Studio Display XDR Impressions

[Starwolf01]

I'm not convinced you're not trolling us; that you really are that weirdo user that wants great built in speakers and insists on a minimalist desk.

Let me try to get through to you.

Any. Speakers. In. The. World. would be the perfect compliment to your retentive setup. You could buy small pretty ones for $100. You could buy large accurate ones for $10,000. Maybe it's an excuse to buy earpods or whatever.

You've been had by built in speakers. Speakers that suck. Speakers nobody wants to hear. Because it's already in the box. Because nobody cares about built in speakers. Except for you.

I'm trying to say that if you care enough about music (even just audio itself) to login to this website and complain that they're less than ideal... Pfff. You're almost as bad as the guys that bought two XDRs without seeing if they could plug them in.

Take the wife on an adventure. "Get in, we're going to Best Buy to buy SPEAKERS!" and make a day of it. Do what you gotta do, man. Step away from the guaranteed black box mediocrity.

Of course we haven't had time to talk about speaker placement, which is arguably more important than the speakers themselves...

You are correct that any standalone speaker would fare better than built-in speakers.

That being said, I don't think there's anything wrong in sharing my own experiences with this new monitor, nor do I think its unreasonable to be disappointed that a newer model performs, in some ways, worse than the previous one especially given the price point.

 

[seasurfer]

You are correct that any standalone speaker would fare better than built-in speakers.

That being said, I don't think there's anything wrong in sharing my own experiences with this new monitor, nor do I think its unreasonable to be disappointed that a newer model performs, in some ways, worse than the previous one especially given the price point.

Are you sure ANY standalone speakers will fare better than the Studio XDR speaker?

 

[curnalpanic]

Lattitude 7650 I think.

piece of junk.

Yeah, I remember working on those "corporate laptops" too. Not fun. Had to bring my Mac to do the actual work, then copy everything over to the work computer.

 

[redjar597]

I'm not convinced you're not trolling us; that you really are that weirdo user that wants great built in speakers and insists on a minimalist desk.

Let me try to get through to you.

Any. Speakers. In. The. World. would be the perfect compliment to your retentive setup. You could buy small pretty ones for $100. You could buy large accurate ones for $10,000. Maybe it's an excuse to buy earpods or whatever.

You've been had by built in speakers. Speakers that suck. Speakers nobody wants to hear. Because it's already in the box. Because nobody cares about built in speakers. Except for you.

I'm trying to say that if you care enough about music (even just audio itself) to login to this website and complain that they're less than ideal... Pfff. You're almost as bad as the guys that bought two XDRs without seeing if they could plug them in.

Take the wife on an adventure. "Get in, we're going to Best Buy to buy SPEAKERS!" and make a day of it. Do what you gotta do, man. Step away from the guaranteed black box mediocrity.

Of course we haven't had time to talk about speaker placement, which is arguably more important than the speakers themselves...

This isn't true, it's just your opinion with remarks like "Speakers nobody wants to hear...Because nobody cares about built in speakers".

I'm another one who cares about them a lot, and it's one of the reasons I have the ASD. I think they are excellent. Are they as good as a multi hundred dollar set up, no. But they are sure better than my Creative speakers with subwoofer imo, and better than most of the junk at Best Buy. If Best Buy is the standard then we may as well close the conversation here.

They are excellent when watching things. And if I test them by listening to the pitch of the voice of Adele (excellent for assessing any new headphones and speakers due to her range) they sound pretty darn good.

The mics and speakers combined are also totally excellent for online meetings, and I prefer them to headphones, such that the team regularly says they can hear the fairly quiet birds outside my window.

On top of that there are many people, myself included, that don't want speakers and wires cluttering our desk. Apple have built a fabulous all in one solution. They also great for sound when streaming sports on my monitor.

Are they world class for music, no they are not, but for listening to something at the desk, they are loud and pretty good for this too.

