What LG did you look at? I saw the 4K 24" LG in an Apple store and was disappointed, but the 5K 27" LG (which I've not seen) is supposed to use the same panel as that in the 27" 5K iMac. I don't know if it actually looks as good as the iMac (there's more to the display quality than the panel), but reports on it have been positive.
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Hands-On With Apple's $4999 Pro Display XDR and $999 Stand
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I haven’t seen the 5k in person as my apple store doesn’t have it on display. But it also doesn’t look that great; the bezels are quite thick too.
Ah, I think I may have misunderstood you. I now realize that when you wrote "the LG to me looks horrible", you weren't talking about the image quality, you were talking about the cosmetics, right? [When I responded to you, about the 24" 4K LG, I was talking about the image quality.]
Apple could have launched a new model of thunderbolt display in 2017 and it's pathetic that it thinks the LG is a good substitute which looks horrible.
Yes... I’m not needing something on the aesthetics level of the XDR... but the LG is a joke for 2019, let alone 2020.
You misunderstand my post. I said “even if Apple made the perfect 27” monitor, what makes you think they could sell enough units to make a viable product?” So I don’t think it would be a viable product. Neither does Apple.
1) Why do you think they partnered with LG on a new 27” Thunderbolt monitor in 2016 instead of making a new model themselves?
2) Why on earth would you expect them to come to market with a $1,000 producthich would undercut their partner LG’s product that sells for $1,300 in the Apple store as we speak?
Apparently you don’t understand business the business aspects of this situation. Unless you can effectively address points 1) and 2) above, I won’t waste any more time replying to you.
I get it, you want what you want for the price you want to pay, regardless of whether there’s a viable market for it. Good luck with that.
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1) Of course it’s my opinion, I’m the one who is posting.
2) Ironic would have been if Apple had set the default to TrueTone = off, should a reference standard not be selected. TrueTone = on provides better color rendition for those not intending to use the monitor as a reference standard.
3) You make a provocative post, and are surprised when some are “triggered”. Makes sense to me.
4) I already said if you don’t want to call it a complaint that’s fine, no need to keep trying to convince me lol. But as I said you did take issue with it: “True Tone should be an optional choice, not the default mode imo.” In any case, it is optional.
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The question you are looking for is completely unrelated to whether or not the product is viable. It doesn't even make sense and why do you want to cast doubt on a product which clearly has good demand on the market. Apple wouldn't make a 32-inch model if it was to base on your assumption and all you been saying aren't entirely true and baseless claims.
I would look at LG's other offerings. Go to their website and you'll see better looking, nearly bezel-less consumer offerings. The 27" 4k versions that they make "for everyone one else" are rather good. They used to make a 5k version that wasn't the black ugly one but I can't seem to find it anymore, but i've seen the ugly 5k and the 4k models in person and you aren't missing much with the 4k.
Also, don't sleep on HP and Dell. If you have the coin for the ultrasharps and HPZ and Dreamcolor models go for them. I don't think the USB-C on either can power a Macbook Pro, but you do get high specs for a mid-range/reasonable price.
I agree too. I think Apple will charge us for the R&D necessary to "rebuild" an iMac in a tower config or to trim down the Mac Pro.
And coming from the $1799-$1999 Mac tower days, I'd be willing to drop $2500 for a trimmed down Mac Pro.
The only issue I see is what type of expansion is Apple going to give us? Right now the only GPU worth getting for the Mac Pro costs ~$2100. Everything else is basic. If we can put over the counter parts into it that'd be nice, but the entire Mac Pro PCI architecture is built around the idea that USB-C/T-Bolt should drive data and visual I/O. Back before the trashcan we were all wondering how Apple would put that philosophy into a tower.
Were they going to integrate the GPU and motherboard? (trashcan/MacMini/Macbook Pro/iMac)
Or were they going to make an entirely new PCI architecture? (nMacPro)
We knew they'd either kill expansion or kill the ability to give us off the shelf products. I haven't looked too deep into what the new Mac Pro is doing with T-Bolt/USB-C I/O, GPU, etc, but those cards are expensive and very proprietary.
Very true, even with Dell they offer a smaller Precision line (the 5820) that's still almost as expandable as the Mac Pro. But the Optiplex models (and equivalent for HP and boxx) are toasters. They never get upgraded and once end of life'd they get recycled.
We've been looking to Apple to make a "throwaway" system for some time, or at the very least, the $2500, expandable system. And by some time I mean at least 15 years for myself, ever since the PowerMac G5 went into the $2000+ price range.
I'm curious if the the titan ridge macbook pro 13 (2018 and 2019) can support full 6k resolution? The iris igpu might be limited to a lower resolution though even if the thunderbolt ports have enough bandwidth.
No, the 13” MBP does not support the full 6K resolution via the internal graphics. The BlackMagic eGPU is compatible though and will provide 6K.
