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External Monitor recommendation

P

pscl

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 3, 2013
397
61
hi guys

im about to sale my 2011 imac soon... i really love my imac, but my new macbook is just a lot faster now... so im looking for an external monitor that can match the greatness of the 27" imac-display.

i just dont want to spend a lot of money on it, cause im waiting till a new imac model comes out.

so do you guys have any recommendations for me?

would be nice if the design is a little mac-like. i really enjoyed the image quality of my imacs ips display.

greets
 
If I were you I would get the current thunderbolt display. You can get a refurbished one - which is just as good and comes with the same warranty as new - for $799 from Apple. Yeah, it is still expensive, but it looks great and meets your requirement of matching the iMac display.

The 49 watt built in 2.1 speaker system and additional ethernet, usb 2.0, and firewire ports are really useful as well, and it has kept me from having to buy additional peripherals in order to use my various external devices on my rMBP.
 
Adonys said:
I'm on the same boat as you. Im just going to wait until the new TB comes out.
Click to expand...

I've been waiting for a new TB display to be released for a while. I'm shocked they didn't update it with the MacPro... That being said, when/if it comes out, it's gonna be very expensive and it won't be much different other than maybe 4K res. Which not many programs even have that capability yet, it's not main stream for at least another few years, IMO... I'm in a similar boat and I am looking at the refurbished TB display for 799...
 
I would suggest getting a used Apple 30" cinema display. It's dual-DVI, so you will need to get a Thunderbolt adapter, but it's a really nice monitor. Matte too.

The resolution is 2560x1600.
 
If it helps at all, I've just placed an order for a Dell UltraSharp U2713H. I don't expect that it will look as nice as the Apple Thunderbolt display (I'm just switching from 27" iMac to 15" Retina MacBook Pro) but the quality of the display should be excellent for photography work and it has a 4-port USB 3.0 hub built-in, which is more useful to me than either of the Thunderbolt (expensive) or USB 2.0 (slow) ports in Apple's current display. Price wise you can get cheaper (I've just paid Amazon £560 for mine) but it's definitely cheaper than Apple's and other colour-corrected models. I do get the impression from reviews, however, that the build quality can be variable so fingers crossed...
 
There may eventually be a new Thunderbolt display, but the one thing it is NOT going to be is "affordable" -- which seemed to be an important inclusion in the OP's post.

There are a good number of high-quality 27" displays available for considerably less money.

Here's a good place to start looking:
http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ips-lcd-list.php
 
i dont want to spend so much money for an CD cause im saving money for a new imac.

i would love to have a Monitor around 300€ where i can plugin my bose sound system and if i connect my macbook should use those speakers automatically. that would be awesome.

best would be if one could plug in the mouse and the macbook would reconize it too while connected over thunderbold or hdmi...
 
Look at 27" IPS 2560x1440 monitors from Korea, especially the non-brand ones. I use a Monoprice one and it's nearly the same quality as my 2010 iMac, even has a vestigal hole where the iSight was supposed to go. Got it for US$300 on sale. Prices go up if you have to use other connections besides dual DVI.

You'd have to go up in price to get speaker connections, etc., and really how difficult is it to plug in one USB, one speaker plug, and one video connection as opposed to one? Or use the money saved and get a BT mouse (and maybe a BT connection for the speakers as well) then you'd be able to move around more.
 
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