If you replace your iMac every decade then a separate Mac + display is useless to you

[theorist9]

Within your industry or even your company it is the norm but elsewhere it isn't.

Do you have any broad corporate/institutional experience in the US to support this? Or are you just making an unsupported claim?

Everything I've seen, and everything I've read, says two monitors is the most common corporate setup these days. See the responses to this reddit thread on the SYSADMIN subforum:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/uz4ugx

 

[Quu]

Look at the Dell line, the cost/performance ratio beats apple by a long margin.

For me, the HDR capability of an XDR is important which Dell does not meet. I have all the top-of-the-line Dell monitors available to me for evaluation in person and I even own a few currently.

But what I really want is a XDR2 with 120Hz promotion and more dimming zones. It has 512 on the current model, if that was 1152 I'd be happier, if it was 2,500 like my MacBook Pro display I'd be ecstatic.

 

[Longplays]

Do you have any broad corporate/institutional experience in the US to support this?

SMEs with thin margins wouldn't do multi monitor setups.

Belt tightening, especially in this economy, would eskew such luxuries.

 

[John099]

For me, the HDR capability of an XDR is important which Dell does not meet. I have all the top-of-the-line Dell monitors available to me for evaluation in person and I even own a few currently.

But what I really want is a XDR2 with 120Hz promotion and more dimming zones. It has 512 on the current model, if that was 1152 I'd be happier, if it was 2,500 like my MacBook Pro display I'd be ecstatic.

The local dimming is for monitors that have a backlight. check the OLED ones.

 

[Quu]

The local dimming is for monitors that have a backlight. check the OLED ones.

I already have access to those too and trialled using a PG42UQ from Asus (138Hz OLED). It's not good for professional use, the image persistence after even a few hours is very prevalent, as is dimming caused by large white interface windows (such as a finder window or a document).

OLED is great for gaming but for desktop use, terrible. Not to mention they all suffer from subpixel layout deficiencies which make text and small UI elements become fringey. The QD-OLED from Samsung uses a triangular pattern while the WOLED from LG uses a 4-subpixel arrangement with one white sub-pixel.

As if all that wasn't enough, the resolution. They're all around 105 PPI. The 6K Pro Display XDR is twice that.

I appreciate you trying to guide me here, but I'm 100% fully aware of every facet of display technology available on the market and every panel from every maker and every display, literally.

 

[John099]

I already have access to those too and trialled using a PG42UQ from Asus (138Hz OLED). It's not good for professional use, the image persistence after even a few hours is very prevalent, as is dimming caused by large white interface windows (such as a finder window or a document).

OLED is great for gaming but for desktop use, terrible. Not to mention they all suffer from subpixel layout deficiencies which make text and small UI elements become fringey. The QD-OLED from Samsung uses a triangular pattern while the WOLED from LG uses a 4-subpixel arrangement with one white sub-pixel.

As if all that wasn't enough, the resolution. They're all around 105 PPI. The 6K Pro Display XDR is twice that.

I appreciate you trying to guide me here, but I'm 100% fully aware of every facet of display technology available on the market and every panel from every maker and every display, literally.

Np. Just out of curiously, have you tried those in windows? Macs don't aways play nice with 4k scaling.

 

[Quu]

Np. Just out of curiously, have you tried those in windows? Macs don't aways play nice with 4k scaling.

I have yes, I've used both WOLED and QD-OLED on both Windows and Mac. The fringing issue with these OLED's exists on both because their pixels per inch are just not high enough to overcome the odd sub-pixel layouts.

If for example there was a 4K 27" OLED that used QD-OLED or WOLED technology that would probably be fine. The PPI would be about 163.5 and that would be high enough that at a normal sitting distance, you likely wouldn't notice the colour bleeding/fringing. But at 105 PPI the pixels are just too large and it's very very noticeable.

However as I said in games, movies and media like that, it's not an issue. It's really only on fine detail like small UI elements and text that it is noticeable and personally, I find it very very noticeable to the point that it's distracting.

The full-screen brightness problem of OLED still has to be overcome and is another major issue in my opinion for desktop usage. Since each pixel is self-emissive the power consumption is very high when the entire display is lit up (such as showing a large white application window) and so to compensate for that energy use and the heat generated by all those pixels consuming so much energy the displays have to dim themselves.

Dell, Asus, Corsair and others who produce monitors with these OLED panels from LG and Samsung include features to minimize this such as gradually reducing brightness over time or even setting a maximum brightness limiter. But this just results in an always-dim display at around 200-250 nits where as I personally like my monitors around the 350-400 nit range.

