WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.800 I can't believe I have this sitting in front of me. 00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:20.760 This is the upcoming Samsung Viewfinity S9 and it's one of the tech products I'm most 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:27.120 excited about this year. When it goes on sale in mid-August, it promises to be the only viable alternative to Apple's 00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:30.980 $1,600 studio display. 00:00:30.980 --> 00:00:34.640 It's not even that the studio display is bad, we're not even close. 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:39.240 It's just that it's been really hard being a Mac user looking for a monitor. 00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:44.040 But along with Dell's new 6K monitor, the Viewfinity signals that the industry is no 00:00:44.040 --> 00:00:51.760 longer ignoring the one feature that, until now, you could only find on Apple's displays. 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:55.200 And the feature I'm referring to is pixels. 00:00:55.200 --> 00:01:01.840 These monitors have the right amount of pixels per inch, 218 pixels per inch to be precise. 00:01:01.840 --> 00:01:07.400 And this is important if you use macOS, because it's what Apple considers retina for a desktop. 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:11.320 There are now two monitors outside of Apple's lineup that are blessed with this density 00:01:11.320 --> 00:01:15.400 and they're rumored to be less expensive than Apple's studio display and Pro display 00:01:15.400 --> 00:01:19.280 XDR. But what happens if you don't go for one of these? 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:25.400 And to explain, I gave our thumbnail designer, Maria, a 27-inch 4K ASUS ProArt display. 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:28.600 That has a pixel density of only 163ppi. 00:01:28.600 --> 00:01:33.640 Hi Maria, I'm wondering if you can help us out with something. 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:39.400 I want to swap your monitor out with something else, with two monitors, and I just want to 00:01:39.400 --> 00:01:42.400 see if you notice any differences between them. 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:47.640 Great. We're going to come back later and see if she actually notices a difference. 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:51.600 Since Apple has included displays on most of the Macs they have sold over the years, 00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:56.120 they haven't had to care about optimizing for different display sizes and resolutions. 00:01:56.120 --> 00:02:00.000 Therefore, when they designed OS X 20 odd years ago, they designed it to work best with 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:04.880 the pixel density of their displays at the time, around 100ppi. 00:02:04.880 --> 00:02:09.440 That meant that text, buttons, and interface elements were rendered in their perfect physical 00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:15.920 size in displays of that density. When they added the retina screen to the iMac, which was 1440p at the time, all they did 00:02:15.960 --> 00:02:22.840 was double the density of the panel and the assets in macOS, hence the 218ppi we have now. 00:02:22.840 --> 00:02:31.560 I actually agree with this way of looking at monitors. We tend to focus on resolution, 1080p, 1440p, 4K, when talking about monitor specs. 00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:35.560 But that's an incomplete picture, because how it looks is dependent on how far away 00:02:35.560 --> 00:02:39.840 the monitor is from you, and how big it is, and then the pixel density and all that. 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:43.040 This is what Steve was talking about when he announced the retina screen on the iPhone 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:49.360 4. So I think the trifecta of panel size, in area, pixel density, and aspect ratio together 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:55.000 are far more descriptive. If you go out to the store and buy an inexpensive monitor that doesn't fit with an Apple's 00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:01.520 exacting ppi, like this 27 inch 1080p screen, well, that means everything's just going 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:06.840 to be bigger. It means there's no usable difference between this and a smaller 1080p screen, because they 00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:13.240 fit the exact same amount of content. When Apple introduced the retina screens, they made an accommodation for that problem 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:16.360 with their display scaling feature. 00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:21.960 So though this monitor I gave Maria is 4K, and therefore would render a big 1080p sized 00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:26.880 desktop, we can actually set it to zoom out and render a 5K desktop instead, giving her 00:03:26.880 --> 00:03:31.400 more space for her Adobe interface. But that creates a problem. 