I've had it for a couple weeks and the quality of the image and the build are great. Considering I got it for $80 off at Best Buy and my TotalTech membership covers my Apple Care, I felt the price of this base model was fine when comparing the price of other 5K monitors that aren't as good and cost nearly as much. Those are the pluses.. Here are what I wish was different:
1. OS REQUIREMENT FOR A MONITOR - The OS requirement is silliness and it makes me worry that in a couple years Apple might declare that future OS's will NOT support this monitor.. I use this monitor for my 2021 MBP with no problem, but for work I also pair it with my 2017 iMac which I keep on Mojave to retain software that I need to use for various projects. I will be ready to upgrade the OS on this machine once I've wrapped up a couple of legacy projects on the 2018 version of Avid Media Composer, but until then I must stay on Mojave. The monitor DOES work on a basic level by displaying the content, and the speakers work fine too, but real odd things happen when you launch certain apps. Chrome absolutely crashes and will not work at all while the monitor is connected. This seems like a deliberate hobbling/planned obsoletism thing. There is zero reason a monitor can't just display stuff and not mess up the function of a computer that's only a few years old. It's a MONITOR ffs. That said, still worth it for me because I can work around it for now and I will update the OS in the foreseeable future anyway. And again, convince me that in 2025 Apple won't declare this monitor obsolete and no longer useable on future Macs. It's just silly.
2. HEIGHT TAX - I wanted the height stand, but I got the tilt stand because in my situation buying the height stand would've added $700 to my cost. Best Buy didn't have it, and buying from Apple would've meant missing out on the BB discount and included Apple Care, adding to the cost. But even putting that aside, the $400 premium for height adjustment is really such a cynical move on Apple's part. In the end I think I prefer the slimmer footprint and sturdier stance (I have a cat) of the tilt-only stand anyway, but still.
3. NO APPLE TV - It's beyond lunacy that they built this lovely screen that has a sophisticated chip inside of it plus more RAM than my iMac even has, but didn't include Apple TV functionality. Don't they want to sell subscriptions? One thing that ALMOST had me waiting on the new Samsung 5K is it comes with a remote and all major streaming apps built-in. The deal-breaker was I didn't want that matte screen. One might say, "Oh but it's for using on your computer, no streaming for you!", but one might also say "Hey, it's a premium monitor and they ALREADY have the internals to handle it and ALL OTHER major monitors have that functionality". Sometimes when I work, I'll devote an iPad to having a movie playing or something as background. Being able to switch from computer input and just run a movie off of Apple TV on the Studio Display would've been lovely. But nooooooo, lol.
. I have seen a lot of folks comment about how there are third party displays that are "nearly as good" or a "better deal for the money" but many of them aren't as bright or don't allow changing the display brightness via the keyboard or can't change the sound output via keyboard or require special cables. The Studio Display has one glaring weakness from my perspective and that's the need to connect it via a thunderbolt cable. To me, that is a real flaw and it takes up a port and can't be chained. I have two of them connected to my Mac Studio and I roll my eyes at losing two thunderbolt ports due to that issue. Other than that, it's a wonderful display that is unequaled in its' integration and performance.
