Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell | Hacker News Reader

Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

engadget.com

108 pointskarmaniak148 comments

I think this works like the opposite of a loss-leader, a product sold at a loss to draw people into a store, and/or like minor upsells at restaurants, like guacamole on the side.

I got this theory from the Apple Explained youtube channel when he talked about the $600 wheels for Mac Pros

Apple needs some high end items to keep its luxury appeal, but they really want the middle market without losing some perceived luxury appeal.

So you have a few items with crazy prices that won't sell well to keep up your brand image. Interesting that these land on not-necessarily-deal-breaker things, like can you roll your computer? Can you adjust your monitor height? Extras, stuff you could live without or work around (especially being able to roll your mac pro)

I don't think they expect to make a serious profit on the option. It's some kind of microeconomics thing. It might make the non-adjustable option look more attractive price-wise.

This product is absolutely for the same kind of people who shop at Restoration Hardware, Gucci, Cartier, etc.

If it was for creative pros, it would have HDR. A $1600 monitor with no HDR, can you believe it? You can buy an entire laptop with an HDR mini-LED monitor from Apple for very nearly the same price. The base model iPhone mini can shoot in HDR but you can't play it back on the brand new Apple StUdIo MoNiToR from 2022.

> A $1600 monitor with no HDR, can you believe it?

Is there a good alternative for reasonably calibrated 27" monitor, with 5K resolution, integrated (96W) USB-C hub that have camera, good speakers and HDR? How much that monitor costs?

Here's a list:

https://www.displayninja.com/mini-led-monitor-list/

ASUS ProArt is a good start:

https://www.asus.com/Displays-Desktops/Monitors/ProArt/ProAr...

- 4K HDR, 576 zones of local dimming

- 90W power

- Dolby Vision, HDR-10

- Works with Mac or PC so you aren't screwed if you have a multi-platform environment, includes DisplayPort, HDMI, USB-A (4x), USB-C, headphone jack

For the same price as the Studio Display with stand upgrade ($1999) it seems like a better monitor. I guess it depends on whether you'd rather have 5K over 4K compared to HDR and mini-LED. For video production something like the ProArt seems like a no-brainer.

Speakers and a good camera are not selling points for displays. A solid webcam costs $50. Professionals aren't going to rely on monitor speakers, they're gonna spend <$100 and get something like the Sony MDR7506 studio monitors.

The Apple Studio Display is 100% made for your VP of Sales to put in his home office and look at.

>ASUS ProArt

As someone who got suckered into buying two of these pieces of junk let me warn you that while the panel is decent, everything around it royally sucks.

1. The stand is horrible and tends to be very wobbly. This has been the case with three ASUS monitors I have owned over the years (two of them being ProArt)

2. Lack of supports around the screen makes it extremely fragile. Example: I carefully placed the screen face down on the table for less than 10 seconds just to wipe of the dust in the back with a cloth and when I lifted it up, the screen was cracked :/

3. The boot up time is atrocious. I have timed it:

7 seconds just to get from a black screen to the slow ASUS animation logo to appear(because you must know who made this junk every time you turn this thing on.)

Then another 23 seconds back to black until it actually initializes and displays the desktop.

4. The worst possible thing of it all: The darn thing cannot properly resume from sleep half the time. On multiple different machines(Windows + Mac), I am required to switch to another input on the convoluted rear OSD menu buttons, wait another ~20 seconds, and then switch back (another ~20 seconds).

Then like an idiot I bought another one of these monitors after the first one broke because I got an unbelievable deal on this monitor on ebay(800$ price vs $5000 list price): ASUS Proart PA32UCG. This is supposedly a direct competitor to the apple XDR display and was given great reviews by this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfkUpcF5cZw

It has all the same problems as the other Proart Displays. How can they get away with charging thousands of dollars for this thing?!

>Speakers and a good camera are not selling points for displays. A solid webcam costs $50. Professionals aren't going to rely on monitor speakers, they're gonna spend <$100 and get something like the Sony MDR7506 studio monitors.

Man I really hate when people trot out nonsense like this and just dismiss things like good speakers or a built in webcam. First of all, the speakers on these ProArt displays are flat out useless. Unless you are playing OS sound effects, just forget about it. They are so underpowered and blur out the audio that you can't use it for anything else. Second of all, you now have even more junk to put on your table. With just a little bit of effort, they could have engineered a solution that is at least somewhat comparable to Apple but they couldn't even be bothered to do that even in 2022.

