Deals: Apple Studio Display With Nano-Texture Glass Drops to Record-Low $1,499.99 at Amazon ($399 Off)

[trip1ex]

Anyone who thinks this monitor is overpriced simply doesn’t value 5k or the importance of solid, sturdy, reliable display that just “works.” Compare this to the ultrafine in person and you‘ll easily see the $300 difference. The reality is that other monitors have cut corners. This is the true price for this form factor and technology. Everything else is hoping you’ll ignore the flimsy plastic or plop it on a VESA arm.

It's nicer than my $200 Asus monitor but not $1300 nicer.

No proof reliability is any better. My monitor just works too.

But sure to get the 5k at 27" and the speakers and camera and compatibility with the brightness button on a Mac keyboard plus the aluminum frame and the special glass...this is the price.

I do selfishly wish Apple had a "Mac mini" monitor option. You know a more entry level priced gateway drug option.

 

[gadgetfreak98]

Still $500 too expensive. Apple can’t simply charge 50% more than the competition for a commodity product (newsflash: most Apple display panels are made by Samsung!) Every 4K 60fps panel made by Samsung of a given SKU is going to be identical whether Dell or HP or Apple uses it.

I am not willing to pay an extra $500 to $1000 for a stand and/or wheels.

I can get a 77” OLED TV for under $1000 right now. A 27” LCD monitor that costs double that should at least include 6K and 120fps.

Once again monitors cost more than comparable TVs… because DisplayPort? 🤣

Where can you get a 77” OLED for under $1000? That’s an awesome deal and I want in on it (assuming we aren’t talking used or b-stock).

 

[phenste]

Definitely looks better. But I'd imagine if you're back was to a giant window with morning or afternoon sun, it might be a little brutal, so I'm sure anything helps.

this is, quite literally, my brother’s situation every morning (east-facing window behind his setup)—his desktop is a PC (don’t worry, he hates Windows as much as everyone else, he’s just a gamer yadda yadda) and he’s always had a display with a serious anti-reflective coating for this reason.

I think anyone (including him) can agree that a glossy coating will always make for better black levels, contrast ratio, etc.—it just ends up being a necessity for some people.

I do wonder if they’ll ever bring back the anti-reflective coating on a MacBook. I sometimes find myself missing it (and there was something really nice-looking about the silver bezels in their last iteration, imo), but they seem to have gone the way of nano-texture which is far too delicate for a portable device that’s constantly being opened and closed.

 

[svish]

Good discount on Studio display. But still very costly.

 

[badgerbadgerx2]

Still $500 too expensive. Apple can’t simply charge 50% more than the competition for a commodity product (newsflash: most Apple display panels are made by Samsung!) Every 4K 60fps panel made by Samsung of a given SKU is going to be identical whether Dell or HP or Apple uses it.

Once again monitors cost more than comparable TVs… because DisplayPort? 🤣

Id give you that. A grand would have been OK. Any high end 4K screen is close to that.

Displayport? I dont know what that has to do with this, no dusplay ports anywhere here.

The problem is the 5K vs 4K scaling discussion all over again (mentioned above). My 2020 5K iMac screen looks better than the 27"4K Dell thats next to it, at least clarity wise.

All of us pro-sumers are waiting for the Samsung and Dell 5K or Dell 6K. Although I doubt they will be much less than ADS. $1000 easy for the 5K, $2K for 6K. Dell already has several "pro" 4K monitors @ $1K.

 

[MoXoM]

Just bring out a Studio Display without the fancy speakers and webcam!

Yeah I know that is never going to happen…

C’mon Samsung - pull your finger out and release your new 5K display!!

 

[JonathanX64]

Anyone who thinks this monitor is overpriced simply doesn’t value 5k or the importance of solid, sturdy, reliable display that just “works.” Compare this to the ultrafine in person and you‘ll easily see the $300 difference. The reality is that other monitors have cut corners. This is the true price for this form factor and technology. Everything else is hoping you’ll ignore the flimsy plastic or plop it on a VESA arm.

60 Hz refresh rate, lack of adaptive sync technology, lack of HDMI for connecting gaming consoles and such, IPS technology, 8-bit color, no local dimming... if anything, Apple Studio Display is the example of cut corners. It's not only overpriced, it's simply a bad product.



Oh, and 220 ppi / 5K resolution is dumb. Since Apple's barely working 'Retina' scaling does not really support anything besides 200% scale, this becomes too much — unless you have perfect 20/20 eyesight, or unless you keep this 27" display very close to your eyes, like a laptop.

 

[dwaite]

I agree a monitor is a commodity. However, given there are no other native 5K displays Apple is able to charge exhorbitant prices.

Let's see what Samsung charges for their Viewfinity S9.

There's the LG Ultrafine 5k which is still $1300. There were also other screens back in the day by Dell etc which were comparatively worse than the LG Ultrafine 5k in terms of features (e.g. lack of thunderbolt, camera, laptop charging) but in return were more expensive.