 

[Pressure]

Why can a M1 Max Mac Studio not do 120hz? What does a M2 Max have that an M1 Max doesn’t have?

A new display engine.

The M1 Max also doesn't support the Dell UP3218K 8K monitor but the M2 Pro / Max does.

 

[Pezimak]

I’m using the cable matters USB-C switch and I’m able to switch between my Mac Studio and Windows PC. The caveat is that I’m not using thunderbolt.

So, it looks like this:

Mac Studio Thunderbolt —-> Caldigit TS4 -> DisplayPort/USB-A to USB-C Cable —-> Cable Matters USB-C Switch

Windows PC —-> DisplayPort/USB-A to USB-C Cable —-> Cable Matters USB-C Switch

With this I can press a button and switch between the two devices and it’s 5k 120hz with all features.

Sorry just read your comment again, and it isn't a bad as I thought, so in effect the Windows PC plugs directly into the Cable Matters switch, and the Mac plugs into the Caldigit then the Cable Matters switch. By doing this can you share a mouse dongle in the Apple monitor with the Mac and PC? Also does the Windows PC get charged by the Cable Matters switch when using its input? Am I right in thinking you can use a USB C port on Windows PC with a USB C to A adapter with that cable?

 

[Chrisjmv]

Can people share their experiences with the display uniform and color temperature compared to the Studio Display?

Read lots of stuff that the new XDR display has a warmer, yellow color touch? Especially noticing on white backgrounds - is that true ?

 

[asus]

Of course. But surely 1000 should be brighter than 600...

We talked about this earlier.
Both are 600 nits for sdr / OS interface.
..
XDR can get to 1000 when auto brightness is enabled and under light source hitting the light sensor (there are two, fornt and back).
..
2000 nits is only for HDR content and only possible at ~40% screen area, ment fot highights in photo, video..

Interesting how many of you buy this expensive thing without reading basic info 🙂

 

[djinn]

We talked about this earlier.
Both are 600 nits for sdr / OS interface.
..
XDR can get to 1000 when auto brightness is enabled and under light source hitting the light sensor (there are two, fornt and back).
..
2000 nits is only for HDR content and only possible at ~40% screen area, ment fot highights in photo, video..

Interesting how many of you buy this expensive thing without reading basic info 🙂

Wait.... is this a monitor we're talking about? I couldn't resist.

 

[Starwolf01]

So this morning I tried to connect my Studio XDR to my Dell Precision 7680 Laptop over its Thunderbolt 4 ports and it couldn't detect/support any resolutions above 1080p, it didn't even seem to recognize the display at all either, only showing "Wired Display" in the windows settings.

I tried over both the TB4 ports and the USB-C DisplayPort (which doesn't work at all with the XDR).

Which is surprising given that both of these work flawlessly with the regular Studio Display 2022.

 

[zesta]

We talked about this earlier.
Both are 600 nits for sdr / OS interface.
..
XDR can get to 1000 when auto brightness is enabled and under light source hitting the light sensor (there are two, fornt and back).
..
2000 nits is only for HDR content and only possible at ~40% screen area, ment fot highights in photo, video..

Interesting how many of you buy this expensive thing without reading basic info 🙂

My point was that the XDR was significantly dimmer side-by-side for the same content. Subsequent testing has shown that there is some combination of annoying software behavior and/or bugs that are at fault for much of what I am seeing. For example, if you show anything that is HDR, then the screen gets stuck (but only sometimes) in a much dimmer overall brightness for a while. It is very inconsistent.

Some of my issues could be exacerbated by having an M2 Ultra, I suppose (certainly the whole-system crashes). I have tested with my M4 Max MBP and have seen similar things, albeit no crashes. Notably, the XDR display on my MBP does not exhibit any of the issues that I am experiencing on the SDXDR and overall looks much better, particularly with motion. It is just sad that Apple would release something so expensive and have it worse in almost every way to the product it replaces. HDR still photography is likely very nice on this, but that is about it.