I will actively avoid ASUS after this experience. They still have a long way to go from their OEM manufacturing roots.

IMO, ASUS is taking the right path here. Everything besides the panel doesn't matter.

This particular model or lineup might not be the best, and maybe the QA sucks, but it's not like the 69% of people on Amazon giving it 4+ stars have gone crazy.

I see this another way: these ASUS displays are a firmware update away from being a better buy, and ASUS is just one competitor.

My prediction is that the Studio Display pretty quickly becomes a questionable purchase as more competitors enter the space and mini-LED displays become more prevalent. It's going to be a great webcam and speaker and a mediocre monitor at that price.

Also, if webcams and speakers are so important I wonder why the Pro Display XDR doesn't have either?

Honestly, that question lines up with my original claim: that the Studio Display is an aspirational purchase for non-creatives who have a lot of money and want a nice home office monitor for fiddling with spreadsheets and taking Zoom calls. The actual professionals (Pro Display XDR) don't have any need for some impressive for their size but not studio monitor built in monitor speakers and webcam.

Someone producing semi-professional video content is going to go with a display that supports HDR, especially considering that our consumer-level phones already record HDR footage.

You are making a lot of stretches to justify your point of view.

>This particular model or lineup might not be the best, and maybe the QA sucks, but it's not like the 69% of people on Amazon giving it 4+ stars have gone crazy.

Just glancing on Amazon, if you filter by 1 star reviews you get a listing of all the problems I mentioned. Your argument assumes that all the people praising it did not just base their review on initial impressions. You only notice most of my problems after living with the monitor for some time. Since all of my issues are cropping up in the 1 star reviews, I suspect that at least some of the positive reviews are people who were wowed by the initial panel quality.

>I see this another way: these ASUS displays are a firmware update away from being a better buy, and ASUS is just one competitor.

A firmware update that will never happen for the existing models. I checked my monitor in the hopes of fixing this dumb issue with the input detection and one of them actually has updates...just to add promised features after the first few models shipped from the factory without it. The other two? Nothing. in other words, once they fulfilled what the specs say, you are on your own.

I also fail to see how the poor stand/speakers can be firmware updated. That is something a daily user will have to live with.

It would be nice if there were multiple competitors but the real reason I purchased ASUS was due to a lack of competitors. I typically purchase Dell.

>My prediction is that the Studio Display pretty quickly becomes a questionable purchase as more competitors enter the space and mini-LED displays become more prevalent. It's going to be a great webcam and speaker and a mediocre monitor at that price.

This dumb argument is always made by Apple detractors/Android/PC fanboys. They only look at specs and fail to consider the product as a whole. I learned this lesson the hard way after 4 years of terrible Nexus phones.

If you think about it, you are getting exactly what you are paying for: Good panel in exchange for poor enclosure, poor firmware, poor stand, poor speakers. This does not seem like a deal unless you value all of those things at 0 which you are clearly doing. I concede that some low cost studios may adopt this for their workflow although I don't know if these panels are truly Dolby Vision certified given their lighting zones algorithms are pretty lousy in my experience. If you want to ensure you are getting quality, especially as an Apple user, the other panels are a no brainer. They have a reputation you can trust, ASUS does not.

>Also, if webcams and speakers are so important I wonder why the Pro Display XDR doesn't have either?

I'm not sure. The XDR is just a little over 2 years old so it is definitely plausible that it was intended as a 1st gen design to replace the LG display that everyone was complaining about(there were massive failure rates of that display so Apple needed something new for their new Desktop machine which was unveiled with the monitor).

I am assuming the studio display will support EDR with its 600 nits of peak brightness, so while it may not be hdr, it is not quite sdr either.

For those who don’t know, EDR works like this: when the built-in display of a supported mac is not at full brightness when playing HDR content it will ramp up the brightness to max to make use of the full range of the display for the HDR content while also dimming all non-HDR content to keep it at the same apparent brightness. The effect can be quite dramatic if you’re using the display at a low brightness setting, even on a 500 nit 5K iMac. The hdr content looks much brighter than a white finder window.

https://prolost.com/blog/edr

This is nothing new, even Wal-Mart does it, it's retail selling 101.

"They make their pride in making their dinner cost much; I make my pride in making my dinner cost little." -- Thoreau.