Everyone is assuming Samsung is going to launch their monitor sub $1k, presumably because of how cheap the Galaxy S23 Ultra is compared to the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

If you want a cheap screen, it will most likely be 1080p or 1440p, come with some laughably bad color/brightness specs like HDR-400, and statistically will have customizable RGB backlighting.

Apple simply isn't going to sell into that market bracket, which means they will never have the efficiencies of scale that they do for something like an iPhone. Instead, they sell monitors for workstation class machines (e.g. the Mac Studio and MacBook Pro), including a model meant to compete with reference displays well above $10k.

If that market doesn't want Apple's monitors, Apple will get out of the monitor business again. Things like the Mac Studio, Mac Pro and their displays don't move the needle on quarterly profits. They exist because Apple thinks those particular products _should_ exist.

 

[umbilical]

I'll pay $1500 if have: the same screen quality of the macbookpro 14/16 and height stand.

 

[DEXTERITY]

I wouldn't buy anything expensive like an Apple product through Amazon.

Why? Apple gives you a lousy 14 day return policy and Amazon is 30-90 days

 

[Ad47uk]

I wouldn't buy anything expensive like an Apple product through Amazon.

Why? Amazon has a good return policy, well in the U.K. they have, but that could be due to our laws. I must admit I think the most expensive thing I have got from Amazon is around £300.

 

[Ad47uk]

Far more i would pay for a Monitor unless I needed the higher quality for business. I have a 4K 32inch Acer BM320, on the Mac mini, for what i need it does the job well, a few years old now as I use it for the PC
as well. I think the tops i would pay for a monitor is around £500 and that would be twisting my arm. this Acer cost me £350.

 

[Damian83]

I wouldn't buy anything expensive like an Apple product through Amazon.

Why? 3 years ago i bought a base 27” imac for 1600€ when it was 1900€. Do u prefer spend 1900 at apple store? I also bought ton of many other products in 1000-2000 range because amazon has actually best deals on such stuff. It sucks instead on cheap stuff: aliexpress forever!

 

[Damian83]

I can get a 77” OLED TV for under $1000 right now.

Show me this tv please

 

[threesixty360]

I know it's overpriced because the ASD is not much different from the 8-bit-panel display Apple featured on the late 2020 5k iMac, and that was just $200 more ($1800) for an entire computer. And the 5k iMac was a quality product. I own the 2019 version.

Don't get me wrong—the ASD is a great display. But so is the one on the iMac. The problem is that they're charging prosumer prices for what is essentially a very nice consumer-level display. If they wanted to charge prosumer prices they should have ditched the bells and whistles (the fancy camera and speakers) and made it a prosumer-level display, with a 10-bit panel and local dimming (like the XDR).

I think it’s overpriced for me. However given the lack of 5k displays and how any that exist from other OEM’s are similar prices without the same build quality, I’m sort of getting what’s happened here.

The problem was the 5k iMac was a great deal. But I think it was a good deal because the computer part was sort of sold at a subsidy and not the monitor part. If you look at the mac mini pricing you can see that apple have been able to make viable computers at small sizes quite cheaply.

Couple that with marginal cost decreasing far more when selling computers than selling monitors and I think apple have decided to protect their margin on the studio display. Mainly because they know they won’t make another model for years and so the slower sales pace means higher margins to make it make sense.

Also there is a unique thing that these 5k monitors do which I’m only just realising (I’ve had an iMac 5k 2017 for a while). You can’t display a 4k image and have readable retina text on a 4k monitor. You seem to only be able to do that on 5k.

For example, on davinci resolve I can have retina readable text but the actual video I’m playing can be actual 4k in resolution. It’s like 4k monitors on the mac can only show you very small text or scaled text but with
Images / video at half the res.

I’m not sure I can go back to an inferior display for mac. So apples probably going to get my money :-(

 

[rpmurray]

(newsflash: most Apple display panels are made by Samsung!)

Correction, most Apple panels are made by LG.

 

[MattA]

When they announced the ASD, I was sitting there saying to my wife 'they'll probably charge $999 for it, which is a bit too much for a monitor like this.' When the price came at $1599, I burst out laughing. I'm sorry, but that's absolutely way too much money for a monitor like this. It's basically a computerless iMac that costs the same as the iMac. I've said again and again, if they do a realistic price drop down to <$1000, I'll probably pick one up, but more than that? They can keep them.

 

[gadgetfreak98]

I have two LG Ultrafine 5Ks (in different setups). In both setups I also have a decent LG 4K (the 850UK I believe?) as the companion monitor. The 5K is vastly more enjoyable to look at from a sharpness and brightness perspective.

I tried out an ASD, hoping to put it side-by-side with one of the 5Ks to have the 2x5K lifestyle going. Unfortunately, it was with my M1 Mac Mini and couldn’t run two Thunderbolt displays side by side. So I temporarily swapped the ASD in for the LG 5K. While the construction of the ASD was definitely superior, I found that day-to-day I wasn’t noticing a truly superior result. Both monitors were VESA mounted so the display ergonomics did not come into play. I also use a separate web cam, so that didn’t factor (and might have been a demerit for the ASD if I did). So I returned the ASD as I couldn’t justify the $1600 — in my case.