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I get it that this is a pro monitor and if you compare it to other professional monitors the price is very fair. This pro monitor will be used by professional video editors and photographers or other jobs where high resolution and dynamic range is key to their work flow. I would think more companies with larger budget will be buying this but I do see individuals buying this monitor too. I agree with others that Apple looked very stupid to charge $1000.00 for a metal stand with a magnet. The marketing department made in my opinion a very big mistake doing that. That was a bad marketing move and it made them look silly across the globe. They should had just included the stand with one price for both monitor and stand. For me the stand sits too high. I have a professional NEC monitor and it goes down to my bottom level of my desk or it can go higher. My NEC color balanced Photoshop monitor came with a stand. I like my monitor to be exactly at eye level and my monitor sits at 1.5" above my desk level. Meaning my eyes at my normal sitting position hit the center of the screen with out me moving my neck up or down. I am surprised Apple did not allow their new monitor to be lowered. Common sense would had said to do that with their product development team. Did they not do any beta testing dealing with monitor height positions. My Samsung TV monitor in my living room is exactly at eye level when I am sitting on my couch. One thing that gets me is Apple still has a shinny screen but they have a matte screen option at $1000.00 more. How nice of Apple to charge more for non shinny screen. I prefer a matte screen and I have been very happy with my NEC monitor. The color balance is extremely accurate with wonderful shadow detail. What I see on my screen is the same color printed on my pro Epson printer. So my NEC is still good for me. If I was a video editor I would need a different monitor. Apple does make great products and I have been an Apple customer since 1990 but at times Apple does lack some common sense.
You asked: “I rarely care about Apple and their price point, I'd just like some justification on the pricing of the stand.”
I answered your question: “Apple could simply have included the stand and charged $6K for the monitor, and no one would have batted an eye. But most of the customers in the target market don’t need the stand, so that would be a waste. The few that buy it are going to cover all the costs of design, manufacturing tooling and other one-time costs. There’s no economies of scale when there's no scale.”
Thank you for acknowledging the time and effort I spent to educate you. It’s certainly nice of you to say. But my answer was rather incomplete. So in the interest of furthering your education, I’ll expand. No need to thank me again though, just knowing you’re so appreciative is all the thanks I need!
Apple is a huge company, and they have huge costs: 500+ retail stores, 140,000+ employees and billions of dollars per month—including $1.5 billion per month of R&D alone—in expenses. Those costs have to be amortized across the various products Apple sells.
Those costs aren’t so burdensome when the product sells tens or hundreds of millions per year. But if it sells in the thousands, it’s going to hurt, since that’s 10,000 to 100,000 times fewer. So not only are there few units to spread one-time design and manufacturing costs across, the same applies ongoingly, month in and month out, to overhead costs. It costs money to carry a product—throughout the entire length of its lifecycle.
This low-volume product may very well cost Apple $700 or more, fully burdened. (And don’t forget to include $200 for profit.)
PS Prior to answering, I believe I summarized your post quite succinctly: “Well run companies charge what the market will bear.” To the extent their all-in costs are less than $800, there’s certainly an element of that “because they can” premium you mentioned.
But ultimately, as I said before (but it bears repeating): The customers who buy it are willing to pay for it, so why should it matter to others (non-buyers)?
I don't necessarily disagree with the rest of your post, but this bit here is a meaningless tautology. People who bought a product are willing to buy a product. It's still relevant to non-buyers if they would have been buyers at a different price point.
Except in this context, the final price would have been the same. If a customer is willing to pay for a monitor (stand and all) at $6000, but feels that it is ridiculous to pay $5k for the display and $1k for the stand (when they all work out to the same price), I will say that speaks more about the customer than it does about Apple's pricing policies.
Ultimately, Apple, like any other company out there, is a profit-maximising company. Their products are likely priced in order to maximise (profit x quantities sold). Perhaps you might have bought a certain product had it been a little cheaper, and Apple's pricing strategies don't always pan out in real life, but I will say that there is a method to all this (apparent) madness.
Fair enough, I didn’t really express my thoughts very well at all. I’ll try again!
The customers who want it are willing to pay for it, so why should it matter to those who probably don’t even own the monitor?
However, that someone who wouldn’t pay $5,000 for the monitor (or even would, really) thinks a $1,000 stand is overpriced isn’t really relevant.
For instance, I think Rolex watch bands are overpriced, but who cares? Does that matter at all? People want it, they buy it. Yeah, not me... but so what? The fact that Rolex has enough customers willing to pay what they’re asking is really all the justification their pricing needs, from a business standpoint 🤷♂️
It also proves I’m wrong that they’re overpriced 🤣
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Your post got me thinking, in general. The monitor and stand are expensive. However if one has a need for them (or money to burn) One can buy high quality gear that fulfills a requirement in high quality color reproduction.Fair enough, I didn’t really express my thoughts very well at all. I’ll try again!
The customers who want it are willing to pay for it, so why should it matter to those who probably don’t even own the monitor?