Consumer

Analogy: A digital scale https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/metallic-digital-scale-gold-gol...

Does the design look familiar? If I want to keep motivated on my health goals (checking at least once a day), it better look good or at least welcoming, because my mind subconsciously equates this device to my image and identity. Study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187704281...

There is a psychological and behavioral aspect playing here. Extrapolate this to a monitor that will be used for ~8 hrs a day, will design and its effect on productivity matter more? Brand or luxury appeal matters for consumer products, but these might not be Studio's target demographic.

Enterprise

If users are office workers then IT professionals in charge of office equipment ($ decision makers) are the target demographic. If this is WFH/remote work, then it is working professionals investing in a home office. Both demographics can spend thousands on chairs, desks & gear, why not monitors?

As upsells, will these monitor arms make the worker more productive? Will buying them from the same manufacturer/brand ease installation minutiae that will possibly impact ergonomics and productivity long term?

These are just all hypotheses worth pondering when it comes to Apple's design and business decisions.

the studio display is the LG Ultrafine 5k displayport MST display in an aluminum shell.

studio display does not use the more advanced displayport 1.4 compression in the 32" 6k xdr. Apple is effectively selling a panel that first came out in 2014 when imac 5k was introduced.

You can even argue the base Studio Display is overpriced because 10th gen imac 27" 5k with the same panel plus a whole computer is 1799

Funny thing is a 10th generation iMac with the 5k panel probably costs a lot less than $1799 these days. I can't even find it to buy on Apple's site. I'd guess you can find a refurbished, or new units outside of Apple, for a lot less than what the new Studio Display costs.

While it sounds a bit crazy, it might be worth going that route too.

I've been using a 27" 5k iMac mostly as a monitor for the entire pandemic so far. It's the biggest display I can fit between the closet walls I work from. It took some fiddling to get the setup right, but what I ended up with works really well for me:

* I remote into my work machine using the built in Screen Sharing app (which is really just a VNC client)

* The remote machine is connected to the iMac over ethernet and sits on a shelf above me in the closet

* I use macFuse and sshfs so that the work machine's drives can be mounted on the iMac

I rarely, if ever, notice any image quality issues or input lag with this setup. The directly wired network connection helps with that.

Aside from the benefits of the display (which, to this day, is still the best I've ever used), you get a full computer.

That means I can have a video call going on on the work machine, CPU pegged, while the iMac compiles stuff without competing for CPU.

Given the $1599 price of the Studio Display, and used 5k iMacs near me going for about $700, it's a no brainer. I'd still go this route if I were wanting a new high resolution monitor.

According to LG's website, the only 27" 5k display actually on sale is $1300 (and it is out of stock), and it is not adjustable, does not have a 12 Mpx camera, and does not have fancy speakers. Given how impressive the 2018 MBP speakers are, I expect the Studio Display probably sounds pretty good. $1600 seems like a reasonable price for all that.

They silently discontinued the 27" imac yesterday: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/8/22967616/apple-27-inch-ima...

Let's attach a name to the thing: price anchoring.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)

Two theories

[1] Luxury: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBHY_Qaw5AI&ab_channel=Marqu...

[2] Target demographic: https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/here-is...

I am more convinced by the business argument, both only cater to a small market of high-end spenders

> Apple needs some high end items to keep its luxury appeal, but they really want the middle market without losing some perceived luxury appeal.

i.e. An aspirational brand. Judging from the way people are willing to sell their kidney to buy an iPhone in developing countries, Where Apple doesn't follow differentiated pricing like everyone else, even if they manufacture the phone there[1] I guess this has worked great for Apple & its shareholders.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30610454#30611568

Apple can do this because nobody else makes a high quality monitor that doesn’t look terrible.

In nice offices, each chair is a couple thousand each. Full designs easily $50k+. Theyre not going to mess up a such a thoughtfully designed aesthetic with some slab of black plastic and an Amazon Basics stand (which is what I use) to save $1-2k.

i have been using eizo for past couple of months and i have found them to be just fabulous.

perhaps you can try it out and see if it works for you too ?

>high quality monitor that doesn’t look terrible.

Eizo may be high quality, but it doesn't do well in aesthetic.

I find them perfectly serviceable? They're not a thing of beauty, but neither are they an eyesore, which is all I really need out of a tool.

Of course they are. But the context in GP's post was about nice office. Think investment or other firms with designer chairs and sofa etc.

