Apple Studio Display and Studio Display XDR
apple.com
apple.com
OLED smartphones have much higher ppi to deal with this.
https://www.tomshardware.com/monitors/lg-display-reveals-wor...
Not anymore, as long as you make sure that any RGB antialiasing is turned off. Linux defaluts to disabling this and doing only grayscale antialiasing, so it looks great on an OLED out of the box. Windows can be configured to do this.
And somehow they completely forgot how to seamlessly work with displays in general. Connect multiple displays via Thunderbolt? Nope. Keep layouts when switching displays? No. Running any display at more than 60Hz? No. Remember monitor positions? No.
There are even 240Hz displays.
IIRC Apple couldn't get above 60Hz even on third-party displays they explicitly advertised.
Make sure your dock, dongle, and/or cables aren’t bottlenecks.
I've switched docks, dongles, cables, to no avail.
Support also varies a lot between M chips, and Thunderbolt often doesn't support high refresh rates https://support.apple.com/en-us/101571
I can't remember now the actual setup I had, sadly
Both of my LG ultrawides work at 144Hz?
At the time, people were "marveling" at the magic of Apple, and wondering how they did the math to make that display work within bandwidth constraints.
The simple answer was "by completely fucking with DP 1.4 DSC".
I had at the time a 2019 (cheesegrater) Mac Pro. I had two Asus 27" 4K HDR 144Hz monitors, that the Mac had no problems driving under Catalina.
Install Big Sur. Nope. With the monitors advertising DP 1.4, my options were SDR@95Hz, HDR@60Hz. I wasn't the only one, hundreds of people complaining, different monitors, cards, cables.
I could downgrade to Catalina: HDR@144Hz sprung back to life.
Hell, I could on the monitors tell them to advertise DP 1.2 support, which actually improved performance, and I think I got SDR@120Hz, HDR@95Hz (IIRC).
So you don't deserve downvotes on this. Apple absolutely ignored standards and broke functionality for third party screens just to get the Pro Display XDR (which, ironically, I own, although now it's being driven by an M2 Studio, versus the space heater that was the Xeon cheesegrater).
Why can't it be something simple?
Because monitors aren't simple. There are dozens of axes along which they can be scaled.
They have resolution (1080p FHD, 1440p QHD, 4K, 5K, 6K, 8K), aspect ratio (16:9, 8:5, 4:3, 3:2, 21:9, 32:9), refresh rate (60 Hz, 75 Hz, 120 Hz, 144 Hz, 165 Hz, 240 Hz, 360 Hz, 480 Hz, 1 kHz, and of course adaptive refresh rate tech including G-Sync), colour quality (depth and accuracy), contrast ratios for HDR, panel technology (LCD-TN, LCD-IPS, LCD-VA, OLED, QD-OLED, WOLED, and now RGB stripe OLED), backlight technology (CCFL, edge-lit LED, miniLED, microLED), connectivity (HDMI/DP, USB-B, USB-C, DP alt mode, Thunderbolt, 3.5 mm, and KVMs).
It's very hard to stuff all this information in one neat model number.
On the consumer's part it makes sense to understand these features and what is necessary for one's use case, filter monitors by said features, and note down the model numbers that satisfy the requirements.
I just saw a brand new display for 70 bucks at a store the other day; the margins must be extremely low.
There are only ~5 flat-panel manufacturers worldwide: AU Optronics, Innolux, LG Display, Samsung Display, Sharp Display, and recently BOE Display. Apple has to use one of these, even for its bespoke, notched, curved iPhone/iPad displays.
This new 5K 2304-zone panel was developed by LG Display, and is not 'generic white-labelled slop' by any means. It is an extremely good panel in its own right, probably the bleeding edge of LCD technology today achieving top-notch responsiveness, contrast, and colour depth and accuracy.