I am hoping there are some software or firmware updates that help with some of these issues. The motion blur issue that makes the 120Hz refresh completely pointless is looking like a physical design flaw, so it might not be able to be helped. If you scroll a page with text on it, the page just turns into a blur.

 

[TheBigApple2006]

My point was that the XDR was significantly dimmer side-by-side for the same content. Subsequent testing has shown that there is some combination of annoying software behavior and/or bugs that are at fault for much of what I am seeing. For example, if you show anything that is HDR, then the screen gets stuck (but only sometimes) in a much dimmer overall brightness for a while. It is very inconsistent.

Some of my issues could be exacerbated by having an M2 Ultra, I suppose (certainly the whole-system crashes). I have tested with my M4 Max MBP and have seen similar things, albeit no crashes. Notably, the XDR display on my MBP does not exhibit any of the issues that I am experiencing on the SDXDR and overall looks much better, particularly with motion. It is just sad that Apple would release something so expensive and have it worse in almost every way to the product it replaces. HDR still photography is likely very nice on this, but that is about it.

I am hoping there are some software or firmware updates that help with some of these issues. The motion blur issue that makes the 120Hz refresh completely pointless is looking like a physical design flaw, so it might not be able to be helped. If you scroll a page with text on it, the page just turns into a blur.

I tested the XDR at an Apple Store and wasn’t particularly impressed by the text scrolling smoothness at 120Hz either. It looked certainly more blurry than my other Promotion screens, such as iPad M4 and MBP. Did others experience this too?

 

[H_D]

The thing is, mine crashed on M3Max due to 120Hz/Dual-Pipe problems. Basically so far this product seems to be for M4/M5 Pro and Max only... hope they can fix it (even though the MBP M5 Max is incoming and hopefully fixes the crashes)

 

[djinn]

I tested the XDR at an Apple Store and wasn’t particularly impressed by the text scrolling smoothness at 120Hz either. It looked certainly more blurry than my other Promotion screens, such as iPad M4 and MBP. Did others experience this too?

Curious if it was set to Adaptive instead of constant 120Hz.

 

[TheBigApple2006]

Curious if it was set to Adaptive instead of constant 120Hz.

I actually made sure it was a fixed 120 Hz. I tried Adaptive too, but it wasn't any better. It was hooked up to a last generation Mac Studio as well.

 

[djinn]

I actually made sure it was a fixed 120 Hz. I tried Adaptive too, but it wasn't any better. It was hooked up to a last generation Mac Studio as well.

sigh.... with all these concerning issues, I have yet to hit the order button. 😥

 

[Pezimak]

So this morning I tried to connect my Studio XDR to my Dell Precision 7960 Laptop over its Thunderbolt 4 ports and it couldn't detect/support any resolutions above 1080p, it didn't even seem to recognize the display at all either, only showing "Wired Display" in the windows settings.

I tried over both the TB4 ports and the USB-C DisplayPort (which doesn't work at all with the XDR).

Which is surprising given that both of these work flawlessly with the regular Studio Display 2022.

Uh oh.... well I will taking my works Dell Pro 14 laptop to the Apple store to test with this monitor. Won't be till mid April I don't think though so will let everyone know if it works or not. If it doesn't work Kuycon here I come.

 

[gsilver]

Sorry just read your comment again, and it isn't a bad as I thought, so in effect the Windows PC plugs directly into the Cable Matters switch, and the Mac plugs into the Caldigit then the Cable Matters switch. By doing this can you share a mouse dongle in the Apple monitor with the Mac and PC? Also does the Windows PC get charged by the Cable Matters switch when using its input? Am I right in thinking you can use a USB C port on Windows PC with a USB C to A adapter with that cable?

Yes, it works that way as long as the dongle is plugged into the XDR it will share between the two devices.