I like them a lot more than Apple's.

On FlexScans with their 2mm bezels there's literally nothing to look at but the actual display.

That's... relative. Let's say politely I am not moved by such design and had seen and used monitors which appeal to me more for fraction of that price.

and people wonder why so many VC backed startups fail when they spend money on stupid shit like this

Computer equipment is a rounding error compared to the cost of people, let alone highly sought after engineers.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say. I'm getting a bit tired of the metallic look, personally.

I don't think Eizo monitors look terrible. They have nice displays too, and some useful colour management features.

The higher end Benq's look nice to me.

Apple will keep charging it because people keep paying it....

I own and quite like the calibrated series Benqs

It isn't so much about aesthetics, but the look screams 'apple'. Apple is an aspirational lifestyle brand

Apple also have a warranty and service which is worth more than toilet paper unlike the other brands.

Repairs outside of the standard warranty on my Apple stuff is usually shackled to expensive paid warranty upgrades and restocking fees.

For example, AppleCare+ for this $2k monitor costs $149, and there's a $99 service fee for screen damage or enclosure damage, and a $299 fee for other accidental damage.

Eizo makes fantastic high-end monitors.

Quality sure, aesthetically coherent? No

I believe this is sarcasm taken to heights. We have $50K+ designs where people are not allowed to touch and use because the aesthetics will be broken :)

>I believe this is sarcasm taken to heights.

No, Apple fanatics really believe only Apple can make aesthetically pleasing things. They are enablers for the company at this point.

Please link to an alternative thin bezel, brushed metal or even just non-plastic, 4k or higher monitor with built in 12mp camera.

If it is decently reviewed and a significant savings compared to Apple I know a firm that will buy 200 of them.

With the 12MP camera requirement you may as well just specify it has an Apple logo on it.

I find the requirement for non-plastic so bizarre as though it can't POSSIBLY look good. I still think the 17" Studio Display from 2000 looks better than the new one (which still has chunkier bezels than my random Dell business monitor).

Sure whatever, nobody wants a $100 logitech zit on the top of their monitor while they are trying to sell themselves as having infinitely superior design/law/whatever skills than the client they are charging $1k/hour to.

But a $400 premium?

I work in a "nice" office (with a chair and motorized standing desk that each cost several thousand) and we use nearly bezel-less 4k monitors with brushed aluminum tilt-and-raise stands that aren't made by Apple.

There's a huge range between Apple and AmazonBasics industrial-design-wise now, especially when you're bidding for enterprise-level equipment contracts.

Decent monitor arms easily cost $300-500.

I have monitor arm that works just fine. Cost me $149 (Canadian pesos) on Amazon.

To note I paid considerably less than half that for my $300 arm.

YMMV but shop around for corp clearance.

Monitor arms are much more complicated than a monitor stand.

That's untrue. Ergotron LX arms for example hold big monitors perfectly and last basically forever - currently priced <$200:

https://www.amazon.com/Ergotron-Monitor-Monitors-Up-Polished...

I have several Ergotrons for a few years now, mostly the two-arm models with 27in monitor pairs. My only gripe is that cabling them neatly is difficult.

1. Excellent monitor arms might cost that much, most are closer to $200-300. Decent ones are way less.

2. This is $400 more than the other arm. You're paying $400 for the added height adjustment.

Most VESA monitor arms are like $30 to $40.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=VESA+monitor+arm

They all seem to have serious problems at that price point. I got through about three before giving up and buying a decent one, albeit second hand.

Somewhere in here there's a bad joke about them costing an arm & a leg.

At that point where the personal work area budget of 200k really doesn't care if your monitor arm costs $50 or $2000... well it doesn't matter anymore.

Price-fighting over workplace items only applies to the mass market. (which is both the problem and the solution: if you want to save some money, buy a different stand and VESA-mount it)

$400 is literally less than one hour of billable work in most places, negligible.

I'm aware of the hourly rates for the industry I work in, thank you. We're discussing value.

Looking at the picture it is just plain boring monitor (not that there is anything wrong about it). I fail to see a single bit of "thoughtfully designed aesthetic".

https://consumer.huawei.com/en/monitors/mateview/

Sorry, not going to support a company coupled to a Communist government that blatantly steals IP and is propped up by a genocidal dictatorship. Hard pass.

WOW! Its really sad that outside of Apple everyone else is still producing junk in 2022. Wish this was made by some western brand. It would sell well!

