I suspect the speakers will be incredible on it. They speakers on the new MBPs are amazing for a laptop, so these will likely be better. The spacial audio isn’t just a gimmick yiu don’t notice, it really does create an impressive sound stage that extends way beyond the device itself.
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Has Apple lost their mind? March 8th Event Disappointment
- Thread starter NightOne
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The studio display is basically the same display as in the 27" iMac, with some VERY minor improvements (like 100 more nits and more speakers), but no major improvements (like 120 Hz, or mini-LED).
In the iMac you could get the display plus a whole computer (plus keyboard plus mouse!) for $1800, and often discounted to $1400, whereas now you get only the display for $1600. What a deal.
We can argue and juggle and rationalize the numbers whatever way we like, but the numbers stubbornly remain the numbers.
Deals: Apple's 256GB 27-Inch iMac Discounted to Year's Best Price of $1,399.99 ($399 Off)
Amazon currently has Apple's 2020 27-inch iMac (3.1GHz 6-Core, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) for $1,399.99, down from $1,799.00. You'll see...
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This was always the case with Apple external displays. The exact same thing happened with the Apple Thunderbolt Display and Apple LED Cinema Display. You could get an iMac 'for free' with the display.
And now you can't, at least not with this display, for which there are few, if any, equivalents (ie., 5k retina).
Apple customers are not stupid, they are going to figure this out very quickly.
Some will
Am I the only one who remembers the ton of posts saying that they would never buy an AiO and that having the display attached to the computer was pointless?
Are you sure? I seem to remember the 27 inch Thunderbolt Display (maybe from 2011 ish?) was the same screen as the 27 inch iMac from that time (1440p). I thought the Thunderbolt Display was around $999 while the 27 inch iMac was $1999+?
I’m in the camp of people pretty disappointed with the price of the studio display - personally I was hoping for an iMac Pro with mini LED, and a standalone mini LED monitor. I went into the event thinking a standalone miniLED monitor might be $1999 and the iMac $2999. Now I think a standalone mini LED will be Atleast $2999.
To me a fair price would have been closer to $1199, given how old these panels are (almost 8 years).
I’m more surprised at the lack of thunderbolt daisy chaining. It seems like that would’ve been a given.
I’m not sure Apple’s priorities were right for this monitor.
The default option that Apple displays is 1TB, but if you pick the base model with the M1 Pro you can change the CPU to the Max and leave the SSD as-is.
Ah there you go. The 14” cheapest option isn’t equivalent to the studio cheapest option. What do you get if you make them actually equivalent in NOK?
Your issue is actually that Apple didn’t put the M1 Pro (that 14” MBP processor you’re comparing it to) in the mini yet. I emphasize yet because that option is still being covered by the final Intel Mac mini they’re still selling. Check it out! That Intel Mac is still there in the product lineup. So if that’s the model you are interested in, have patience as it is almost certainly coming later this year - maybe with the M2.
You can't use a currency conversion between USD and NOK to claim that the Mac Studio is almost as expensive as an MBP, because that's two variables.
In GBP the difference is £800 (£2,799 - £1,999).
In USD the difference is $900 ($2,899 - $1,999).
In NOK the difference is kr 10 000 (kr 24 490 - kr 34 490).
The studio display is basically the same display as in the 27" iMac, with some VERY minor improvements (like 100 more nits and more speakers), but no major improvements (like 120 Hz, or mini-LED).
In the iMac you could get the display plus a whole computer (plus keyboard plus mouse!) for $1800, and often discounted to $1400, whereas now you get only the display for $1600. What a deal.
We can argue and juggle and rationalize the numbers whatever way we like, but the numbers stubbornly remain the numbers.
Deals: Apple's 256GB 27-Inch iMac Discounted to Year's Best Price of $1,399.99 ($399 Off)
Amazon currently has Apple's 2020 27-inch iMac (3.1GHz 6-Core, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) for $1,399.99, down from $1,799.00. You'll see...
I think that probably just shows that the iMac was a pretty good deal, rather than the new display being a particularly bad deal.
Its $300 more than the comparable LG display which is what - six years old.
Does the Studio display just have “more speakers” or are they different at all?
same, this is such a great little system. This fills a nice need with some amazing performance.
19 pages later. 80% of thread complaining about things that something isn't that they're aren't buying anyway.
I bought the monitor. I'm thinking about the Mac studio. But I don't need the latter. Yet.
I bought the monitor. I'm thinking about the Mac studio. But I don't need the latter. Yet.
Given that it will likely have better speakers and camera than, say, the LG Ultrafine, with a more substantial stand, how much should the LG be?
This post sounds like another one where someone thinks the product was targeted at them and completely missed, when actually it was targeted at someone completely different. Or the person might have a vague understanding that it’s not targeted at them, but they just find anyone who it is targeted at so unrelatable that they write them off as an invalid group, either as too niche or “just an Apple sheep”. Either way, this type of lament happens over and over again (even from long time Apple fans) with every new product release, and especially with brand new product lines, and especially at the higher end.
