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andrewj

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Sep 4, 2008
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Thoughts about how the Apple Studio Display will differ compared to the LG 5K? Will content appear more or less the same, except the build of the display and the stand as well as the ports?
 
We'll have to wait for the reviews. It is super-attractive in that it has videocamera, speakers, studio microphones but the price removes it from consideration for me. I can just buy a used iMac if I want a great display, speakers, microphones, etc. for a small fraction of that price. This was basically the Studio launch and I have a hard time seeing who is going to buy this stuff outside of true video/audio/image professionals.
 
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Thoughts about how the Apple Studio Display will differ compared to the LG 5K? Will content appear more or less the same, except the build of the display and the stand as well as the ports?
I can see the Apple monitor being far more uniform, far less glossy, and generally work better in tandem with Macs. The various Ultrafine were beset with teething problems of various kinds that prevented them from working well. I have a reasonably good LG Ultrafine 21, and had to work for an expensive repair when the Thunderbolt cable coming off in the wrong angle knocked the entire logic board out of order. In short, you pay more, you get more with Apple, as usual.
 
That brings up the question, ARE there any other 27" 5K monitors other than the LG Ultrafine and this Studio Display? It feels like nobody else is interested in filling that space, which is probably why they can charge so much.

Everything else on the market seems to be lower DPI.
 
This seems like a slimmer 5K LG Ultrafine with an A13, and I thought it was confirmed a while back the LG was going to be suppling the panels for the next Apple display. In other words, this seems like it is finally the replacement for the Mac specific 5K LG Ultrafine. Anyone agree or disagree with that thinking?
 
The LG has good speakers and a 1080p webcam. It’s no slouch in that area. The Studio is a very small upgrade, but still nice regardless. The screens are identical, so it’s not an upgrade picture wise. Obviously I would recommend the Studio, but current LG owners should probably wait until the inevitable promotion model.
 
I was hoping for it to support HDR in some kind of way since it's 600 nits and a lot of dimmer displays out there do support HDR at some level now. Guess the monitor panels still have some way to go before matching TVs
 
so the price gap between LG 5k and this new studio display is 200$ for me as I can get educational discount.
100 nits additional brightness and having better speaker would worth that price bump?
I don't care that much about how they look as I actually like the black simple design of LG one ?

One other thing is, I am using UltraFine 5K along with MBP 16inch 2021, and the brightness is quite matching and having extra brightness would make my MBP looking dimmer. So it is likely that I may not welcome that 100 nits in that sense, though I love brighter monitors in general.

I don't know what to do. I have to device before my return window for this Ultrafine is over. lol
 
I can see the Apple monitor being far more uniform, far less glossy, and generally work better in tandem with Macs. The various Ultrafine were beset with teething problems of various kinds that prevented them from working well. I have a reasonably good LG Ultrafine 21, and had to work for an expensive repair when the Thunderbolt cable coming off in the wrong angle knocked the entire logic board out of order. In short, you pay more, you get more with Apple, as usual.
I have the same Ultrafine 21 and I snapped off that USB-C port by pressing on the cable. LG fixed it under warranty but then I screwed up the port again while adjusting the monitor on an VESA arm and pulling on the cable. The cable bent the USB-C jack. Was wondering how much it would cost to fix. what did yours cost?

LG makes flimsy ports
 
so the price gap between LG 5k and this new studio display is 200$ for me as I can get educational discount.
100 nits additional brightness and having better speaker would worth that price bump?
I don't care that much about how they look as I actually like the black simple design of LG one ?

One other thing is, I am using UltraFine 5K along with MBP 16inch 2021, and the brightness is quite matching and having extra brightness would make my MBP looking dimmer. So it is likely that I may not welcome that 100 nits in that sense, though I love brighter monitors in general.

I don't know what to do. I have to device before my return window for this Ultrafine is over. lol
get the Apple. The Lg Ultrafine monitors have crappy sensitive ports in the back. I broke mine twice my yanking on the USB cable. if you bump the monitor against the wall wiht cable plugged in, it may break off the whole port.

LG looks ugly.

I also have the new 16 inch and love it but I cant really tell the difference between the display of this and the 2019 MBP I had. I hate watching movies at 120 hz on TVs since all movies look cinematic at 60 hz. So I dont know what all the craze for promotion is about. I dont see any promotion on my MacBook.

I love sharp letters and 219 ppi is good enough where I cant tell the difference. My iPad mini has more than 300 ppi and I cant really tell the difference between these devices.

I really want at least 200 ppi and there are no options other than the ugly LG monitors. The apple display can be kept for a decade and looks good. I guess having nice speakers is ok too. HDR? I don't find myself watching any HDR content. Where can I watch this? Netflix?