Wow, I want one.

Apple does this because they do not respect their customers.

The chairs are probably more like $1000 after bulk discount for buying hundreds of them,and they'll last 20 years. Having worked in many corporate environments, including FAANGs that seemingly spare no expense, none of them have used these monitors. It's always a $300ish monitor for developers and I've seen some senior executives with $1000 wide screen curved monitors. Maybe a few designers somewhere get a fancy Apple one (although I've never seen it), but these are not intended for the masses.

Ya, FAANGs don’t exactly have nice offices, amenity wise sure but nobody GAF what they look like, there’s probably nerf guns and desk clutter everywhere.

Think somewhere with clients and prestige. Law offices, design shops, consulting boutiques etc.

>$1000 wide screen curved monitors.

You can pay well more than $1k for a curved wide screen, but as a counterpoint Dell 34" widescreen curved monitors are less than half that on their website. Most likely because you're not getting gaming features, HDR, speakers, etc, etc. They're pretty stripped. Even so I purchased one for every employee and myself on my old team, the experience was so good we all bought them at Microcenter for home use too, and still they weren't $1,000.

I'm just pointing this out in case anyone is thinking about getting a curved widescreen. The experience is amazing and it doesn't have to cost $1k.

Not that I'm disputing managers make status purchases and spend stupid money on useless things. That much is as true as it ever was.

> Apple can do this because nobody else makes a high quality monitor that doesn’t look terrible.

People prioritizing looks over function is why this enormously expensive display is a 60Hz refresh rate panel. Users buy apple just to show the logo.

Maybe we can pull all the threads complaining about Apple's pricing into one thread.

A complaint about the price of a TB4 cable: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-thunderbolt-4-pro-versio...

I still can't figure out who would buy this given that name brand, active, 2m Thunderbolt 4 cables go for under $60. And generic brand 2m cables that are tested and well reviewed for under $40.

This is a five-foot-long PCIe x4 cable - GPU extensions are four inches. It can feed two 4K displays at 60Hz. It can transfer data faster than an NVMe drive can store it. The fact that this is even physically possible is astounding.

I guarantee it's not the wire that's making it possible.

It is. But it's also possible with the $40 and $60 cables I mentioned. They're all active Thunderbolt 4 40Gb/s cables that measure about 2 meters long.

I’ll happily pay a lot of premium for a long “just works” TB3/4 cable so I can pretend I live in a world where cables aren’t themselves computers and don’t have complicated sets of features they do or don’t support

Linus Tech Tips has done some good breakdowns of specific cables so far (with a multi thousand dollar testing rig). They're ramping up to do full testing of all types of cables.

You're right, lots of cables don't do what they say. And it isn't just Thunderbolt. It's HDMI, DisplayPort, USB3, etc. Lots of the HDMI 2.1 cables they tested can only do HDMI 2.0, for instance. Not an issue with Macs, but an issue for lots of Windows gaming rigs.

Exactly. A ~2x premium to make all of that Someone Else's Problem is worth it.

It's a 3x premium over the cables you'd possibly need to be concerned about. The $60 cables just work.

Hmm. My last engagement on this front was before TB4, seems like the situation has markedly improved!

The worst part of the new display is that the stand is integrated - you cannot change your mind after you buy it. So if you buy a fancy monitor arm a year after you got your Studio Display with a height-adjustable stand, you'll have to buy a new Studio Display, except this time with a VESA mount.

If you insist on getting a Studio Display, the best option to future-proof your purchase is to get the one with the VESA mount, because at least that way you can have a free choice of stands/arms.

That's a pretty mind boggling decision. These things live on your desk, adding a minuscule amount of bulk to support both mounts wouldn't hurt, and is one less SKU to manufacture..

Perhaps the intention is to get you in the door for $1600, but have the SKU most people wind up buying be $2000.

Indeed. I was actually about to buy one, they are within the same price realm as other good+ 5k monitors. I was reading through the stand offerings, debating between the height-adjustable or "not" (ie just the standard stand & most likely using my cheap monitor arm) -- then I realized/read the "integrated & can't be changed" and my mind was boggled. I abandoned at that point.

Not having the ability to remove the stand, like virtually all other monitors, is really just anti-customer IMO.

If I get the stand & later want to VESA-mount it, what, I have to sell the monitor to buy a VESA version?! Absurd & really disappointing, especially for a monitor product that otherwise seemed relatively well-positioned.

