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Studio Display 2022 vs. Studio Display 2026 Buyer's Guide
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storage is for firmware and updates or whatever
128 is prob the smallest chip
Plus they prob have a ton of them in inventory
Turnpike
macrumors 6502a
Anyone else think it's a criminal offense that it works with LESS computers? How can you put out a product that only works with Silicon Apple and not the Intel computers, of which there are still zillions of them out there? This is putting your sales strategy before the customer experience. I still feel Apple is the best hardware and software out there, but even so, this is just unnecessarily obnoxious.
I may be mistaken, but it's just a monitor for the most part and should work with any input you plug in to it
I think it's just some of the camera post processing stuff that requires apple silicon?
someone will correct me if i'm wrong
Turnpike
macrumors 6502a
I'm sure nothing needed to be disabled, it's just to push us all into newer devices at a faster and faster rate.
For me, still find it the best screen on the market for work from home, despite the price. Lot of remarks about the price, as there was back in 2022.
Happy to pay the price upgrade to get an all in one unit, with excellent speakers, camera, and super excellent mics, meaning I don't have to wear headphones or have other devices such as speakers connected.
Plus the little things like integrated volume and brightness with my keyboard, and True Tone via my Mac. And scaling with Macs, compared to say 32 inch third party with 4k, which don't always scale properly.
Plus the build quality, the look, the fact that it will last years.
Plus I like that it's 27 inch, which is about the maximum you can do with a screen without having to turn your head to look at the sides..
I don't really notice 60hz despite having more than that on other devices.
And the 5K screen is world class imo.
Anyone who has looked at a lot of 4K panels or 4k TVs knows that just because it's 4K doesn't mean all 4K screens are equal.
Similarly, with 5K, not all 5Ks are equal.
For work from home, two things worth paying a good price for (if able) are screen + chair seeing as we are looking at and sitting on them all day, just like a good mattress at night
One of the best computer investments I made, and completely hassle free.
Happy to pay the price upgrade to get an all in one unit, with excellent speakers, camera, and super excellent mics, meaning I don't have to wear headphones or have other devices such as speakers connected.
Plus the little things like integrated volume and brightness with my keyboard, and True Tone via my Mac. And scaling with Macs, compared to say 32 inch third party with 4k, which don't always scale properly.
Plus the build quality, the look, the fact that it will last years.
Plus I like that it's 27 inch, which is about the maximum you can do with a screen without having to turn your head to look at the sides..
I don't really notice 60hz despite having more than that on other devices.
And the 5K screen is world class imo.
Anyone who has looked at a lot of 4K panels or 4k TVs knows that just because it's 4K doesn't mean all 4K screens are equal.
Similarly, with 5K, not all 5Ks are equal.
For work from home, two things worth paying a good price for (if able) are screen + chair seeing as we are looking at and sitting on them all day, just like a good mattress at night
One of the best computer investments I made, and completely hassle free.
It’s possible when Apple sets the same price for both of them.
If you zoom out a bit you will notice this is what they do with almost all of their products:
- New phones cost the same as previous ones
- New macbooks cost the same as previous ones
- and so on…
Getting something else would be the surprise.
cicalinarrot
macrumors 65816
maclancer
macrumors regular
for anything... there is no excuse for Apple to implement at least 120hz for a monitor that cost $1600 dollars.
cicalinarrot
macrumors 65816
Actually, there is. It's just that you think "there's way cheaper displays with higher refresh rate" and refuse to understand the context. To me, it sounds like "that Ferrari costs $400K and only has two seats!"
Higher resolution is mostly useful for gaming, but this is not a display for gaming.
It is useless for videos, almost useless for photo editing and most other uses this display is meant for.
So, it'd just be a nice-to-have for a smoother interface, which is very good for phones, where you're constantly scrolling and directly interacting with your fingers in front of the screen, which have "infinite framerate".
Also phone apps are constantly switching with animations and that's better to see on high refresh rate. Not quite the case on Macs.
What you see on a computer is mostly still images or things swapping with no animations.
High refresh rate at 5K is not a joke to handle for whatever computer is connected and I'm not sure how well adaptive refresh rate can be handled on an external display.
Higher refresh rate also influences other things such as thermal and power consumption and room for components you need to handle it.
I mean, it sounds like a lot of work for a nice-to-have that's mostly to see your cursor move more smoothly and I think they mostly feared inconistent results on some older models and almost useless stress on the device.
60hz has been a standard for professional displays forever and users don't seem to be obsessed with refresh rate.
Apple has always been conservative with this things, they choose a balanced experience for you instead of giving you some option that's probably not going to be what you should pick.
Sounds very reasonable that they focused on other things that matter much more for those who buy this. In general, it's not at all a must-have feature for people who want this kind of display, so it makes sense even just to save that money (these are devices for a very niche market, that's why they cost a lot).