Not to say a company can’t price a product too high, even for its intended target buyer. Apple has done it before. But the only way to know it was overpriced is by poor sales, not by forum user complaints which happen regardless. But considering the ship date slipping and the majority of online chatter praising the new products, it seems like they are hitting their target.
OP, not sure if you’re still reading this thread, but FYI- if the Mac Studio seems overpriced and the Mac Mini isn’t sufficient for you, there is rumor of the Mini getting an M Pro chip option in the future, plus maybe a redesign with better ports. This may be the product targeted at you. Though you didn’t actually say if you were in the market for anything.
Not to say a company can’t price a product too high, even for its intended target buyer. Apple has done it before. But the only way to know it was overpriced is by poor sales, not by forum user complaints which happen regardless. But considering the ship date slipping and the majority of online chatter praising the new products, it seems like they are hitting their target.
OP, not sure if you’re still reading this thread, but FYI- if the Mac Studio seems overpriced and the Mac Mini isn’t sufficient for you, there is rumor of the Mini getting an M Pro chip option in the future, plus maybe a redesign with better ports. This may be the product targeted at you. Though you didn’t actually say if you were in the market for anything.
That's what prices usually come down to. If you're using the computer to earn a living, well, the cost of the computer is just overhead. If the increase in revenue you can accomplish with new hardware/software exceeds the overhead cost, it's a total no-brainer. If it is revenue neutral in effect but lets you get your job done more quickly, well, how much is your free time worth? Also a no-brainer.
Two days and $4k later, I am mostly pretty stoked about my Mac Studio desktop + monitor purchase. But I do think it is a disservice to consumers that there is still no M1 Pro desktop, which may have been my sweet spot. And I was expecting to spend at least $1k less on my next computer.
I've been using a late 2012 27" iMac that was pretty high-spec'd at the time of purchase. I'd say that I've been holding out for an Apple silicon desktop for about two years now, ever since my Fusion drive hit capacity and may have developed some bad sectors. I'm a pretty heavy Logic user and I started getting a lot of overload errors. So I have been hosting my entire system on an external NVMe drive for awhile now--it greatly alleviated my problems though projects still take a lot longer to load than they used to. Side note, I plan to keep using that drive to host files and the internal drive for system/software. Other than than those small issues, Logic performance has held up pretty well--I can still run a lot of tracks and plugins and rarely need to freeze or bounce anything. I also started having a lot of bluetooth issues awhile ago and had to switch back to wired headphones, and probably the biggest issue with my iMac is that more often than not it doesn't shut down properly and I have to do a hard shutdown. It also doesn't boot up as fast as it used to. It's also worth mentioning that the whole time I was looking very forward to updated Thunderbolt/USB bandwidth.
In the end, though, I'd say that iMac worked out pretty great for nine years! Well worth what I paid minus the whopping $110 I expect to get back in trade. It was more than enough for music production, but that probably future proofed the machine to some extent and made me feel more comfortable using a lot of native plugins, whereas on my first 21" iMac I was relying more heavily on SHARC accelerators. That said, I probably would have replaced the 27" a couple of years ago but for the impending transition to Apple silicon.
Most of last year I was anticipating that my next computer would be whatever enhanced iteration of the 24" M1 iMacs came to market. But when the rumor mill began predicting that the Mini would be the first M1 Pro desktop I began warming up to that idea. I was figuring I might wind up with an M1 Pro Mini and a decent 27" 4k monitor for less than $2k--significantly less than I paid for my iMac, which was maybe around $2,700 with AppleCare (which I never used). Later, I started looking more closely at displays, and I was a little bummed that getting something as nice as the iMac display was probably not going to happen. OTOH, I loved the idea of going with a VESA mounted display. But I was starting to think maaaaybe I should splurge for the LG Ultrafine.
So by Tuesday morning I was teeming with pent up demand and very quickly made the decision to suck it up and buy the Studio with the baseline Max processor and 1TB of storage. I balked at the $1,600 Studio display at first, but within a couple of hours changed my mind and ordered it. And honestly, I think it will be worth it compared to what else is available. I definitely appreciate the build quality and have always loved my iMac display. The speaker array I would love to delete and save money on. I'm sure it's great for what it is, but it won't hold a candle to my studio monitors. I simply don't need built in speakers. I LOVE that I will be able to VESA mount it even though the Ergotron LX I ordered adds yet another $200 to the system price. I think the Studio display is easily worth $300 more than the Ultrafine.
So that leaves me with a computer I'm very excited to fire up, but may have paid an extra $600 or so for compared to what I really felt I needed which was an M1 Pro chip, and I paid about double compared to what I was generally expecting to over the past year or so. But hey--maybe I'm better off for it. If I get 7+ years out of the machine I think I'll be happy in the end. I've also started dabbling a bit in DaVinci Resolve, and who knows, maybe I'll find myself scaling up my use cases for whatever reason in coming years in ways that will benefit from the Max CPU.
Having said all that, I think it sucks that not only is there still not an M1 Pro desktop available, but we also don't know when one will be available. If I knew they'd arrive in a few more months, it would be nice to have an informed choice.