Much more interesting from a technical standpoint:

>how would you even top a single 432mm2 chip that’s already pushing the limits of manufacturability on TSMC’s N5 process?

By enabling the M1 Ultra’s two dies to transparently present themselves as a single GPU

It’s a problem that multiple companies have been working on for over a decade, and it would seem that Apple is charting new ground by being the first company to pull it off.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/17306/apple-announces-m1-ultr...

Yep, even the infinity fabric isn't "as good as" the Ultra inter-die connection.

AMD, Intel and others have been trying for a while, but so far I only know about Cerebras simply making a single-wafer "chip" to actually pull it off. Of course, that is completely impossible to do at scale, trashing an entire wafer is extremely expensive and not something you're going to do at a 100million+ device sales target.

I am super curious what the Asahi project and others are going to pull from underneath the marketing and macOS-visible parts, the M1 adventures alone were very interesting to follow.

Hector Martin is expecting only minimal changes to be needed for the M1 Ultra.

>Chances are our kernel will Just work on M1 Ultra with just device tree changes, might not even need any m1n1 changes.

https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1501271229763706882

I just remembered that they suspected this interconnect last year when they were probing AIC2 and found essentially a full unused half of the controller specifically designed for multi-die scenarios. Makes sense they can now enable that functionality with minimal changes.

Yeah, Apple's stuff is expensive. This is still alarming to someone? If you're looking for inexpensive, you don't go to Apple. That's not what they do, or have ever done.

It's not alarming, it's just an excuse for a clickbait title.

Yesterday that monitor didn't even existed. Today half of internet acts like life on Earth is impossible without it.

Isn't "half the internet acts...." the same sort of emotional appeal that click bait is?

> Yeah, Apple's stuff is expensive

I don't think that's the issue. If Apple just priced this monitor at $2.4k and it included the stand no one would have cared.

It comes with a regular stand, it's just not the height adjustable one.

Why does everyone think this thing doesn't have a stand? Does no one read the article?

I have zero problem with this. They designed a nice stand, it's expensive, so what? If you don't want to pay for it, just buy a VESA arm instead.

They also offer a VESA adapter instead of the stand, for the same price. That's great IMO, and a big improvement to previous Apple monitors where you had to buy the stand with the monitor and then spend an extra ~$50 for the VESA adapter.

On the other hand, it would be even better if they just built the VESA mount into the monitor itself like everyone else. I guess they just can't figure out a good way to cover the screw holes.

> I guess they just can't figure out a good way to cover the screw holes.

You can’t be serious?

I am serious. Apple has been selling ridiculous VESA adapters for a decade now, and most other manufacturers just build them into the monitors.

Literally the only reason I can think of for this is that they don't want unattractive screw holes in the monitors. Do you have a better explanation?

M O N E Y

When they offer the adapter as a free alternative to the stand?

Tell me, what are your options if you want height adjustable standalone monitor with ability to Vesa mount it if you want?

You know, features that every premium monitor on the market has.

Oh right, you have to buy height adjustable stand and Vesa adapter as well?

$600 extra

This was already a solved problem with the XDR. It can be swapped out for a VESA mount and stand, and the mechanism is very slick. I'm shocked they didn't just go with that since they already have the accessories.

If you use your own monitor arm, this is actually a decent price (just slightly high) for a high DPI monitor. There are damned few on the market.

The $400 stand is very expensive, but consider it like to popcorn at the theatre: it permits differential pricing.

What I do find absurd is that this appears to be the just-discontinued 27” iMac without the computer…and that was only $200 more!

(And don’t forget you have to supply your own polishing cloth too!)

The new and novel thing is that there is a $400 upsell at all. I believe all of the previous Apple displays (Pro XDR excluded) have only come with a fixed stand (though some could accept VESA mount adapters).

This comment section is the definition of Stockholm Syndrome, unyielding brand loyalty and sunk cost fallacy. Some people are ready to defend whatever outrageous decision Apple makes, yet if it were any other company they'd complain loudly. This is why Apple can offer such a service at ridiculous prices.

  Height (bottom position): 18.8 inches (47.9 cm)
  Height (top position): 23.0 inches (58.3 cm)

Top to bottom travel: 4.2 inches (10.4 cm)

Travel cost: 95.24 $/inch (38.46 $/cm)

Are there other expensive VESA compatible stands for monitors?

