It kinda seems like apple and its pricing schemes are significantly out of touch.
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Samsung's 27-Inch ViewFinity S9 5K Display Gets Massive $555 Discount on Amazon
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I've gotta admit, a high res, well built, glossy, great speakers display... almost doesn't exist on the market. They really found a spot to be in.
The problem is, they keeping selling Macs, iPads, iPhones and accessories. Sure, there's grumbling - including from me. But Apple doesn't pay attention to grumbling. They pay attention to sales.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Great 5K "retina" monitor at a great price + a superior webcam. Competition is good for us consumers.
For those able to look past logos, here's a much less expensive 5K "copy" with a variety of "not added cost" stand options that is also generally more compatible with non-Apple PCs too... and can readily double as a small television out of the box.
Based on traditional Samsung pricing, this is probably about as low as it will go until it is being dropped as a product. Those looking for an iMac 27"-like screen + old iMac value might want to pair this with a Mac Mini with an upgrade or two to achieve iMac 27" pricing with "latest & greatest" Silicon guts & macOS.
And if you sometimes need bootcamp but don't want to hope that ARM Windows will cover all bases, you can add a little (actual) PC for "old fashioned bootcamp" and connect it to the Mini DisplayPort so this one monitor can easily be both a Mac monitor and PC monitor.
For those able to look past logos, here's a much less expensive 5K "copy" with a variety of "not added cost" stand options that is also generally more compatible with non-Apple PCs too... and can readily double as a small television out of the box.
Based on traditional Samsung pricing, this is probably about as low as it will go until it is being dropped as a product. Those looking for an iMac 27"-like screen + old iMac value might want to pair this with a Mac Mini with an upgrade or two to achieve iMac 27" pricing with "latest & greatest" Silicon guts & macOS.
And if you sometimes need bootcamp but don't want to hope that ARM Windows will cover all bases, you can add a little (actual) PC for "old fashioned bootcamp" and connect it to the Mini DisplayPort so this one monitor can easily be both a Mac monitor and PC monitor.
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I also needed "only a monitor" and originally got the Viewfinity S9 at a steep discount, but I quickly realized I severely underestimated the impact of the matte finish. At such a high DPI the image would be extremely sharp, but it gets severely affected by the matte finish and I could not really get used to it.
I returned the S9 and got a Studio Display with standard glass paying about $500 more and since I don't have bright light sources behind me it's a far superior display in terms of image quality. After having tried both, I don't regret returning the S9 and getting the Studio Display instead, even at a significant higher price.
Said that, how much the matte finish might affect a viewer depends: some users might not be bothered by it as much or might be bothered more by a glossy monitor if they cannot control bright light sources behind them.
Price on Amazon must be for a very limited time, it's now at $1,003.09. Yes its changing every hour.
Yeah I'm not sure when glossy became a desirable feature again, reflexions and glares were counted as bads for a good while until things turned around - to each their own I suppose.
Yes I’ve mentioned the ASD for example being recently discounted at Costco only. Do you see my point about how I hope that discounts on this monitor will exert downward pressure on Apple’s pricing? Or are you just here to cape for Samsung?
I disagree about the matte finish. The Apple displays look better with the glass screen. I actually prefer the glare of the glass screen, over the matte finish which spreads out the light on the screen more. And images on the Apple display pops WAY more than on any matte display.
This is the same reason TVs don't have matte finish.
As the owner of one, I firmly disagree.
That being said, I put it on my VESA arm and haven’t touched it since. I have no idea why people are touching their monitors that often to care about build quality.
As someone who can compare the ASD and the S9 because I had them on my desk at the same time, the major difference are the lack of brightness controls and the 1-2 second wake up speed of the S9. Image quality is almost identical, and the matte finish is very high quality and diffuses light exceptionally well, which surprised me. However, the S9 does need to be calibrated, either using a calibrator or the built in easy calibration tool using your phone, which does a surprisingly good job.
I’m in Australia, where there are no refurb ASDs and the price is much higher, and I got the S9 for roughly $900USD, and have no regrets at all. It’s a great display.
I’m always a bit hesitant about Samsung monitors. Having gotten the Odyssey G9 (original) in the past, it had horror stories galore about light leakage, cheap plastic frames, and firmware that just didn’t work well until many, many, many updates later. The G9 was so bad, they stopped production and revamped it, releasing a new version just four months later. It also didn’t support 240Hz for Nvidia GPU’s until six months or so after release, being stuck at 120Hz, while AMD GPU’s worked fine. The nice thing about Amazon, though, is that returns for defective products are fairly easy. I had to do that once for an 82” Samsung TV when it arrived with a shattered screen. They actually sent people to my home to pick up the defective TV free of charge.
I’ve heard about terrible quality control on other Samsung monitors. Samsung normally produces good TV’s, though the S95B had reported bent screens when looked at from the top. I have no idea if the same problem exists with the S95C. Another problem with the S95B was that running the Xbox Series X at 120Hz (though oddly not the PS5) could kill the TV, throwing it into a boot loop with half the screen covered in a green or red band. Apple doesn’t use cheap plastics, which makes their displays expensive, but fairly high quality.
9:30 both displays took so long to wake, do macbook users actually have to deal with such slow display wakes?
Meh, just replaced my 55" LG Cx with a 55" C3 for about the same price. I never understood the premium prices of monitors the last few years, unless you need daisy chaining, when certain TVs work just as well. Even the lack of displayport doesn't seem to be an issue with HDMI 2.1, I get 10 bit color with chroma 4:4:4 and the OLED contrast is to die for.
Swings and roundabouts.
If you've bright objects behind you, glossy reflects the light directly into your eyes, while matte scatters a lot of the light away from your eyes.
If you've got light coming from the sides, glossy reflects the light cleanly away from your eyes whereas matte scatters some of it into your eyes.
I've got a window to the side of my screen, and daylight coming in through that wipes out a matte screen completely, whereas a glossy screen is still usable.
Best solution is to not have a bright object behind you or a window without adequate blinds in the first place...
YMMV but I'd say that glossy screens give better contrast because they don't scatter ambient light into your eyes. The >2017 iMac (and I presume Studio Display) 'glossy' displays also have an optical layer that cuts down reflections which is better still.
I currently have matte screens :-( but they were 1/4 of the price of a Studio Display with a proper stand, so...
ouch! To be clear with the ASD, the volume controls on the keyboard DO adjust the speaker volume?
The video is accurate. My Studio Display takes 2-3 seconds to wake up from standby or when reconnecing it and the S9 did take a few seconds longer when I tried it.
Note that this is from complete standby or reconnect: if you are connected and the monitor goes dark due to inactivity but not in standby yet, it turns back on immediately upon activity.