I dont think I care much for mini LED displays. I use the 16 inch in dark mode and the white letters are too bright for my taste. They seem to bother me more than the previous MacBook did.

So yea the display costs more but who cares? Youll use it for more than a decade and it will probably stay solid. Also The apple care is $150 for 3 years and a $99 repair if you burn pixels or crack the screen. Who else is going to give you solid service if something goes wring with your display? I rather spend the money and be happy long term than to try and save $300. I ranter not eat out for 3 months and save the $300 that way.
 
get the Apple. The Lg Ultrafine monitors have crappy sensitive ports in the back. I broke mine twice my yanking on the USB cable. if you bump the monitor against the wall wiht cable plugged in, it may break off the whole port.

LG looks ugly.

I also have the new 16 inch and love it but I cant really tell the difference between the display of this and the 2019 MBP I had. I hate watching movies at 120 hz on TVs since all movies look cinematic at 60 hz. So I dont know what all the craze for promotion is about. I dont see any promotion on my MacBook.

I love sharp letters and 219 ppi is good enough where I cant tell the difference. My iPad mini has more than 300 ppi and I cant really tell the difference between these devices.

I really want at least 200 ppi and there are no options other than the ugly LG monitors. The apple display can be kept for a decade and looks good. I guess having nice speakers is ok too. HDR? I don't find myself watching any HDR content. Where can I watch this? Netflix?

I dont think I care much for mini LED displays. I use the 16 inch in dark mode and the white letters are too bright for my taste. They seem to bother me more than the previous MacBook did.

So yea the display costs more but who cares? Youll use it for more than a decade and it will probably stay solid. Also The apple care is $150 for 3 years and a $99 repair if you burn pixels or crack the screen. Who else is going to give you solid service if something goes wring with your display? I rather spend the money and be happy long term than to try and save $300. I ranter not eat out for 3 months and save the $300 that way.
Thanks. I was thinking the same way. Just thinking about packing the UltraFine back to its box and bringing it to the amazon pickup store made me sick and I was convincing myself that I don't need better monitor. haha
but it's pretty true that 200$ is not that huge bump given Ultrafine is already 1300.
 
Thanks. I was thinking the same way. Just thinking about packing the UltraFine back to its box and bringing it to the amazon pickup store made me sick and I was convincing myself that I don't need better monitor. haha
but it's pretty true that 200$ is not that huge bump given Ultrafine is already 1300.
I just ordered the apple display also with AppleCare because ill be shipping this monitor in 3 months and then im moving in 4 months. Ive broken a few expensive monitors already as dumb as that sounds. Ive been waiting for this monitor since I sold my thunderbolt apple display in 2012.
 
That brings up the question, ARE there any other 27" 5K monitors other than the LG Ultrafine and this Studio Display? It feels like nobody else is interested in filling that space, which is probably why they can charge so much.

Everything else on the market seems to be lower DPI.
This is because in the Windows ecosystem, which heavily relies on 3rd party monitors, the Windows implementation of HiDPI is horrible and as such, there has been no pressure or reason to support HiDPI monitors from OEMs such as LG, Asus, Acer, etc.
 
Will the studio display work with a Lenovo Thinkpad? I would like a monitor that I can use with my work laptop and a Mac Mini or MacBook Air.

I messaged Apple Support and they advised it would work with a PC, but I didn’t see anything in the tech specs.
 
We know the display is from LG, so it’s safe to assume it is very similar or maybe even the same as the LG 5K UltraFine. I am disappointed, as with everything these days from Apple its overpriced, more so than it would have been in the past ?
 
My guess is LG sold the IP for the Ultrafine 5K to Apple (maybe with one or two key engineers) for a nice sum of money. I think the Apple Studio monitor is worth the extra $300, even if it's just for the machined aluminum case that will break a cable before it breaks a port. The other bits are awesome tasting gravy...

What I care about right now is whether Apple paid attention to whether bluetooth devices follow the monitor when the cable is moved between Macs. I have two MBPs on MacAlly stands and the LG 5K in the middle. When I am working on one or the other, I swap the cables (one is just a dumb power cable, the other is to the monitor).

The problem right now is the Magic Mouse II, it tends to get confused on the Bluetooth. By adding a bluetooth dongle to the wired keyboard, I was able to make it work seamlessly on Big Sur, but Monterey changed something (probably for good reason) that now I have to restart `bluetoothd` and/or delete and re-add the mouse on the target machine.

Ideally, the bluetooth devices would pair with the monitor and be presented over USB-C to the machine that the monitor is plugged in to. Then the cable swap would work seamlessly. If this works, Apple can have my money. I'm tempted to go buy one of these to test it out.

EDIT: The other thing I want is that super-sexy dual-VESA chrome mount arm that is in the event video. It makes me ill to think about the credit card hit to buy two of these plus the arm, but...
 