Personally, I prefer desk arms. They're easily portable to other locations, and give you a huge amount of flexibility for positioning your monitor exactly where you want it.

The free desk space below the monitor is just icing on the cake.

Yes, and plenty of cheap ones, too — you have a pretty good range based on features and looks. This kind of complaint is pretty predictable: most people who want one will drop $100 on a normal VESA stand or arm, but the Apple one is definitely competing with people who either want the matching designer image or simply aren't that price sensitive.

Here's an example of Herman Miller, which is definitely competing for the same kind of buyers with a $450 monitor arm:

https://www.hermanmiller.com/content/dam/hermanmiller/docume...

Now, they do at least discount that a bit so a good question is whether you'll see the Apple ones showing up at less than list price:

https://store.hermanmiller.com/office-furniture-desk-accesso...

Are these arms large/long enough to allow for a 27" to go portrait?

There are definitely arms available for almost any size or weight range you can imagine, but the heavier weight-rated ones tend to be pretty utilitarian since there's really no way around the physics of a weight on a lever arm.

I use the Knoll Sapper arms. They are fully articulated and rotatable. You can get them on eBay for not much if you lurk.

I prefer to put my monitor on top of my $500 hardcover set of TAOCP.

A proprietary tilt and height adjustable stand is usually included in the price…

Not sure about expensive but I do know there are a lot of cheap ones that you should be careful of, some say “height adjustable” but have a screw and hooks that you manually have to move. That could mean a monitor could get dropped or someone pinched during adjustment.

My kanto dms2000 is my favorite thing on my desk.

I looked at it, and seems nice, but I don't quite understand - did you have to drill the desk to install it?

I can recommend the Ergotron monitor arms.

Don't focus on the stand. Focus on the fact that this is a 60Hz, no mini-LED, no-HDR monitor for $1600.

Don't forget that the predecessor Mac-specific product, the LG UltraFine 5K, was only $1300 and included an adjustable stand that disconnected without any need to buy a specific VESA version or buy any sort of adapter.

They're showing clips of people producing video content on this monitor. Who is shopping in this budget range doing serious video work without wanting the ability to work with HDR video?

The Mac Studio is a decent value, but this product really isn't.

It seems to me that Apple designed this monitor for wealthy non-creators who want to sit on Zoom calls with a shiny metallic monitor that looks nice next to their Restoration Hardware dining room set. You can tell that's the case because that's where all the investment in features went: to the webcam, and to the speakers. What creative professional do you know that wants speakers in their monitor at all?

I'm going to buy this, once I've seen one in person. But as always I'm going to get a VESA mount version because every damn monitor vendor either ships a stand that is too short or one that is too expensive and inflexible and nothing between, Apple included. I'd rather use a third party Knoll one.

I think the unadjustable monitor stand is actually illegal to deploy in a workplace in many countries. Health and safety standards require monitors to be height and tilt adjustable in order to be ergonomic and not cause neck strain and other workplace injuries.

When something is ridiculously expensive, it’s usually because you’re not the target customer. I’m a programmer and my I’ve had hard times explaining to my wife why did I need a $300 keyboard. I guess no one here would complain about $300 mechanical keyboard.

I agree with your main point.

I'm a programmer using a $60 non-mechanical ergonomic keyboard. I would complain about a $300 mechanical keyboard. First when I pay for it, and again when I had to hear all that racket! :)

(I know in theory Cherry MX Clear/Brown are a bit quieter? But I'll stick to non-mechanical, low cost keyboards for now.)

I use Cherry Browns, and they are reasonably quiet. When I worked in a cubicle I had no complaints.

They have the ergonomics relevant to me: my finger joints were getting sore. I got the mech and trained myself to type without bottoming out the keys much, and that fixed it.

I would complain. I bought the cheapest mouse and keyboard. I don't need high-tech stuff for coding. But it's your choice, not mine.

I think a lot of programmers prefer not to use a mechanical keyboard.

I’m not an Apple apologist, I don’t even have an Apple monitor. My mantra for any monitor I would buy, including the ones I have now, is: if it doesn’t have a VESA mount and optionally the ability to purchase without a stand… then I don’t buy it.

I suggest people start doing the same. Proper monitor arms are usually around $100 (AUD) and better than almost all stands that come with almost all monitors on the market.

However egregious Apples or anyone else’s pricing for a stand becomes it literally doesn’t matter because you don’t buy it and use the VESA mount instead.

