price.
…Your anecdotal take is definitely speaking for yourself as though that offsets standards, convention, and decades of HCI computer science.
If you can settle for less is good for you; at the end of the day if it works for you within your budget, that is all that matters.
Others and progress in software, hardware, and better UX using monitors don’t have to pause or settle to your standards
A factor is the pixel density (PPI, DPR). The primary reason why Apple and even phone manufacturers prefers consistently high PPI is very sharp text.
The PPI of 4K 32” panels and above for monitor use isn’t great. With OLED panels you will even see subpixel artifacts planes’s the panel is not pixel-dense enough for most with healthy eyes to not see the pixels to notice these shortcomings of many OLED panels.
27” panels that typically really use 24.5” is close enough to 4K’s max capabilities to render standardized high PPI at 24”.
What size is the 4K panel you’re seeing in-crisp text?
It’s not an Apple thing; software as common as browsers, mobile apps, and mark-up/programming languages as common as Web ones such as CSS and JavaScript are aligned.
CSS that styles this very page uses pixel density units/constructs that dictates rendering high PPI assets only to high PPI devices such as device pixel ratio (DPI).
Mobile app assets in everyday mobile apps only renders high PPI assets to mobile devices with certain level of DPR with the ability industry-wide convention of using DPR + “x” suffixes such as “image@2x” and “image@3x.com (CSS media queries and srcset mark up on web pages like this allows Websites to have the same functionality).
The latter is what many phones are up to at this point.
Again monitors at ergonomics and recommended distances standardized even with how most VESA desk monitor mounts work necessitates that 27” panels use 5K and 32” use 6K to reach a device pixel ratio of ~2
The MacOS nuance you’re feeding to is about Apple’s OSes being biased towards using integer scaling over fractional scaling that’s still supported nonetheless. Some people just don’t know how to override the scaling settings to use fractional scaling options.
As far as distance: We’re talking about monitors in which well established ergonomics distances a monitor should be are well established by many decades of HCI computer science and UX academia (arm’s length part essentially).
TV use cases in which panels are far away from people to offset their poor PPI upclose is a different matter.
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My windows generally have curtains. If you didn’t have curtains and direct sunlight was shining on your monitor this might be a problem.
At least for me, I would never look for that spec and would not want to pay extra for a manager that gives 1000 nits. If it’s a television so I can watch movies sure but on a monitor that I’m browsing the web, occasionally watching some video or doing a spreadsheet no way. No monitor I have would ever go over 400 nits. My MacBook Air claims to have 500 nits and I keep it at about 50% brightness most of the time. Sometimes I’ll turn it up to 75% if I’m in a bright room.
Obviously, some people want extremely bright monitors. Is that the majority of people? I don’t think so. I could be wrong of course, because I don’t have any data to back us up. I’ve never heard anyone saying oh I love my monitor, but I wish it could be brighter. I’ve heard people saying that about their laptop screen, but not on a desktop. Of course my interactions with people don’t mean something’s true.
I don’t think they should include a stand as the core demographic and enterprise customers absolutely prefer for ergonomic and cost-effectiveness reasons to not include a stand.
A VESA mount is overwhelmingly far more ergonomic, more efficient use of space, more versatile, and so on.
It’s frustrating for many prosumers and enterprise business to buy monitors only to get stands they have no use for AND their money contributed to it being made for no use to them.
It’d be great for more monitor manufacturers to be green and allow people to save a few bucks to not have to pay for stands they will never use or will be in some closet indefinitely
I don’t think they should include a stand as the core demographic and enterprise customers absolutely
…Most average people grossly underestimate brightness for consuming HDR content, various content production tasks, as well as even everyday computing tasks such as reading for the value it brings combined with great contrast and passable to high PPI to see things clearly and with more ease.
It’s being optimally kind to your eyes at the end of the day unless you’re past the prime years of your eyes being healthy and close to requiring reading glasses being so old (inevitably will happen to all of us if we live enough to be that old)…
I recommend reading up on the highest end Mini-LED panels and tandem OLED panel reviews that go into deep detail about the importance of brightness sites like this don’t bother going into detail about being out of scope.
