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The Apple Studio Display brings out lots of emotions for people.

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It's either the screen we've all been waiting for, or the biggest disappointment in technology

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in the past decade.

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But like many devices we've seen come from Apple over the past many years, the story

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is a little deeper and more annoying.

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Those buggers in the glass circle are masters of getting you to pay more than you otherwise

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would want to. And damn it, you're going to like it because it's the best monitor there is.

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Right. So the expectation is that this monitor is perfect, but it's not.

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And that's the tension. So I'm going to show you my nitpicks about the Studio Display, and a very suitable alternative,

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not from Apple. Looks like the cable is already attached.

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Oh right. And there's that.

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Allow me to at least briefly explain why everyone is so mad.

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Apple has a pretty long and storied history of making very nice, quite expensive monitors

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for their desktops. There's the Portrait Macintosh display from the late 80s, and then the larger than you

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ever thought possible Apple Cinema displays through the aughts.

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All the way to the Pro Display XDR.

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32 inches, 6K resolution, mini LED contrast ratio, HDR brightness, its five plus thousand

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dollar price tag was defensible, but still quite dear.

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Everyone else who wanted an Apple display had to either get the 5K display built into

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the iMac or settle at the Apple Store checkout for a $1300 LG 5K ultrafine display.

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And the display shaped hole in the Apple lineup felt like a major oversight.

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I already lamented about this last fall when I pitched some admittedly strange alternatives,

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which I will still defend, but don't worry because Apple have finally given us their

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answer, the $1600 Apple Studio Display.

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On paper, it's what I've been asking for, a new Thunderbolt display with the lauded

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5K resolution in a well built, attractive enclosure.

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It's certainly much more attractive than the old LG 5K ultrafine display, which LG still

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sells though no longer through the Apple Store.

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Despite the new studio display being an all new product from Apple, it essentially uses

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the same LG panel that is found in the ultrafine and the iMac, though in here it's about

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100 nits brighter. That paired with the anti-reflective coating that Apple puts on their glossy screens means

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that you can place it opposite a window and never notice.

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It also means that nanotexture is really not worth it unless you absolutely know you need

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it. The 200 plus pixels per inch look nice, crisp, and is perfect for macOS.

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But accuracy? I still have to figure that out in another video, so subscribe if you want to find out

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how to calibrate an Apple monitor. And if it turns out to be perfectly accurate, that should be a given at this price and not

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really enough to justify the $300 price increase alone.

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So what else is there?

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The new studio display has all the latest technologies fitted within a very thin package.

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There are the best speakers you'll ever hear built into a monitor.

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They're good enough that I don't think you'll need to buy another pair.

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Next, the webcam gets center stage, which is probably the best place for it.

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This is the webcam and microphone of the Apple studio display.

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There is lots of commotion going on behind me as you can see, and the center stage camera

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is pretty nifty. When I tested it in a zoom call, I found that it works as good or better than any of the

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other webcams I tried. And that's with harsh window light.

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Others have not found the webcams as compelling, and their screenshots do show some stark differences.

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There's room for improvement for sure, but after some zoom compression, it's not really

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that bad. Same goes for the microphone.

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All of these fancy new features are enabled by an A13 powered logic board running iOS.

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And if that goes wrong, you can only reboot the monitor by pulling the power cord as there's

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no off button.

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And that's my thing about this monitor. Apple might think they put lots of thought into the features, but when you start zooming

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in on the design details, you'll find that they've received little attention.

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It's not actually all that innovative where it matters.

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The fact they were able to fit the power supply they did behind this panel is mighty impressive.

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It's nice too, as you don't have to deal with the giant power brick dangling somewhere.

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But that convenience is compromised by the fact that Apple attached a not-for-you-to-remove

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cable to power the display. This was a problem they already fixed with the LED Cinema display, but somehow we've

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regressed back to this hassle.

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Here's a free idea. What about powering the monitor through Thunderbolt from the Mac Studio?

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The USB-C standard supports enough to power a display like this.

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So could you imagine a single port solution like the old ADC connector?

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And then for laptop users, Apple could flip the script offering an external power supply

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with Ethernet like the iMac and then make the studio display the perfect hub.

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Speaking of hubs, while the USB hub on the back of the display now supports up to 10

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gig speeds, the Thunderbolt input is in completely the wrong spot.

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Why is it over here? With the downstream ports, it should be tucked in behind the stand with the power cord.

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Everything going into the monitor should go through here.

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Look how much better this immediately looks.

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The included Thunderbolt cable is also annoyingly short.

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That means you can't really put the Mac Studio or a MacBook on the left side of your screen.

