Leaving my 27” iMac behind, need display advice

[axlcinema]

Finally retiring my 27” iMac for Apple Silicon, and now I’m stuck on the one thing nobody talks about: the display.

I do most of my work in Final Cut, Motion and Affinity, so accuracy, quality and screen size are important factors.

Three options I’m weighing:

Apple Studio Display - the obvious choice. Same-ish panel quality as the iMac, plus webcam and speakers sorted. Downside is the price for what’s essentially a known quantity.

ASUS ProArt 32” 6K (PA32QCV) - I’ve never worked on a screen this large. Does 32” actually help with timeline/canvas work, or does it just mean more mouse mileage?

2x ASUS ProArt 27” 5K (PA27JCV) - dual monitors would be new territory for me entirely. If you’re running FCP or Motion across two screens, how’s it actually working out? Viewer on one, timeline on the other? Worth the desk space?

Would love to hear any advice. Thanks.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Personally I can't work without a 2nd display, in FCP. Even if I'm using just my laptop I set up an iPad as a display for it.

 

[mreg376]

As for display quality, I also had to move on from a 27" iMac, 2017, and tried Asus and BenQ displays. They were excellent, sharp, etc. But I ended up with a new Studio Display - it's just better. Easier on the eyes, built like a tank, and you can't beat the seamless integration with the Mac Mini, snappy return from sleep, and of course the convenience of the included speakers and webcam. I tried to avoid the Studio display because of the price, but after I finally upgraded the Mac after 8 years I just could not downgrade the display.

 

[axlcinema]

Personally I can't work without a 2nd display, in FCP. Even if I'm using just my laptop I set up an iPad as a display for it.

Interesting. How do you arrange FCP with dual monitors? Like timelines on one monitor and viewer on the other?

Have you tried Motion with a dual monitor setup?

 

[axlcinema]

As for display quality, I also had to move on from a 27" iMac, 2017, and tried Asus and BenQ displays. They were excellent, sharp, etc. But I ended up with a new Studio Display - it's just better. Easier on the eyes, built like a tank, and you can't beat the seamless integration with the Mac Mini, snappy return from sleep, and of course the convenience of the included speakers and webcam. I tried to avoid the Studio display because of the price, but after I finally upgraded the Mac after 8 years I just could not downgrade the display.

All those are great points and gives me trouble making this decision. It’s probably going to be the studio. I just wish it had something over my iMac so that it felt like an upgrade, larger screen, better refresh or something. I know there’s the XDR but that’s way more then I can afford.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

The webcam and speakers on the ASD are way better than the old 27" iMac. Maybe not that big a deal, but they count as upgrades.

But the bigger issue is that any 3rd party monitor is going to be a downgrade. Won't that feel even worse?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Interesting. How do you arrange FCP with dual monitors? Like timelines on one monitor and viewer on the other?

Have you tried Motion with a dual monitor setup?

I don't use Motion. Basically when I'm working in FCP - one display is for FCP, one is for "Everything Else" - Finder for importing from SD cards; QuickTime Player and Preview for clips & images; Safari for research; whatever.

 

[benholt]

Studio Display + M2 Ultra Studio here, retired a 2019 iMac Pro to get here. Went through this exact three-way weighing.

Studio Display is the fewest-headaches option — instant sleep/wake, color out of the box is close enough that grading against Apple reference presets is credible, and the integration is genuinely seamless. The 32" 6K PA32QCV isn't just a bigger 27": the extra pixels let you park a 4K timeline at 1:1 with scopes and browser windows around it without scaling, which matters a lot if you touch the viewer at native res for chroma work, tracking, or fine masking. Dual 5K is what I'd pick if Motion is more than half your work — the Layers/Inspector/Canvas layout eats horizontal space, and having a second panel for reference footage, browser, iMessage instead of overlapping windows really does save your rhythm.

One nobody's flagged yet: the Studio Display can't do HDR. If you grade or deliver any HDR — even occasionally for a client — that's a hard vote for the PA32QCV. Firmly SDR? Studio wins on integration alone.