I'm not even that unusually tall and without investigating this even at all, I'm more than 50% confident that the height adjustment will still be a foot too short even on its highest setting.

The buyer for this is a rich person who doesn't like to tinker with computers. They walk into an Apple store and say, "I want the best."

Why the outrage? Apple is a designer brand. You are paying mainly for a new version itself, not its features.

Outrage leads to clicks leads to ad impressions leads to revenue. Standard operating procedure for websites that sell ad spots. Common formula is <big company> does this or that, even though it is not of consequence to anyone or noteworthy.

As someone who takes video conferences from my desk pretty often I would buy this monitor for the audio/camera (VESA mount version since I already have an ergotron for my monitor) but I don't think I can go back to non-high refresh rate monitor.

I feel like these monitors will depreciate in value much faster than their M1 chips. It feels like only yesterday, flat screen TVs were a few thousand dollars. Now, you can get a decent one for a few hundred.

Well, those ones you are talking about are ad-supported. I would not buy an ad-supported display at any price point, so a more reasonable comparison is the “commercial display” flat screens, which are still actually pretty expensive.

Not sure that is the case. Thunderbolt Displays, the previous equivalent, had extremely little depreciation over their life span—even when higher resolution monitors started to become mainstream. I suspect used versions of these monitors will retail near the new value for a long time.

> Thunderbolt Displays, the previous equivalent had extremely little depreciation over their life span

I recently bought one used. These things got manufactured from 2011 at a MSRP of 999$ IIRC and today still are worth 600€, excluding shipping, on ebay.

Maybe. The non-Retina Apple Cinema Display which I believe is over a decade old still sells for $200-300+ used. The Thunderbolt Display even more.

The 5k iMac came out in about 2015 and still no other company sells an equivalent 5k monitor other than the LG/Apple monitor.

there are 8k monitors out there

The only comparable monitor out there is the built monitor in the Surface Studio. I actually prefer it to the iMac since it has a bit more vertical space (4500x3000 vs 5120x2880). Unfortunately it's not available as a standalone display.

The LG 4/5K monitors from the 2015/16 era were this expensive

It's actually quite difficult (or impossible?) find to find a monitor similar to this.

- 27" - 5k - Thunderbolt with 96W power delivery - Webcam built-in - Functions as a USB-C hub

I have been looking for this exact monitor but gave up and went with a widescreen and a dock.

The only one would be the Ultrafine 5K (though this has poor availability at this point).

These cost $1500. In 2016, 5K monitors were... about $1300-$2000. There has not been much movement.

Don't really understand their engineering hype and price over that hinge. Seems worse than what the lamp iMac had but costs almost half the price of what the lamp iMac was.

What are the markets for such high priced monitors? Are they more color accurate, when properly calibrated? (though you can find cheaper monitors in the pro-color realm too)

I'd bet they completely overengineered it with something that feels smooth and has the right amount of friction and balance and has a ton of precise parts that drove the price up, and will probably wear out in a very unpleasant way within 4-6 years of purchase.

A premium screen with a 60hz refresh rate in 2022 is, frankly, ridiculous

Not for the intended audience. Pixel density > refresh rate outside of gaming.

Colors too. Maybe also dark black.

Sure it's not for gaming, otherwise there'd be questions about response time and such.

However, 60hz vs 100hz does make a noticeable difference for scrolling or 3D work or slow-mo video.

Even 90hz would be good enough of an improvement.

Edit: Oh i didn't mean reducing the PPI in favor of the refresh rate. I meant keeping the >4K and the PPI but pushing the refresh rate above 60hz.

Try 20hz for a bit and you might change your mind on "Pixel density > refresh rate outside of gaming".

It’s a Thunderbolt limitation at 5K.

https://www.datapro.net/techinfo/thunderbolt_info.html#q26

The limit is ~90hz, and they already have tech for pro motion (variable refresh rate) in macOS.

The video part of Thunderbolt 4 is based on DisplayPort 1.4, which is limited to 60Hz for 5K.

It’s 5K. My understanding is there isn’t enough bandwidth on a TB4 cable to do more than 5K @ 60hz.

Apple can put any price stick on their monitors, until enough idiots accept to buy them.

Making you pay for shit that should be free is basically Apple’s entire business model.

But we still do it. “Charge me harder, daddy. You know I like it when you make me pay.”

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