That MSI monitor will probably retail for ~£800 as will the Asus and LG equivalents, which is not a trivial amount for a monitor. Apple just marked it up 3×, as they are prone to do for anything.
Back in the day (~15 years ago), when 4K monitors were unheard of and even Apple's high-end displays were still 1440p, you could get a bottom-dollar monitor using one of their panels (e.g. Yamakasi Catleap Q270) for about a third of the price. However, it came with no amenities, a single connector (dual-link DVI only), a questionably legal power cable, and no built-in scaling. The vendors, presumably to prevent refunds, even asked for your graphics card model before selling it to you, because it wouldn't work with low-end cards. Oh, and there were very few in the U.S., so you were typically getting them shipped straight from abroad, customs duties and all.
We've definitely come a long way.
After a few years, the "cheap ones" have usually caught up, if you're willing to do the research.
These days they still value software at $0 but the specs have become quite competitive and many times exceed what the rest of the market offers.
Whereas with their laptops and almost everything else you might as well wait if you can, next year's is gonna be better and/or cheaper.
MSI - 1400 nits, LG - 1250 nits, Apple - 2000 nits. That's peak brightness, standard brightness isn't even mentioned, except for Apple one. Is it just cooling or something more?
[1] https://www.ipsmonitor.com/news/msis-mpg-271kraw16-is-a-firs...
Sadly, it basically never happened. There was the LG display that came out a couple of years later. It didn't have great reviews, and it was like two thirds the cost of an entire 5k iMac.
It took Apple over 7 years to release their standalone 5k display, and there are a few other true 5k displays (1440p screen real estate with quadruple-resolution, not the ultrawide 2160p displays branded as "5k") on the market now with prices just starting to drop below 1,000 USD.
Unfortunately in that time I've gotten used to the screen real estate of the ultrawide 1440p monitors (which are now ubiquitous, and hitting ridiculous sub-$300 prices). As of now, my perfect display for office work (gaming, video/photo work, or heavy media playback are different topics) would be 21:9 with 1440p screen real estate with quadruple-resolution—essentially just a wider version of that original 5k iMac display.
You get what you pay for with ASUS.
These brands all have glowing fans online pushing their products(the flamewars about ASUS made me even hesitate to comment) but they burn their reputations customer by customer and I guess enough have been burned that Apple is able to maintain enough sales.
Since about six months ago, 4th quarter of 2025.
I haven't got one yet, but it has the magic Mac 218 dpi for $1289
A decade later, it boggles my mind that it's so hard to find a retina-class desktop monitor. The successor to the Cinema Display is basically an iMac, and priced like it. There have very recently been releases from ASUS and BenQ, but it still feels like an underserved niche, rather than standard expectation.
All that is to say: hard cosign.
Only thing that holds back that thought lately is, I'm suddenly spending more and more time in multi-pane terminals, and my screen real estate needs have dropped. The only two things I greatly miss now on my laptop is keyboard quality and general comfort (monitor height, etc).
Both Windows and Linux (Wayland) support scaling the UI itself, and with their support for sub-pixel anti-aliasing (that macOS also lacks) this makes text look a lot more crisp.
I use a Mac with a monitor with these specs (a Dell of some kind, I don't know the model number off the top of my head), at 150% scaling, and it's not blurry at all.
This would've been easily solved with non-integer scaling, if Apple had implemented that.
(I now use a combo of 4K TV 48" from ~1.5-2 metres back as well as a 4K 27" screen from 1 m away, depending on which room I want to work in. Angular resolution works out similarly (115 pixels per degree).)
Some indie Mac developers even started implementing support for it in anticipation of it being officially enabled. The code was present in 10.4 through 10.6 and possibly later, although not enabled by default. Apple gave up on the idea sadly and integer scaling is where we are.
Here’s a developer blog from 2006 playing with it:
> https://redsweater.com/blog/223/resolution-independent-fever
There was even documentation for getting ready to support resolution independence on Apple’s developer portal at one stage, but I sadly can’t find it today.