If I were buying from scratch, I’d probably do the ASD for the aesthetic appeal. But functionally — e.g., from looking at the screen — I just didn’t see a real difference. However, both 5K variants truly are much more enjoyable to look at than my 4K alternative, so I do feel wedded to the 5K lifestyle at this point!

 

[alexandr]

I'm with you on this. I love the glossy display because it still have an anti-reflective coating on the glass.
I have a dual ASD setup, right in front of a window, but I have never experienced any harsh glare.

I feel like the regular glass is sharper.

The regular glass is noticeable sharper. BTW is your window in front of you or behind you?..

 

[patent10021]

Still overpriced.

Is this the first signal of a refresh at WWDC? At the current price, 6K 120Hz makes more sense.

Yes, still overpriced and no anti-flicker tech.

 

[satchmo]

There's the LG Ultrafine 5k which is still $1300. There were also other screens back in the day by Dell etc which were comparatively worse than the LG Ultrafine 5k in terms of features (e.g. lack of thunderbolt, camera, laptop charging) but in return were more expensive.

Everyone is assuming Samsung is going to launch their monitor sub $1k, presumably because of how cheap the Galaxy S23 Ultra is compared to the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

If you want a cheap screen, it will most likely be 1080p or 1440p, come with some laughably bad color/brightness specs like HDR-400, and statistically will have customizable RGB backlighting.

Apple simply isn't going to sell into that market bracket, which means they will never have the efficiencies of scale that they do for something like an iPhone. Instead, they sell monitors for workstation class machines (e.g. the Mac Studio and MacBook Pro), including a model meant to compete with reference displays well above $10k.

If that market doesn't want Apple's monitors, Apple will get out of the monitor business again. Things like the Mac Studio, Mac Pro and their displays don't move the needle on quarterly profits. They exist because Apple thinks those particular products _should_ exist.

Sure, that's one other 5K display. My point is the options are limited.

While Samsung is a supplier of displays and will likely charge less than Apple, I don't think many are assuming anything near sub 1K.

When Apple charges $1600 USD, there is still a lot of margin to play with. Even if it's priced at $1300, the S9 makes a compelling offer for many especially if that all includes a built-in height adjustable and rotating stand, (an extra $400 for the Studio Display). Anti-glare is also included free. And the price comparison is even greater for video editors who may buy 2 or more displays.

I agree Apple won't ever play in the lower end market. But given what Samsung does, it could take a significant bite out of Apple's Studio Display sales.

 

[kingtj1971]

Still $500 too expensive. Apple can’t simply charge 50% more than the competition for a commodity product (newsflash: most Apple display panels are made by Samsung!) Every 4K 60fps panel made by Samsung of a given SKU is going to be identical whether Dell or HP or Apple uses it.

I am not willing to pay an extra $500 to $1000 for a stand and/or wheels.

I can get a 77” OLED TV for under $1000 right now. A 27” LCD monitor that costs double that should at least include 6K and 120fps.

Once again monitors cost more than comparable TVs… because DisplayPort? 🤣

Well, the only reason the TVs are priced as low as they are is the fact they're all getting subsidized by the integrated "Smart TV" features that are thankfully omitted from computer monitors.

 

[NY Guitarist]

I still can't get over Apple charging the same price whether the display comes with the stand or a (fugly) simple VESA mount.

Also, isn't the 5K really just a higher pixel count 2560?

 

[groove-agent]

Why? 3 years ago i bought a base 27” imac for 1600€ when it was 1900€. Do u prefer spend 1900 at apple store? I also bought ton of many other products in 1000-2000 range because amazon has actually best deals on such stuff. It sucks instead on cheap stuff: aliexpress forever!

Amazon is not technically a retailer but a portal for people to sell things on. As a result, I've run into a few cases where companies would not support/ warranty their product because it was purchased there. In one case I bought a book (Amazon was originally a book company) and the publisher wouldn't honour a deal on an eBook because I bought the book from Amazon. I've seen refurbished products and Chinese knock offs being sold as new, people selling products 2-3x the normal price hoping others don't know any better. Returns are a pain in the ass and you have to pay for shipping to return it. Amazon is good for cheap stuff where you can afford to lose the money if the product sucks. It's basically one step up from buying on eBay (been ripped off too many times on eBay). I would never buy from Ali Express.

To each their own. Some people value the lowest price as paramount, other prefer to pay extra and get good service, support, and peace of mind.

 

[dwaite]

I agree Apple won't ever play in the lower end market. But given what Samsung does, it could take a significant bite out of Apple's Studio Display sales.

There's also the non-Mac market. Thunderbolt/USB4 are still a bit of a disaster over on that side of the fence, especially once you start adding AMD boards and desktop-class GPU into the mix.