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:36.240 When you scale down a 5K image to a 4K display, the pixels won't line up. 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:39.760 That means things like text and buttons will appear a little fuzzy. 00:03:39.760 --> 00:03:44.160 It also affects performance because the graphics card has to render more pixels and then calculate 00:03:44.160 --> 00:03:48.600 the best way to scale them down, which requires more computation resources. 00:03:48.600 --> 00:03:54.360 That's why we see this warning. If you get a screen with the right ppi in the first place, you don't have to worry about 00:03:54.360 --> 00:04:02.520 that. So let's check back with Maria. Alright Maria, you've used both the ASUS ProArt and the Samsung Viewfinity. 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:06.240 What differences did you notice between them? 00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:12.600 I mean, it's hard to tell because the response time, for example, of all of them, it's really 00:04:12.600 --> 00:04:23.920 similar, if not quite the same. This one, the Samsung and the Apple monitor, the images look sharper than the ASUS. 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:30.120 So the actual thing I was wondering if you would notice is the sharpness, in fact, because 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:35.120 the ProArt is a 4K display and that's a 5K display, so it's interesting you notice that. 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:40.160 How important is that sharpness for your work? 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:46.960 I mean, details look way better in that way. 00:04:46.960 --> 00:04:55.440 That's like, yeah, I think in details is the thing that I can really notice a difference. 00:04:55.440 --> 00:05:03.360 For example, when I'm editing Linus or pictures of people, I can see faces look really, really 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:06.720 sharp. Yeah, I don't know how to explain. Okay, fair enough. 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:09.720 You want to know the price difference between the two? It's $1,000 different. 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:18.200 Oh my God. Yeah, I mean, for $1,000, maybe I'll choose the ASUS if I want to save some money because 00:05:18.200 --> 00:05:23.600 it's not like, has to be. It's not entirely worth it. 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:31.760 Yeah, exactly. Dell's new 6K model is the U32-24KB and on paper, it looks to be the perfect alternative 00:05:31.760 --> 00:05:38.000 to the person who wants a screen as big and as crisp as the $5,000 plus pro display XDR. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:42.320 In fact, this monitor has even more pixels. 00:05:42.320 --> 00:05:48.080 It doesn't, however, have the HDR mini LED magic, maxing out at 700 nits of brightness 00:05:48.080 --> 00:05:54.760 in our tests. And while there's local dimming, there's a total of 12 zones, so no. 00:05:54.760 --> 00:06:00.760 However, the Dell uses LG's new IPS Black technology. 00:06:00.760 --> 00:06:07.200 This improves the contrast ratio to the 1800 to 1R demo model managed to display. 00:06:07.200 --> 00:06:10.920 Even with that, it's not quite as accurate as Apple's displays, showing slightly higher 00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:15.080 Delta E readings in all the color spaces we tested it in. 00:06:15.080 --> 00:06:19.440 But it's still good enough for most creatives. The Dell also looks kind of peculiar. 00:06:19.440 --> 00:06:24.640 What they did is essentially stuff the 6K panel in their existing video conferencing 00:06:24.640 --> 00:06:30.880 monitor. That means there's this huge forehead for the speakers in giant 4K webcam, as well as 00:06:30.880 --> 00:06:34.000 call and mute buttons. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:37.920 The speakers are decent, especially compared to the pro displays, which don't exist. 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:42.160 But they are lacking in bass compared to the studio displays, which do. 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:46.380 The best thing about it is the 140W Thunderbolt 4 connector. 00:06:46.380 --> 00:06:51.360 It means that there's a downstream Thunderbolt port for daisy-chaining more devices and monitors, 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:55.640 countless USB ports, and even a 2.5G Ethernet port. 00:06:55.640 --> 00:07:00.840 The pro display, on the other hand, has three inconvenient and slow USB-C ports. 00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:06.240 Now, let's talk about the display that's more relevant to most people. 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:12.480 This new Samsung Vuefinity S9 looks a lot closer on the outside to Apple's studio display. 