 

[Longplays]

A draw back of OLED (not AMOLED) is the sustained brightness it can do. Some people are happy with OLED TV brightness since 2016. While others want it better to compete in a well lit room.

I think Apple's delay to adopting it is that it hasn't hit Apple's specific design targets.

How else to charge more if it isn't up to Apple's standards?

 

[John099]

I have yes, I've used both WOLED and QD-OLED on both Windows and Mac. The fringing issue with these OLED's exists on both because their pixels per inch are just not high enough to overcome the odd sub-pixel layouts.

If for example there was a 4K 27" OLED that used QD-OLED or WOLED technology that would probably be fine. The PPI would be about 163.5 and that would be high enough that at a normal sitting distance, you likely wouldn't notice the colour bleeding/fringing. But at 105 PPI the pixels are just too large and it's very very noticeable.

However as I said in games, movies and media like that, it's not an issue. It's really only on fine detail like small UI elements and text that it is noticeable and personally, I find it very very noticeable to the point that it's distracting.

The full-screen brightness problem of OLED still has to be overcome and is another major issue in my opinion for desktop usage. Since each pixel is self-emissive the power consumption is very high when the entire display is lit up (such as showing a large white application window) and so to compensate for that energy use and the heat generated by all those pixels consuming so much energy the displays have to dim themselves.

Dell, Asus, Corsair and others who produce monitors with these OLED panels from LG and Samsung include features to minimize this such as gradually reducing brightness over time or even setting a maximum brightness limiter. But this just results in an always-dim display at around 200-250 nits where as I personally like my monitors around the 350-400 nit range.

do you have any experience with these?

PD2725U｜27-inch 4K UHD P3 Thunderbolt 3 DisplayHDR 400 Designer Monitor

BenQ PD2725U ships from the factory with default color settings that perfectly match Mac® and MacBook® Pro laptop colors. Covering 95% P3, 100% sRGB, and 100% Rec.709 with amazing Delta E ≤ 3 ensures superb accuracy.

www.benq.com

 

[Quu]

do you have any experience with these?

PD2725U｜27-inch 4K UHD P3 Thunderbolt 3 DisplayHDR 400 Designer Monitor

BenQ PD2725U ships from the factory with default color settings that perfectly match Mac® and MacBook® Pro laptop colors. Covering 95% P3, 100% sRGB, and 100% Rec.709 with amazing Delta E ≤ 3 ensures superb accuracy.

www.benq.com

I have not seen or tried that specific monitor. But I have one right now that is very similar in spec. The same 4K IPS 27" scenario with P3 colour.

I'm using the Dell U2723QE. And this does feature a 2000:1 contrast ratio instead of 1200:1 like the benq due to its use of a new IPS panel type from LG called IPS-Black. As its name suggests, it provides deeper and darker blacks but without sacrificing brightness or clarity.

I can say that the Dell I have looks spectacular in both macOS and Windows. I run it from my MacBook Pro 16" and I have it set to a HiDPI resolution of 5K. So I get a 2560x1440 working desktop size but with 4x the sharpness. That final 5K image is then downscaled to fit the 4K panels size. It looks great in my opinion.

I will say though the 5K studio and 6K XDR are sharper especially when it comes to text but it's very very close.

 

[theorist9]

SMEs with thin margins wouldn't do multi monitor setups.

Belt tightening, especially in this economy, would eskew such luxuries.

The examples I was giving were corporations and large instututions. Again, do you have anything to support your contention that dual-monitor setups are outliers there? All I'm hearing are unsupported claims. Take a look at the Reddit thread I linked from their SYSADMIN forum.

 

[smythey]

Absolutely agree. Please Apple, offer an iMac with a a bigger screen and Pro/Max chip options.

 

[Longplays]

The examples I was giving were corporations and large instututions. Again, do you have anything to support your contention that dual-monitor setups are outliers there? All I'm hearing are unsupported claims. Take a look at the Reddit thread I linked from their SYSADMIN forum.

I sense this line of conversation will end in hurt feelings.

For anything to be done it has to get a source of funds. If the company's earnings can budget in multiple monitors per user then it will occur if there is a business case to be made.

My initial post mentions industries and specific companies that are capable of this. Them being outliers of all business within the US. Which includes SMEs. SMEs makes up 99.9% of all US business in the US.

Your company/employer has the margins for it. Others do not.

Just pointing out the economics of it.

To put it into perspective how many external displays can each Apple Silicon chip line and their varients can support? Apple made design decisions based on median typical use case of each target user.