Regardless that is why all of Apple’s flagship prosumer hardware including the Pro Display XDR emphasizes such levels of brightness such as 1000 sustained nits that the like of Dell, LG, and Asus (Pro Art) also aligns with towards being available on their best monitors.
For example my 4K@120hz Asus Pro Art PA32UCG features 1600 peak nits, 1000 sustained nits with Dolby Vision HDR + HLG HDR just like the 6K@60hz Pro Display XDR, Macbook Pro, and iPad Pro.
Monitor manufacturers have several of their best/prosumer monitors with such specs deliberately being ideal brightness levels rather than average/passable brightness.
Apple was vey much waiting for tandem OLED tech to mature and be able to be made at volume to match those brightness specs.
It’s why such tech consistently has debuted with one of their prosumer hardware like the Pro Display XDR first before they bother scaling it up to their other prosumer products that doesn’t reach their budget products people settle with for a long time afterward if at all—I don’t think Apple has even bothered shipping Macbook Airs and iPad Airs with their XDR tech yet.
Something tells me it's going to be a disappointment. I hope Apple proves me wrong.
Kinda crazy that more people aren't excited about this.
The MiniLED displays on the MacBook Pros are AMAZING.
Extremely good contrast, not OLED, but 25,000:1 is still an incredible experience for watching movies in a dark room.
This will no doubt be 5K120HZ, so it will have ProMotion and it will have Retina PPI for productivity.
It will also be much brighter than the Studio Display, which is already quite bright.
The only thing they need to fix besides this is the terrible webcam quality, and ideally upgrade the speakers further (Studio Display was good, but not as good as HomePods).
Also, this monitor almost certainly will offer 5K120HZ over ThunderBolt 4, so I wouldn't worry about needing ThunderBolt 5 to get the full functionality.
You can do 5K120HZ over TB4 with DSC, which Apple already utilizes in the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR.
The MiniLED displays on the MacBook Pros are AMAZING.
Extremely good contrast, not OLED, but 25,000:1 is still an incredible experience for watching movies in a dark room.
This will no doubt be 5K120HZ, so it will have ProMotion and it will have Retina PPI for productivity.
It will also be much brighter than the Studio Display, which is already quite bright.
The only thing they need to fix besides this is the terrible webcam quality, and ideally upgrade the speakers further (Studio Display was good, but not as good as HomePods).
Also, this monitor almost certainly will offer 5K120HZ over ThunderBolt 4, so I wouldn't worry about needing ThunderBolt 5 to get the full functionality.
You can do 5K120HZ over TB4 with DSC, which Apple already utilizes in the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR.
How hard is it to update a monitor every year or two? Why can Dell or Samsung do it so frequently but Apple can’t?
I want an Apple display because it's impossible to find a consumer-level display that isn't made of cheap, creaky plastic, let alone some gaudy gaming nightmare that belongs in a teenager's bedroom.
But 120hz is unlikely, 27" is too small if it's the only option, and no chance of DisplayPort or HDMI. Knowing Apple, they'll probably just decrease bezel size, update the totally unnecessary SoC, choose a compromise refresh rate like 90 or 100hz, claim faster refresh rates are bad for some reason, and then jack up the starting price to $1,999.
But 120hz is unlikely, 27" is too small if it's the only option, and no chance of DisplayPort or HDMI. Knowing Apple, they'll probably just decrease bezel size, update the totally unnecessary SoC, choose a compromise refresh rate like 90 or 100hz, claim faster refresh rates are bad for some reason, and then jack up the starting price to $1,999.
4k at 27" is fine. I used one for years and have it as my secondary monitory right next to my ASD. But side by side I can see the difference, and 4k at 27" is slightly blurry.
While static images may slightly be inferior to Studio Display, many of those 4K 27" compensate with higher frame rates up to 240Hz. When you move things around, UI animations, and particularly gaming seems so much smoother and nicer. Apple's 60Hz lockout may look stuttery in comparison.
I'd like to see 5K ASD with at least 120Hz. Right now we can only choose either pixel density OR refresh rate.
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Are you using your Studio Display outdoors? 😀
I can barely set mine to more than 50% Brightness without smelling the charred flesh of my cornea. I can't imagine what staring at 1600 nits would be like.