As anyone who reads my posts know, I have a LOT of Apple stuff but am definitely no fanboy. I consider things fully as a
consumer FIRST and thus can criticize Apple where I see justification and praise them when I see it that way. To me, it is never just blind brand loyalty no matter what. I prioritize consumer
above brand/company.
When my last iMac conked, I was looking forward to the rumored Mac Mini PRO or MAX. Rumors implied great power at a value price. Of course, that didn't show, so I ended up with a fat Mini at a much greater than anticipated price. I purchased in the hall of echoes of "us" spinning how one reason Apple can switch to Silicon is to break with paying the Intel premium, meaning "new Macs at lower prices"... but we know how that turned out. I feel that Mac Studio is priced too high- especially if you buy more storage/SSD but I needed a Mac replacement, the high-value iMac 27" was deprecated, and was not ready to jump to a full Windows environment.
Somewhat forced into a separates mentality (having to throw out that perfectly good iMac screen only because the Mac guts went bad), I shopped for an ideal monitor for my needs and ended up with a Dell 40" 5K2K ultra-wide. To my good eyes, the screen looks just as good as the prior iMac screen but now there is a lot more of it (width)... much more working space. That's particularly great for my purposes and now I could never go back to an approx 16:10 format like this one or Apple Studio Display.
I much appreciate Dell's built-in KVM approach to ports, as relatively little of the world outside our Apple bubble has fully embraced USB-c or Thunderbolt and having a good mix of standardized ports makes it easy to work with about anything without dongles/hubs/special cables. Just about every type of jack I may need is available to me.
I also GREATLY appreciate more than one video input without a hub or dongles. Since my world is "working Mac", I also need to sometimes run some Windows software. Windows for ARM is not necessarily Windows (for all), so I went with a Mac Mini-like PC for old-fashioned bootcamp (2 computers instead of 1). Since the KVM hub has more than one video input, I can basically share the monitor between both systems without having to swap cables. The monitor can even split screen to have Mac left and PC right or vice versa, both sharing the
same keyboard and mouse.
I didn't have to pay extra for Vesa or stand or swivel or height adjustment. And it all "just works."
Bezel and case are plastic but that has so little to do with use, I'm dazzled how much of a deal some of "us" try to make it. None of my friends or clients have ever complimented my monitor
cases- whether Apple or now this Dell- only the screen quality (the part we look at most). Once Apple people see what macOS can look like on this ultra-wide, they tend to want an ultra-wide themselves.
I look at this new monitor just announced and I see a not-$6K 6K monitor (that comes with fully adjustable stand, not one for $999 more) with a marketing emphasis on superior blacks.
The "cyclops" eye looks like stand alone, bigger cameras (see very high-rated stuff from Logitech and similar) which are often chosen to let more light in for a superior picture. Ever seen a YouTuber setup? They sometimes have a full-sized camcorder or SLR on a tripod peeking over the top of their screen. Why? They want the better quality image it can capture vs. some micro camera lens built into the bezel. "We" are pounding this as ugly vs. Apple's choice and yet Apple choice in Studio rolled out with a blur (since fixed) and that little lens is going to be limited in how much light it can accept vs. a bigger one forever after. We'll see if this is the reason Dell chose the bigger camera in future reviews but it at least seems plausible.
I see "us" ripping bezel size and yet we can passionately rationalize a notch and a chin, both even spun as "iconic." This is delivering a whole rectangle screen, not a rectangle with a bite out of it.
Dell will likely price this substantially below Apple's 32" ProDisplay and probably around the smaller, lower resolution Studio monitor with one choice of adjustable stand.
Now I get this is not an Apple product so the rules say we must hate it... that we must scour the specs to try to find any spec where Apple has a better number and then blow that spec out of proportion as if it is some ultra-important thing... etc. But what I see here is a bigger screen (much wanted in threads around here), with hiDPI resolution (much spun as why most other bigger screens are no good and thus anyone should buy only Apple monitors) and 6K vs. 5K which delivers even more screen RE. Yes, the top "notch" is edge to edge but the 6K is still delivering more much more screen RE than Studio display without requiring the leap to a $5K-$6K monitor plus $1000 stand.
We'll see if Cyclops means superior image capture through a larger lens. That seems very likely to me, else Dell could have put a comparable tiny camera unit in their abundant notch. Better front-facing camera quality is something "we" usually want and this might be one way to get it without:
- putting a full camcorder or SLR on a tripod or
- getting a big lens third party camera to use in place of the little one or
- propping a full iPhone rectangle above the top of a screen for Continuity Camera's better image capture.
Personally, I'll have no buying interest because I couldn't go back from the ultra-wide format. But I'm certainly able to keep a more open mind about competing technologies stepping up in key ways to offer some tangible competition to only two, VERY high-priced offerings from Apple.
Competition is always good for us consumers. We should hope many other players bring their best shots at high-res, highDPI alternatives too. I'll be hoping Dell chooses to bring this darker blacks + big webcam tech to an updated version of the ultra-wide I have. Then, I'm very interested in buying that one.