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Will the studio display work with a Lenovo Thinkpad? I would like a monitor that I can use with my work laptop and a Mac Mini or MacBook Air.

I messaged Apple Support and they advised it would work with a PC, but I didn’t see anything in the tech specs.
Since the monitor uses Thunderbolt 3 to connect to the Mac, if the Lenovo or PC in question has a Thunderbolt 3 port, it should work, at least minimally. You may not be able to control the brightness, adjust the speaker volume, or hell, maybe not even be able to use the webcam when it is connected to a PC. You may only get the minimum amount of functionality, which is using the monitor as a display, and that is it. We shall see, in due time.
 
I have the same Ultrafine 21 and I snapped off that USB-C port by pressing on the cable. LG fixed it under warranty but then I screwed up the port again while adjusting the monitor on an VESA arm and pulling on the cable. The cable bent the USB-C jack. Was wondering how much it would cost to fix. what did yours cost?

LG makes flimsy ports
Good that you fixed it under warranty. My USB-C port probably gave up the ghost as I was raising my sit-stand setup and the cable being too taut and yanked off. It was out of warranty, so I had to do a relatively long-winded process with LG UK and pay some 150 GBP. It did come back in good shape at the end.
The image quality is very good, and the 21 4K does not suffer from the image retention and other issues which the 5K did. But the whole experience put me off buying a 5K, even though I had the chance to get a brand new, properly warranted unit a few weeks ago. Would certainly not buy a second hand one.
Even if the panel is the same, the Apple one is going to be different. I can see the lighting being more uniform, 600 nits vs 500 of the 5K clearly indicates a different design, and the body of course is much better. If on the market for a 27" 5K I would veer straight to the Studio Display. I can understand the collective disappointment over lack of ProMotion/120Hz, but let's face it, even the Mac Studio top end model with M1 Ultra released yesterday does not output beyond 60Hz, and nothing else except maybe a Mac Pro with a specific graphics cards goes beyond that. So I can't see a Studio Display 2 emerging anytime soon with ProMotion capabilities.

With regards to Mini-LED: I have tried both the MBP 14 and 16 side by side with the LG Ultrafine 21, and for my intended use (word processing, the blacks of the fonts), I am not sure I preferred Mini-LED. I could see the difference, you do notice that its something other than traditional LED designs, but it wasn't necessarily better. Maybe for photo-video work its different, but I have no complaints about the deep blacks I can get out of the Ultrafine 21 and its font rendering, which is why I stuck doggedly to it and avoided other lesser quality screens before the Studio Display showed up. The thought of getting better performance on 27", but the same foundations is very alluring!
 
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Since the monitor uses Thunderbolt 3 to connect to the Mac, if the Lenovo or PC in question has a Thunderbolt 3 port, it should work, at least minimally. You may not be able to control the brightness, adjust the speaker volume, or hell, maybe not even be able to use the webcam when it is connected to a PC. You may only get the minimum amount of functionality, which is using the monitor as a display, and that is it. We shall see, in due time.
I use my LG 5K with Lenovos. It works well with Windoze including all devices (they show as USB). Linux is kind of hit-or-miss. One machine had a Big Company distro on it and the monitor would flip out for ten seconds under high USB load. The other has generic Ubuntu 21.04 LTS and all devices work great, no problems.
 
Would certainly not buy a second hand one.
I’d differ here. The 5Ks have very simple internal layout and it’s just parts swapping to fix one. I started out with a great used one from eBay for $550 but dropped it from 1.5m, cracking the screen. Totally my fault and I couldn’t buy another. So I just kept buying more of them in various conditions to swap parts and resell until I ran out of parts.

No judgement if that’s not your cup of tea, but it’s not as hard as it might seem.
 
Planning to keep my Ultrafine 5k to run on my desktop PC. Snagging one of the Studio Displays to run with my MBP. Somewhat disappointed by the lack of mini-led but excited for the other upgrades and improved enclosure.
 
I’d differ here. The 5Ks have very simple internal layout and it’s just parts swapping to fix one. I started out with a great used one from eBay for $550 but dropped it from 1.5m, cracking the screen. Totally my fault and I couldn’t buy another. So I just kept buying more of them in various conditions to swap parts and resell until I ran out of parts.

No judgement if that’s not your cup of tea, but it’s not as hard as it might seem.
Sure, that seems like a good deal and approach. Unfortunately we have long had distribution issues in the UK. Apple pulled the Ultrafines from its online stores ages ago, leading two very niche retailers with long waiting lists and top prices (I paid less than 200 GBP more for the Studio Display vs. the Ultrafine 5K). You could rarely get a used Ultrafine on Ebay for less than 750-800 GBP and often times higher because of their relative rarity. I kept seeing good deals in the US for the Ultrafines though.
 
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