I've been using a late 2012 27" iMac that was pretty high-spec'd at the time of purchase. I'd say that I've been holding out for an Apple silicon desktop for about two years now, ever since my Fusion drive hit capacity and may have developed some bad sectors. I'm a pretty heavy Logic user and I started getting a lot of overload errors. So I have been hosting my entire system on an external NVMe drive for awhile now--it greatly alleviated my problems though projects still take a lot longer to load than they used to. Side note, I plan to keep using that drive to host files and the internal drive for system/software. Other than than those small issues, Logic performance has held up pretty well--I can still run a lot of tracks and plugins and rarely need to freeze or bounce anything. I also started having a lot of bluetooth issues awhile ago and had to switch back to wired headphones, and probably the biggest issue with my iMac is that more often than not it doesn't shut down properly and I have to do a hard shutdown. It also doesn't boot up as fast as it used to. It's also worth mentioning that the whole time I was looking very forward to updated Thunderbolt/USB bandwidth.
In the end, though, I'd say that iMac worked out pretty great for nine years! Well worth what I paid minus the whopping $110 I expect to get back in trade. It was more than enough for music production, but that probably future proofed the machine to some extent and made me feel more comfortable using a lot of native plugins, whereas on my first 21" iMac I was relying more heavily on SHARC accelerators. That said, I probably would have replaced the 27" a couple of years ago but for the impending transition to Apple silicon.
Most of last year I was anticipating that my next computer would be whatever enhanced iteration of the 24" M1 iMacs came to market. But when the rumor mill began predicting that the Mini would be the first M1 Pro desktop I began warming up to that idea. I was figuring I might wind up with an M1 Pro Mini and a decent 27" 4k monitor for less than $2k--significantly less than I paid for my iMac, which was maybe around $2,700 with AppleCare (which I never used). Later, I started looking more closely at displays, and I was a little bummed that getting something as nice as the iMac display was probably not going to happen. OTOH, I loved the idea of going with a VESA mounted display. But I was starting to think maaaaybe I should splurge for the LG Ultrafine.
So by Tuesday morning I was teeming with pent up demand and very quickly made the decision to suck it up and buy the Studio with the baseline Max processor and 1TB of storage. I balked at the $1,600 Studio display at first, but within a couple of hours changed my mind and ordered it. And honestly, I think it will be worth it compared to what else is available. I definitely appreciate the build quality and have always loved my iMac display. The speaker array I would love to delete and save money on. I'm sure it's great for what it is, but it won't hold a candle to my studio monitors. I simply don't need built in speakers. I LOVE that I will be able to VESA mount it even though the Ergotron LX I ordered adds yet another $200 to the system price. I think the Studio display is easily worth $300 more than the Ultrafine.
So that leaves me with a computer I'm very excited to fire up, but may have paid an extra $600 or so for compared to what I really felt I needed which was an M1 Pro chip, and I paid about double compared to what I was generally expecting to over the past year or so. But hey--maybe I'm better off for it. If I get 7+ years out of the machine I think I'll be happy in the end. I've also started dabbling a bit in DaVinci Resolve, and who knows, maybe I'll find myself scaling up my use cases for whatever reason in coming years in ways that will benefit from the Max CPU.
Having said all that, I think it sucks that not only is there still not an M1 Pro desktop available, but we also don't know when one will be available. If I knew they'd arrive in a few more months, it would be nice to have an informed choice.
I've been using a refurb 2016 MBP with a 2.6ghz i7, and 16gb of RAM for the past 5 years (I think). It has been a great machine, but I'm very very ready for an upgrade. I don't need a laptop as 99% of my work is done in my home office do I had been waiting for an upgraded iMac, but the Studio looks like a great option for me as I already have a 4k external monitor knocking around.
I'm super interested to see real-world reviews before I take the plunge and decide how much I have to dig out of the bank account to hopefully have a solidly future-ready computer that will last another 5-7 years. Is there a way that I'll be able to see the estimated performance improvements between my machine and a Mac Studio? I know some people are bumming about this announcement, but this looks great to me.
I'm super interested to see real-world reviews before I take the plunge and decide how much I have to dig out of the bank account to hopefully have a solidly future-ready computer that will last another 5-7 years. Is there a way that I'll be able to see the estimated performance improvements between my machine and a Mac Studio? I know some people are bumming about this announcement, but this looks great to me.
They'll bring the 27" iMac back at some point.
The base 27" 2011 iMac was $1699.
Exactly!
The fact that this good deal has now disappeared is not going to go unnoticed, or have no impact on prospective customers. It is a big take away by Apple. A lot of price-conscious home users who don't want to downgrade to a smaller/lesser screen are going to slam their wallets shut, at least with respect to buying a new Mac from Apple
Yeah, it's too bad there's no M1 iMac targeted at 'price-conscious home users'.... *cough*
I guess it’s about perspective.
I see it as:
27” iMac - a pretty good deal
Studio Display - not unreasonably priced compared to equivalent displays
Rather than the Studio Display being necessarily over priced.
Exactly. As I’ve said elsewhere, any price conscious home users I knew with an iMac had the smaller model. Anyone I knew with the larger one typically used it for work.
Fair enough, $700 seems pretty sensible for the computer. by the same logic, the studio display price does seem kinda high!