> Agree with you. But in my case I use a MBP as a desktop 80% of the time so wanted a zero hassle monitor that will charge my MBP and take over some of the ancillary functions built into the laptop. It does that perfectly so I bought one and I love it already.
Sounds like the old Apple Thunderbolt Display... which is built a lot simpler than the new model. Basically it's nothing more [1] than a PSU and a TB controller exposing eDP to the panel and PCI Express to deal with network, firewire, USB and audio. Dead simple.
The new one just reeks of needless over-engineering, similar to the Lightning-to-HDMI adapter [2]. Why the fuck does a monitor need an embedded OS?!
> The price is high but it's not unreasonable for the overall quality and it comes with decent service and support unlike all other vendors in the UK which hire third party repairers who are hell to deal with.
Oh yeah, that's a scourge on the industry and not exclusive to the UK. I had the "pleasure" of dealing with a carrier-bought Samsung tablet which as it turns out had a broken screen which made its bootloader refuse to boot. At the last second I read the T&C of the repair shop the carrier had contracted with, which stated that device erasure was mandatory which also meant I'd lose all content on the encrypted SD card. Had them bail out on literally the last second and send them back the device, so I could do the repair myself - at my own expense, to add insult to injury.
[1]: https://de.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Thunderbolt+Display+Tea...
[2]: https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/accessories/apple-lightning-av...