I know there are very vocal end users on MR and Reddit that complain about the limit but globally they are outliers.

Same with iPhone mini users... very vocal userbase on MR & reddit but worldwide it sells poorly as they are outliers.

This is also the same reason why M1/M2 base model Macs have 8GM memory and 256GB storage even when MR & reddit users protest this. They're outliers.

 

[theorist9]

OLED is great for gaming but for desktop use, terrible. Not to mention they all suffer from subpixel layout deficiencies which make text and small UI elements become fringey. The QD-OLED from Samsung uses a triangular pattern while the WOLED from LG uses a 4-subpixel arrangement with one white sub-pixel.

Are you referring to the color fringing you get when the subpixel layout of the display doesn't correspond to that expected by the OS's subpixel antialiasing algorithms? If so, that wouldn't affect current Macs, since Apple abandoned subpixel antialiasing starting with Mojave. Or are you saying that you can get color fringing with certain subpixel structures even without subpixel antialiasing?

I'm using the Dell U2723QE. And this does feature a 2000:1 contrast ratio instead of 1200:1 like the benq due to its use of a new IPS panel type from LG called IPS-Black. As its name suggests, it provides deeper and darker blacks but without sacrificing brightness or clarity.

As you probably know, Dell uses the same panel on the recently-released 32" 6k (U2334KB). There's an MR thread about it, and people say it works great with the AS Macs. Plus it's expected they'll eventually release a less-expensive version without the huge forehead and Big Brother camera, for those that need a display only, as they did for their 32" 4k. Alas, I prefer my iMac's glossy coating to matte finishes, and the Dell's is matte. And of course it doesn't have the 1600 nit max brightness you want (though that's not an issue for me).

 

[LeeW]

Depends on the person. If you're someone like me who needs ~3 x 27" (and is considering adding a 4th 27"), a single 32" isn't going to cut it.

I am in agreement with you, I was disagreeing more with the claim from the person I was replying to that he could pretty much guarantee nobody uses multiple monitors which is nonsense. Sure, larger monitors can work as a replacement for 2 for some but many still prefer/need multiple displays.

 

[theorist9]

I sense this line of conversation will end in hurt feelings.

For anything to be done it has to get a source of funds. If the company's earnings can budget in multiple monitors per user then it will occur if there is a business case to be made.

My initial post mentions industries and specific companies that are capable of this. Them being outliers of all business within the US. Which includes SMEs. SMEs makes up 99.9% of all US business in the US.

Your company/employer has the margins for it. Others do not.

Just pointing out the economics of it.

Logically, that's simply not the correct way to think about this. What matters when determining whether large employers are outliers when it comes to assessing typical office computer configurations isn't the relative number of businesses they represent (0.1%, according to your figure), it's the relative number of people they employ. And, according to data from the US Census Bureau, as reported in the Wall St. Journal in 2017, 38% work for large/very large employers—hardly an outlier. Yes, that data is from 6 years ago, but the trend at the time was for the relative number of people employed by LE's to increase.

Think it through: Suppose you have a city with, say, five large/very large businesses that employ a total of 38,000 people ("Group A"), and 5,000 small/medium businesses that employ 62,000 people ("Group B"). And let's suppose the office workers in Group A typically use 2-3 displays, while the office workers in group B typically use 1. Your argument is essentially this: "Group A represents only 0.1% of the businesses in our city, so clearly multiple-monitor use here is an outlier". Can't you see why that doesn't make any sense?

View attachment 2211621

Why Americans Are More Likely to Work for a Large Employer, in 20 Charts

Americans, in a generational reversal, are now more likely to work for a large employer than a small one, a shift that’s rippling through the economy.

www.wsj.com

 

[LeeW]

I am in and out of many offices, the smallest to the largest businesses out there. The majority still have 2 monitors on desks. There has been some change to single larger monitors where employees all use laptops now since COVID and have at least some WFH. For those, there is one large monitor and they use the laptop and a secondary.

 

[Quu]

Are you referring to the color fringing you get when the subpixel layout of the display doesn't correspond to that expected by the OS's subpixel antialiasing algorithms? If so, that wouldn't affect current Macs, since Apple abandoned subpixel antialiasing starting with Mojave. Or are you saying that you can get color fringing with certain subpixel structures even without subpixel antialiasing?