I'm using a desktop PC but I don't think charging will work, but there is a power input on the cable matters switch. I think that input is just in case the USB-C port you have the switch plugged into doesn't supply enough power.

You could probably use a usb-a to c converter, but I don't have one handy to test.

One thing about the cable matters switch that took me FOREVER to figure out. If you plug your devices into the switch and only get video and no data, you need to reverse the usb-c cable (flip it over even though usb-c is reversible). I don't understand why this is the case, but if you notice you are only getting video just unplug and rotate the orientation 180 degrees and you'll get the data too. Hope this helps someone else because it drove me nuts.

 

[gsilver]

I tested the XDR at an Apple Store and wasn’t particularly impressed by the text scrolling smoothness at 120Hz either. It looked certainly more blurry than my other Promotion screens, such as iPad M4 and MBP. Did others experience this too?

I see this too, I'm not sure what the deal is. It's definitely running at 120hz. Oddly enough Windows looks a lot smoother at 120hz for some reason.

 

[gsilver]

I just received my Studio Display XDR and unfortunately the speakers sound worse than the ones on my Studio Display 2022.

It's quite disappointing.

That was my first impression too. I had used the old Studio Display for 4 years and was expecting to immediately notice an improvement. The bass is deeper but there is something missing in the mids I feel like.

 

[nighthink]

sigh.... with all these concerning issues, I have yet to hit the order button. 😥

I’m also not sure what to think about such concerns. Seems to me hard to align with.

I was in store as well to see the XDR in person. I was immediately impressed by the picture, the clarity and sharpness of the text. I have at home Benq PD3200U, so 4K 32” pre-calibrated designer monitor with focus on colour accuracy. But the difference was just significant (sharper, clearer, brighter). It can be mostly due to 5K, but it was so much better to look at and read even small fonts.. So much better on my (slowly) aging eyes.

I decided to order the XDR. Compared it also to normal studio, still the XDR was easier to look at, to put it simple. Also, I immediately decided to go for glass screen without nano texture. The other Studio display had it and it just wasn’t the same good feeling anymore.

First I thought it will be difficult to go down from 32 to 27, and maayby if I would find some original Pro XDR priced around 4k Eur I would strongly consider it instead.. but can’t find anything like that around me, nothing at all.. so XDR it is, and the Benq will serve as additional display if needed, or will permanently attach it to another PC in the house.

 

[Starwolf01]

Uh oh.... well I will taking my works Dell Pro 14 laptop to the Apple store to test with this monitor. Won't be till mid April I don't think though so will let everyone know if it works or not. If it doesn't work Kuycon here I come.

I would be very interested in the results, my Dell 7680 doesn't have a dedicated NVIDIA GPU, only the integrated graphics.

 

[figbash]

I took screen caps from iPhone slow mo vids of the blur busters ghosting test @120hz.
They are in this order:

1. XDR
2. 16" MacBook Pro Late 2023
3. iPad Pro 12.9" 2018
4. Just to make us sad the iPad Pro M4 11" OLED

I think the motion blur on the XDR is roughly the same or maybe very slightly better than the MBP screen, in my opinion if it doesn't bother you there it won't bother you here.

 

[MGrayson3]

I took screen caps from iPhone slow mo vids of the blur busters ghosting test @120hz.
They are in this order:

1. XDR
2. 16" MacBook Pro Late 2023
3. iPad Pro 12.9" 2018
4. Just to make us sad the iPad Pro M4 11" OLED

I think the motion blur on the XDR is roughly the same or maybe very slightly better than the MBP screen, in my opinion if it doesn't bother you there it won't bother you here.

VERY interesting results. How do these amounts compare to the motion blur we see anyway without strobe lights?

 

[gtg465x]

Yeesh… considering the price, compatibility issues, and people being underwhelmed with various aspects, I think I’m holding out for either cheaper 5K 120 Hz glossy displays or more 6K 32 inch glossy displays.