However, that someone who wouldn’t pay $5,000 for the monitor (or even would, really) thinks a $1,000 stand is overpriced isn’t really relevant.
For instance, I think Rolex watch bands are overpriced, but who cares? Does that matter at all? People want it, they buy it. Yeah, not me... but so what? The fact that Rolex has enough customers willing to pay what they’re asking is really all the justification their pricing needs, from a business standpoint 🤷♂️
It also proves I’m wrong that they’re overpriced 🤣
Overpriced is “not worth the price”, more of a subjective call vs expensive which is simply having a high price.
Not to turn this into an English lesson, but I think your point is the monitor and stand costs money and those who have a need and do t need a $30k monitor can buy this quality equipment.
Then there are those who don’t understand what the $6k buys and might view this as overpriced. However the bottom line is the cost is the cost.
This is not overpriced. This is a perfect product for the small minority of professionals who need something like this. It's not even necessarily expensive, given that compared to other reference-quality monitors on the market it's actually quite a bit cheaper than most of them and often performs better.
That said, I'd really like them to also make a lower-end, 1440p or 4k display for ordinary users. I don't need a reference-quality display, but honestly, just a 27" display of the same quality as the ones in their MacBook Pro lineups would be perfect for me, particularly if it had an integrated USB-C port so I could have a one-cable setup. My 1080p is looking kind of old now that I'm used to this beautiful MBP display and I'd love to just not notice a change in quality when I switch between using this in the library and when I come home and plug it into my monitor.
That said, I'd really like them to also make a lower-end, 1440p or 4k display for ordinary users. I don't need a reference-quality display, but honestly, just a 27" display of the same quality as the ones in their MacBook Pro lineups would be perfect for me, particularly if it had an integrated USB-C port so I could have a one-cable setup. My 1080p is looking kind of old now that I'm used to this beautiful MBP display and I'd love to just not notice a change in quality when I switch between using this in the library and when I come home and plug it into my monitor.
We don't yet know that it performs as well as the reference color grading monitors. Some, for instance, report that is has more haloing. Its performance as a grading monitor is currently being assessed within the industry; I've read that Apple is working to have it certified. Whether or not it can meet, say, Netflix's HDR certification standards (very few monitors do, and they are all very expensive) is an open question (odds seems against it, but we shall see). It may be that it serves a nice intermediate function between less expensive monitors and the reference monitors.
They won't make a 27" 1440p or 4K display, since it's not retina (~220 ppi), and Apple has moved completely away from non-retina displays. Indeed, they've moved away from non-retina not only in their hardware, but also in their software: while their old OS's looked good on non-retina displays, their newest OS's don't. If they were to make a stand-alone 27", it would be 5K, like on the iMac.
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Agree. Anyone who has no need for a reference monitor could think this monitor is overpriced. They also might think the iMac Pro and/or Mac Pro overpriced.
I’ll often say Macs are expensive; they are high-priced (compared to many PCs, or building a system yourself). But I also say that’s much different from too expensive (overpriced).
The example I use is this: expensive (high-priced) is a neighborhood of million dollar homes. Priced at $1,000,000, maybe they sell in two to four weeks. People are willing to pay $1,000,000 because the houses are large, well built, are in a good neighborhood, etc. Buyers (who can afford them) will pay $1,000,000 for these houses because they are “worth it”.
Too expensive—overpriced—is that house in the million dollar neighborhood that’s priced at $1,200,000—and has been sitting on the market for six months, unsold. And it’ll probably sit another six months. It’s too expensive compared to other houses in the neighborhood. It’s overpriced. People take one look and say, that’s not worth $1.2MM.
But someone who may be quite able to afford a very nice $500,000 house is wrong if they say the million dollar houses are overpriced. They’re not. They are expensive, though. Yes, high-priced. But they’re priced at a point where willing buyers and willing sellers agree on the value; a price that both sides consider fair.
If a buyer says, well I think it’s only worth $800,000, they’re wrong (assuming others are willing to pay a million). And to the person who lives in the $500,000 house, the million dollar house isn’t affordable (to them). But that doesn’t mean it’s overpriced; it’s priced fairly, it’s just expensive, and unaffordable for many.
My 2¢ anyway.
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Apple is using a reference monitor to make you think it isn't an overpriced product and it doesn't include few features that are available on the less expensive monitor. In fact, it shouldn't need to bring up a reference monitor as a comparison because Apple Pro Display XDR might not even be that good and it lacks some of the features found on the reference monitor as well. In comparison to the iMac display, it's not a huge step up and cost 3-4x more and need a lot of fugly holes+fan to keep it from boiling. 1600nits is redundant and still infancy in the tech industry because most of the content in HDR10 won't exceed 1000nits and only jack the up unnecessary cost and significantly more expensive to produce.
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The issue is this:
- $999 aluminum display stand with magnets
- $999 iPhone 11 Pro