The Apple Studio Display is hard to justify
Mac Address
·Mac Address
·2023-05-05
·
2,193 words · ~10 min read
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The Apple Studio Display brings out lots of emotions
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for people.
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It's either the screen we've all been waiting for
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or the biggest disappointment in technology
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in the past decade.
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The Studio Display, the Apple Studio Display.
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Biggest disappointment of the last 10 years.
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Yeah.
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But like many devices we've seen come from Apple
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over the past many years,
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the story is a little deeper and more annoying
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because those buggers in the glass circle
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are masters of getting you to pay more
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than you otherwise would want to.
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And damn it, you're gonna like it
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because it's the best monitor there is.
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Right.
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So the expectation is that this monitor is perfect,
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but it's not.
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And that's the tension.
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So I'm gonna show you my nitpicks about the Studio Display
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and a very suitable alternative not from Apple.
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It's like the cable's already attached.
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Oh, right.
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And then 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
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and storied history of making very nice,
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quite expensive monitors for their desktops.
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There's the portrait Macintosh display from the late 80s,
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and then the larger than you ever thought possible
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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,
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HDR brightness.
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It's five plus thousand dollar price tag was defensible,
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but still quite dear.
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Everyone else who wanted an Apple display,
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had to either get the 5K display built into the iMac
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or settle at the Apple store checkout
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for a $1,300 LG 5K ultra-fine display.
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And the display shaped hole in the Apple lineup
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felt like a major oversight.
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I already lamented about this last fall
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when I pitched some admittedly strange alternatives,
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which I will still defend,
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but don't worry because Apple
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have finally given us their answer.
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The $1,600 Apple Studio Display.
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On paper, it's what Apple has to offer.
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It's what I've been asking for.
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A new Thunderbolt display with the lauded 5K resolution
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in a well-built, attractive enclosure.
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It's certainly much more attractive
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than the old LG 5K ultra-fine display,
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which LG still sells though,
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no longer through the Apple store.
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Despite the new Studio Display being an all new product
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from Apple, it essentially uses the same LG panel
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that is found in the ultra-fine and the iMac.
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Though in here, it's about 100 nits brighter.
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That paired with the ultra-fine display,
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and paired with the anti-reflective coating
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that Apple puts on their glossy screens,
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means that you can place it opposite a window
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and never notice.
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It also means that nanotexture is really not worth it
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unless you absolutely know you need it.
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The 200 plus pixels per inch look nice, crisp,
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and is perfect for macOS, but accuracy,
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I still have to figure that out in another video,
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so subscribe if you wanna find out
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how to calibrate an Apple monitor.
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Even if it turns out to be
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Perfectly accurate, that should be a given at this price
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and not really enough to justify
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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
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fitted within a very thin package.
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There are the best speakers you'll ever hear
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built into a monitor.
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They're good enough that I don't think you'll need
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to buy another pair.
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Next, the webcam gets center stage,
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which is probably the best place for it.
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This is the webcam and microphone
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of the Apple Studio display.
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There is lots of commotion going on behind me,
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as you can see, and the center stage camera is pretty nifty.
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When I tested it in a Zoom call,
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I found that it works as good or better
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than any of the other webcams I tried,
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and that's with harsh window light.
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Others have not found the webcams as compelling
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and their screenshots do show some stark differences.
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There's room for improvement for sure,
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but after some Zoom compression,
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it's not really that bad.
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Same goes for the microphone.
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All of these fancy new features are enabled
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by an A13 powered logic board running iOS.
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And if that goes wrong,
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you can only reboot the monitor by pulling the power cord
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as there's no off button.
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And that's my thing about this monitor.
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Apple might think they put lots of thought into the features,
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but when you start zooming in on the design details,
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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
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behind this panel is mighty impressive.
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It's nice too, as you don't have to deal
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with the giant power brick dangling somewhere.
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But that convenience is compromised by the fact
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that Apple attached a knot for you to remove cable
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to power the display.
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This was a problem they already fixed
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with the LED cinema display,
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but somehow we've regressed back to this hassle.
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Here's a free idea.
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What about powering the monitor through Thunderbolt
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from the Mac Studio?
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The USB-C standard supports enough
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to power a display like this.
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So could you imagine a single port solution
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like the old ADC connector?
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And then for laptop users,
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Apple could flip the script,
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offering an external power supply with Ethernet
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like the iMac,
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and then make the studio display the perfect hub.