Indeed you get the colour fringing with ClearType on Windows which uses subpixel rendering and also on Mac which doesn't. In-fact even disabling ClearType rendering, sub-pixel anti-aliasing entirely on Windows, still fringing etc

They're both bad for this in different ways. Singular pixel vertical lines are more perceptible with QD-OLED for fringing (letters with big verticals like I T L K etc) while on WOLED its most apparent on circles, so the kerning on text like the letter O G or C etc

EDIT:// Also I should note, text on Mac already looks very bad if you're using a low-resolution display. So if you're using a 1440p 27" = Text on Windows will look a lot better, due to ClearType. For Mac you have to go with a HiDPI resolution independent desktop. So this means you basically have to buy a 4K, 5K, or 6K display (dependant on the screen size in physical dimensions of course) to get crisp text on Mac. This applies to IPS, TN etc any panel type.

As you probably know, Dell uses the same panel on the recently-released 32" 6k (U2334KB). There's an MR thread about it, and people say it works great with the AS Macs. Plus it's expected they'll eventually release a less-expensive version without the huge forehead and Big Brother camera, for those that need a display only, as they did for their 32" 4k. Alas, I prefer my iMac's glossy coating to matte finishes, and the Dell's is matte. And of course it doesn't have the 1600 nit max brightness you want (though that's not an issue for me).

I'm aware of that display yes. Unfortunately, it lacks a Mini-LED FALD backlight system so for me it's not something I'm interested in right now. For me a Pro Display XDR2 with 120Hz + 1152 zones would be fine, I'm not concerned with the price.

 

[theorist9]

For me a Pro Display XDR2 with 120Hz + 1152 zones would be fine, I'm not concerned with the price.

The XDR2 should be a stunning monitor. Rumors are it will be 7k, in which case I wonder if they'll do 32"@254 ppi (same as the current MBP's) or 36"@218 ppi (same as the current XDR).

I'm also curious if the XDR2 will, unlike the XDR, be able to pass muster for use in HDR mastering facilities. At its introduction, Apple effectively presented the XDR as having that capability, by saying it met or exceeded the capabilities of the Sony Trimaster, which was pretty dodgy, since surely they knew it couldn't meet Dolby Vision HDR standards ( https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...er.2345315/page-8?post=31684035#post-31684035 )

 

[Quu]

The XDR2 should be a stunning monitor. Rumors are it will be 7k, in which case I wonder if they'll do 32"@254 ppi (same as the current MBP's) or 36"@218 ppi (same as the current XDR).

I'm also curious if the XDR2 will, unlike the XDR, be able to pass muster for use in HDR mastering facilities. At its introduction, Apple effectively presented the XDR as having that capability, by saying it met or exceeded the capabilities of the Sony Trimaster, which was pretty dodgy, since surely they knew it couldn't meet Dolby Vision HDR standards ( https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...er.2345315/page-8?post=31684035#post-31684035 )

Mhm, if they intend to main the current price they will need to make many improvements.

 

[Warped9]

I was disagreeing more with the claim from the person I was replying to that he could pretty much guarantee nobody uses multiple monitors which is nonsense.

If you’re going to quote me please do it accurately. I never said nobody used multiple displays. I said most don’t use multiple displays.

I’ve had a number of people enquire about getting a second and sometimes third display and almost all of them wanted them for work use. However, the vast majority of purchasers wanted a display to replace an older unit or to connect to their laptop.

Yes, a lot of people work with multiple displays, but I stand by my opinion that most computer users—be it for work or personal use—are not using multiple didplays.

 

[LeeW]

If you’re going to quote me please do it accurately.

Sure. You're still wrong though.

 

[Warped9]

Sure. You're still wrong though.

I’m probably not, but whatever.

 

[SpotOnT]

It's like a TV, toaster or other thing. It is supposed be an appliance. Different use case.

I guess my point is more that there is absolutely nothing keeping someone from getting a Mac Mini and a monitor and using that for a decade as an appliance. You get the exact same functionality as an iMac. You don’t really loose anything.

About the only thing you loose out on (that I can think of) is the all in one aesthetics. My feelings on that are “oh no, the computer isn’t as pretty”…that doesn’t seem like much to complain about. I mean, I absolutely love the design language of the 2013 Mac Pro, but I am not going to loose any sleep over the fact that the Mac Studio is an ugly box, when it is providing the same functionality (relative functionality - features are updated by a decade obviously).

I don’t know. Unless you are deploying computers at public terminals or at checkout desks or maybe in a child's bedroom, you don’t really loose anything by having a separate monitor and a Mac Mini. And if you are deploying computers there, the 24” iMac will suit you just fine.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Yikes, I replace my MacBook Pro every 5 years for work and use another 5 years as home server. Can’t imagine getting stuck with AIO or replacing the whole computer with good display. I like modularity of replacing computer or display as needed.