That’s all fine and well. But I think the point is the price, not the panel choice.
you can get a 5k 60hz display for a fair bit cheaper
And soon you’ll be able to get 5k mini led 120hz for probably about the same price, if not actually cheaper
And yes, they focused on other things that have nothing to do with display quality: camera, speakers, etc.
Also Apple themselves sells a 5k 120hz display, which kinda kills a lot of your argument.
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diego
macrumors regular
30% deeper bass? I have the 2022 Studio Display and the bass is already so deep. In fact I have to use an equalizer app to tone down the bass to like 10% during meetings because the voices sound ridiculous.
macOScurious
macrumors member
This is a really important question ...
Find details and how to test here
Answer would be important for users thinking of buying an ASD 2022 cheap now (on sale), also for potential buyers and owners of the new ASD 2026.
and it would be great if someone, better a whole bunch of users, can test if Apple did fix the problem introduced with macOS 15.4 on the old ASD. How does the new generation of ASD 2026 behave regarding the fans in sleep / standby mode?
Find details and how to test here
Answer would be important for users thinking of buying an ASD 2022 cheap now (on sale), also for potential buyers and owners of the new ASD 2026.
I imagine Apple has spent quite a lot of time thinking about this.
Maybe the release of those displays did not have a big effect on their sales? Obviously that could change as there is more and more available, but it really does seem like Apple does not consider it to be an issue.
cicalinarrot
macrumors 65816
Yes and no. All processors until M3 only support 5K up to 60hz there, but that's an even more niche product and it makes sense for them to require only very recent computers to use it at its best. I think it makes sense that this one doesn't.
I know it's not about the panel itself. I'm no expert but I know that in most cases, refresh rate is not about the panel (maybe it never technically is? again, I'm no expert...), and it has more to do with the circuit board that handles it, how it's powered and how it's cooled. So much so that many pretty cheap displays can be hacked to support higher refresh rates.
But the comparison isn't apple to apple with generic displays that don't share the rest of these specs.
Maybe these things would have the technical capability to just push 5K 120hz and they're soft-locked? I wouldn't be surprised. But I still think Apple may want this display to just deliver a consistent experience and avoid that feature that only few people could (and arguably should) use, while saving money.
I'll tell you more (but I'm speculating here). Maybe Apple knows that some would have complained if 120hz wasn't even on their way pricier display and that's the sole reason why they put it there, just for marketing. After all, it doesn't feel like they wanted to balance their budget there...
But I still don't think it was a must-have feature even there. It's really just for some interface elements and no other reason. It feels a lot like people want this because jealousy of other devices' higher numbers.
seems more likely it's because they can just keep selling the same old panel with some new speakers and camera and call it an "upgrade"
edit: my mistake, same camera, just new software
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"Refresh rate refers to how many times per second the display panel can redraw the entire image. It is a physical property of the panel itself, measured in hertz (Hz)."
Motion Rate vs Refresh Rate: Understanding the Differences in Display - GeekChamp
Television and monitor specifications often blur the line between physical hardware limits and software-driven enhancements. Motion Rate and Refresh Rate...
geekchamp.com
cicalinarrot
macrumors 65816
Phones because of what I've mentioned somewhere else: interaction with phones happens through touch and your fingers moving in real-life "refresh rate" just feel better with the display moving quickly. Plus, the phone experience has a lot of scrolling and very quick movements and animations that look pretty cool at high refresh rate. Also, many people buy expensive phones to play games, unlike expensive displays for Macs (that are notoriously bad for games).
With laptops, gaming is a little bit more probable (I could picture a MacBook owner wanting to play Fortnite at a higher framerate, while it's unlikely they'd pick a Studio Display).
Also, it's around a quarter of the resolution, not remotely as demanding.
I'm also not sure about this but I think the variable refresh rate may even be good for battery life.
....but in the end, I think it's mostly marketing. People who buy phones definitely noticed the difference with Android ones. And were happy to see the same thing marketed on Macs.
On the other hand, people who buy high-resolution displays for pro usage are more interested in other specs and they're also used to see lower refresh rates.
Of course, I'm just trying to understand this. I think Apple has been very careful to discard that feature in here, since it's already a niche product.
Well thats the thing. They used to have a ”cheap” and expensive model before this launch. They could have gone with multiple paths, but chose to keep the base Studio Display at it’s old price.
To me it says that they see an adequate market for it at the old price. Probably also that they did not see a huge drop in demand even as there were more models available on the market.
There could be many reasons for that and it’s unlikely we can guess what those are.
However I’m not sure what you are saying contradicts what I was saying in any way. Yes, they clearly felt a tiny refresh is sufficient to keep selling the display at the old price. Time will tell if they were right or wrong, I suspect their market understanding is generally better then mine so they are probably correct in that assumption.
you think people are more likely to want to play games on a laptop then a desktop‽‽‽