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Speaking of hubs,
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while the USB hub on the back of the display
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now supports up to 10 gig speeds,
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the Thunderbolt input is in completely the wrong spot.
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Is it over here?
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With the downstream ports,
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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
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or a MacBook on the left side of your screen.
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And if you have two screens,
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you're gonna have to put the computer
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in the center between them.
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And if you want three screens,
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you're gonna need to buy a longer cable,
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which Apple 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
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for their modern monitor stands
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from here in the center down to here on the new iMac,
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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,
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but it's not great if you need more flexibility.
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But it's not great if you need more flexibility.
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The standard stand is a little low
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for a tall person like me.
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So Apple offers a height adjustable stand option,
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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,
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which is a little dear when you note
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that the stand doesn't support rotation.
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Even more annoying is that thanks to all that A13 power
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on board, the monitor does in fact support auto rotation,
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which is awesome.
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But for that, you have to opt for the VESA mount.
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Generally, I wish that VESA mounts and arms
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would look better from behind.
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Here though, Apple isn't really helping things.
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Again, because of the mount placement,
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Apple had to create this stretched H pattern
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to move the mount point to the center.
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But that means now the Apple logo gets blocked.
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A charitable way of putting it is that
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it's peeking above the plate.
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How cute.
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Oh, right.
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And I almost forgot the worst part.
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You have to choose what style of monitor you want,
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what stand you want at the time of purchase.
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Because unlike previous Apple displays,
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this one has a non-user removable stand.
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Rumors exist that you can take the monitor
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to the Apple store and have them swap the stand,
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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
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up to the precedence set by its predecessors.
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Those had great cable management.
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Those had a user-friendly way to swap the stand
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for a VESA mount.
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So considering that the price
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has gone up well then so would the expectation and scrutiny.
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If this 5K monitor came out in black
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with the cylindrical Mac Pro in 2013 for $1,600,
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our collective heads would have exploded with glee.
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But unfortunately, the technology to transmit
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this amount of pixels didn't exist yet.
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If in 2016, this monitor had come out in space gray
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alongside the Touch Bar MacBook Pro
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instead of the LG Ultra Fine at $1,600,
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we would have all loved and praised it.
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But it's 2022 and we've already had five years
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of a $1,300 LG Ultra Fine display
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and six plus years of the $1,800 5K iMac.
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This is old display technology
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and some fancier speakers and center stage camera
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isn't going to make up for that
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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, I'll show you one of my favorites,
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9:27
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9:34
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9:36
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9:38
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9:40
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9:42
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9:47
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we use it here at Linus Media Group for our webpages.
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So head to squarespace.com slash macaddress
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My favorite monitor available at the moment is this,
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the Huawei MateView.
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This is a screen that is unlike any other screen you can buy.
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It has a three by two aspect ratio.
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It has truly next level industrial design
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that's just as height adjustable
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as the expensive stand option from Apple,
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while being just as attractive.
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Many people here actually mistook it.
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For the Apple Studio Display.
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It's more color accurate
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and almost as bright as the Studio Display
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while costing less than half the price.
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As far as value is concerned,
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this is a truly great monitor.
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But there are flaws here too.
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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,
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though there's no webcam anyway.
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The matte display,
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they finish shows way more glare
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than Apple's glossy screens.
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But perhaps the biggest flaw
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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?
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That means it's always visible
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contributing to the cable clutter.
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And if you wanna be able to use these built-in USB-A ports,
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which is handy,
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you have to use this plug.
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Oh, and the last issue is that for geopolitical reasons,
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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,
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great build quality, and advanced technology.
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But as the display technology got older,
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the prices at least became more manageable.
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The glorious 30-inch cinema display launched at $3,500,
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but was only $1,700 when it was discontinued.
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This continued six years later.
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The last Thunderbolt display, which was great, by the way,
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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,
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you could get an iMac with this panel for $1,800,
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with a whole computer for only $200 more
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than this monitor costs.
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Apple's hardware engineering has been on a righteous roll
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these past few years, amazing us,
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with fast, efficient chips we never thought possible.
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This has been great for their computers,
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but what's happened with the Studio display
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is that that philosophy has been applied here too,
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at the detriment to everything else.
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This is an electrically engineered product
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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.
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If you like my alternative pick for the Studio display,
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give this video a like,
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and if you just wanna get a Studio display,
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display yourself, well, you might as well subscribe.
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Now, I'm curious, in the comments,
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how important are displays to you?
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I think they are a monument of computing on your desk,
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so they should look and be nice.
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Do you agree?