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:19.240 The design is really nice. It's just as silver and minimal, but more bolt upright. 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:24.800 There are some really nice touches, like this magnetic webcam module, which if you watched 00:07:24.960 --> 00:07:30.080 our early Apple should make a TV video will know is my idea. 00:07:30.080 --> 00:07:34.360 Even the cable management makes sense, as the power and input cables go right through 00:07:34.360 --> 00:07:40.520 the stand in the back here. Though this is where the hub of USB-C downstream ports are hidden too. 00:07:40.520 --> 00:07:47.960 We're so close, guys, I swear. Also, I wouldn't prefer an HDMI port over this mini-DisplayPort. 00:07:47.960 --> 00:07:53.200 Despite what Samsung advertises, we measured an 1800 to 1 contrast ratio, which is pretty 00:07:53.200 --> 00:07:56.960 good because, like the studio display, there's no local dimming. 00:07:56.960 --> 00:08:02.200 That said, it can get very, very bright. We measured almost 800 nits. 00:08:02.200 --> 00:08:08.120 I feel like you can use this outside. Though, with the bright highlights will come great shadows. 00:08:08.120 --> 00:08:14.320 And while it does cover 100% of the P3 and SRGB color gamuts, the accuracy is not quite 00:08:14.320 --> 00:08:17.760 up to snuff with the other monitors in this video. 00:08:17.760 --> 00:08:21.760 On the color management front, we recommend staying with the graphic or custom picture 00:08:21.760 --> 00:08:26.480 modes. Or, better still, you should calibrate the display yourself for the color space you can 00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:30.960 work in. Which is what they're hoping to let you do, even with your iPhone. 00:08:30.960 --> 00:08:35.320 Despite the silver appearance, and even metal on here, it's not exactly built like the 00:08:35.320 --> 00:08:42.280 studio display. There's a bit of wobble here and there. But I'm actually fine with it, especially if that means the display will cost less. 00:08:42.280 --> 00:08:49.000 Because this actually demonstrates that anyone can make an attractive looking monitor. 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:52.280 What I'm less fine with is the fact that this runs Tizen. 00:08:52.280 --> 00:08:56.760 I'm not entirely sure how much I care about being able to watch the Netflix app on a screen 00:08:56.760 --> 00:09:00.040 I intend to use as my computer monitor. But it's here alright. 00:09:00.040 --> 00:09:04.120 Worse still, the speakers on here are not very good, and the only way to hook up external 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:08.920 speakers is through Bluetooth, if it works. 00:09:08.920 --> 00:09:14.240 To my eye, text looks ever so slightly different on the Samsung display versus the studio display. 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:19.240 It feels like there's some sort of sharpening filter added here, which is wholly unnecessary 00:09:19.240 --> 00:09:26.400 at this resolution. Right now, I've had to set the sharpness between 5 and 7 to get close to Apple's displays. 00:09:26.400 --> 00:09:31.160 Minimum brightness, we measured at 84 nits, which is a little too high for dark environments. 00:09:31.160 --> 00:09:34.880 The sRGB standard for instance specifies only 80. 00:09:34.880 --> 00:09:41.760 And lastly, the monitor does not like plugging into 2019 Max with AMD graphics for some reason. 00:09:41.760 --> 00:09:46.640 Both these screens have a matte finish, which is very common, but with Apple's displays 00:09:46.640 --> 00:09:51.120 you have to pay $300 or $1000 to etch the glass. 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:55.440 Not everyone likes matte screens though, and these aren't available with a glossy finish, 00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:59.560 which is something Apple does extremely well. 00:09:59.560 --> 00:10:05.320 So neither of these displays is perfect, but that's fine if it's a good fit for you at 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:13.120 the right price. Well, the Dell in fact costs $3,200. 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:18.440 It's not exactly cheap, but it is a full $2,000 less than a pro display with only a 00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:22.440 vase amount. 00:10:22.440 --> 00:10:26.400 So the Samsung, I'm sure you're just as excited as me to find out how much they're going to 00:10:26.400 --> 00:10:32.680 be asking. Well, when this goes on sale, the MSRP will be $1,600? 00:10:32.680 --> 00:10:38.560 What? That's the exact same price as the studio display. 00:10:38.560 --> 00:10:44.200 Brightness, height adjustment, matte finish. Buy this if you need those. 00:10:44.200 --> 00:10:51.200 Thanks for upping the resolution of this Mac Address. If you're as pedantic about pixels as I am, give this video a like. 00:10:51.200 --> 00:10:59.680 And if you don't care, well, you might as well subscribe. I'm curious in the comments below if running macOS at the native resolution is that important 00:10:59.680 --> 00:11:02.880 to you, or if not, and if so, or not, explain why.