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And if you have two screens, you're going to have to put the computer in the center

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between them. And if you want three screens, you're going to need to buy a longer cable, which Apple

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will sell to you for $130.

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Then there's the whole stand situation.

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Apple's hardware designers moved the mounting point for their modern monitor stands from

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here in the center down to here on the new iMac and now this.

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The benefit is a smaller footprint on your desk.

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That's great if you're using a yellow iMac at home. But it's not great if you need more flexibility.

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The standard stand is a little low for a tall person like me.

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So Apple offers a height adjustable stand option, which uses the same nifty hinge design

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as found in the $1,000 pro display stand.

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And on here, it's $400, which is a little dear when you note that the stand doesn't

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support rotation. Even more annoying is that thanks to all that A13 power on board, the monitor does in fact

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support auto rotation, which is awesome.

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But for that, you have to opt for the base amount.

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Generally, I wish that base amounts and arms would look better from behind.

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Here though, Apple isn't really helping things. Again because of the mount placement, Apple had to create this stretched H pattern to

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move the mount point to the center. But that means now the Apple logo gets blocked.

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A charitable way of putting it is that it's peeking above the plate.

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How cute. Oh right, and I almost forgot the worst part.

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You have to choose what stand you want at the time of purchase.

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Because unlike previous Apple displays, this one has a non-user removable stand.

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Murmurs exist that you can take the monitor to the Apple store and have them swap the

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stand, but I called and at the time of writing, you can't.

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Look, all I'm doing is holding the studio display up to the precedents set by its predecessors.

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Those had great cable management. Murmurs had a user-friendly way to swap the stand for a base amount.

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So considering that the price has gone up, well then so would the expectation and scrutiny.

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If this 5K monitor came out in black with the cylindrical Mac Pro in 2013 for $1600,

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our collective heads would have exploded with glee. But unfortunately, the technology to transmit this amount of pixels didn't exist yet.

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If in 2016 this monitor had come out in space gray alongside the Touch Bar MacBook Pro instead

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of the LG Ultra Fine at $1600, we would have all loved and praised it.

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But it's 2022 and we've already had 5 years of a $1300 LG Ultra Fine display and 6 plus

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years of the $1800 5K iMac.

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This is old display technology and some fancier speakers and center stage camera isn't going

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to make up for that or the poorly placed mounting point and Thunderbolt input.

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So what have other monitor makers been doing in the meantime?

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Well, let me show you my favorite.

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My favorite monitor available at the moment is this.

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The Huawei MateView. This is a screen that is unlike any other screen you can buy.

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It has a 3x2 aspect ratio. It has truly next level industrial design that's just as height adjustable as the expensive

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stand option from Apple while being just as attractive.

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Many people here actually mistook it for the Apple Studio display.

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It's more color accurate and almost as bright as the studio display while costing less than

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half the price. As far as value is concerned, this is a truly great monitor.

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But there are flaws here too. Unlike Apple, Huawei put no effort in the garnish.

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The speaker sounds like it came from a 2005 laptop.

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The built in microphone is awful too though there's no webcam anyway.

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The matte display finish shows way more glare than Apple's glossy screens.

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But perhaps the biggest flaw is the placement of the USB-C input.

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It's right here on the side of the stand.

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Why? That means it's always visible contributing to the cable clutter.

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And if you want to be able to use these built in USB-A ports, which is handy, you have to

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use this plug. Oh, and the last issue is that for geopolitical reasons, it's not available in the US.

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My fellow Canadians, it's about $900 here, which is sweet.

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Apple's external displays have always been quite expensive.

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But we accepted that for cohesive industrial design, great build quality and advanced technology.

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But as the display technology got older, the prices at least became more manageable.

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The glorious 30-inch cinema display launched at $3,500 but was only $1,700 when it was discontinued

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six years later. The last Thunderbolt display, which was great by the way, was priced at $1,000.

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I think the Apple Studio display costs too much.

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It should be 1,300 tops.

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Especially when you consider that before you could get an iMac with this panel for $1,800

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with a whole computer for only $200 more than this monitor costs.

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Apple's hardware engineering has been on a righteous roll these past few years, amazing

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us with fast, efficient chips we never thought possible.

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This has been great for their computers, but what's happened with the studio display is

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that that philosophy has been applied here too, at the detriment to everything else.

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This is an electrically engineered product as opposed to a holistically designed product.

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And that really is too bad.

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Thanks for displaying this Mac Address. If you like my alternative pick for the studio display, give this video a like.

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And if you just want to get a studio display yourself, well you might as well subscribe.

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Now I'm curious in the comments how important are displays to you.

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I think they are a monument of computing on your desk, so they should look and be nice.

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Do you agree?