Here’s a news post from all the way back in 2004 discussing the in development feature in Mac OS tiger:
> https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/45544/mac-os-x-ti...
Lots of of folks (myself included!) in the Mac software world were really excited for it back then. It would have permitted you to scale the UI to totally arbitrary sizes while maintaining sharpness etc.
Once you get used to flicking in and out of zoom instead of leaning into the monitor it’s great.
As an aside, Windows and Linux share this property too nowadays. Using the screen magnifiers is equally pleasant on any of these OSes. I game on Linux these days and the magnifier there even works within games.
> (I now use a combo of 4K TV 48" from ~1.5-2 metres back as well as a 4K 27" screen from 1 m away, depending on which room I want to work in. Angular resolution works out similarly (115 pixels per degree).)
The TV is likely a healthier distance to keep your eyes focused on all day regardless, but were glasses not an option?
4K pixels is not enough at 27" for Retina scaling.
Apple uses 5K panels in their 27" displays for this reason.
There are several very good 27" 5K monitors on the market now around $700 to $800. Not as cheap as the 4K monitors but you have to pay for the pixel density.
There are also driver boards that let you convert 27" 5K iMacs into external monitors. I don't recommend this lightly because it's not an easy mod but it's within reason for the motivated Hacker News audience.
I removed all the computing hardware but kept the Apple power supply, instead of using the cheapo one that came with the LCD driver board I bought. I was able to find the PWM specs for the panel, and installed a cheap PWM module with its own frequency & duty-cycle display to drive it and control brightness.
The result is my daily desktop monitor. Spent way too much time on it, but it works great!
Meanwhile in Linux the scaling is generally good, but occasionally I'll run into some UI element that doesn't scale properly, or some application that has a tiny mouse cursor.
And then Windows has serious problems with old apps - blurry as hell with a high DPI display.
Subpixel antialiasing isn't something I miss on macOS because it seems pointless at these resolutions [0]. And I don't think it would work with OLED anyway because the subpixels are arranged differently than a typical conventional LCD.
[0] I remember being excited by ClearType on Windows back in the day, and I did notice a difference. But there's no way I'd be able to discern it on a high DPI display; the conventional antialiasing macOS does is enough.
Fonts on Linux (KDE Plasma on Wayland) look noticeably sharper than the Mac. I don't use subpixel rendering either. I hate that I have to use the Mac for work.
I'm personally on the old 30" 16:10 2560x1600 form factor, and it's wildly better visually than the 27" 1440p screen by the same brand (all of them Dell) I use at the office.
I think the largest I would want at my current desk is 27". 30 is way too big for me. But more importantly I want something that matches the crispness of the MBP display, and 1440p and 1600p are too low res.
I sorta wish that form factor had taken off instead of 27" 1440p. The extra vertical space is really nice, and that seems to be the ideal PPI for 100% scaling IMHO.
I keep telling myself I'd like to get a 4K OLED display at the same PPI, but 40" seems to be conspicuously missing in every monitor lineup... at least at a price that will convince me to buy three of them, anyway.
I have an 24" 4K Dell I bought when big 4k screen with good (measured) colors were still expensive. It's a very pleasant screen to use. Sure, it has less real estate than a bigger one, but this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that I can keep it closer to my eyes, so I can use smaller text.
I find it makes me more "focused" in a way. Can't have multiple windowfuls of crap visible at the same time. It's very practical for TWMs. It also works well in a dual screen scenario, for stronger separation when you need it, but I'm still not sure if a single bigger screen is better than two smaller ones for things like having docs up next to code for example.
I find I can't use two 27" or higher screens, they're just too big and I need to turn my head way too much for comfort. At work we have a 2x27" 4k setup, and I basically only use the screen in front of me. Later I've been experimenting with pushing them very far away, but then I just need to increase text size and lose actual real estate.
> but that just seems ridiculously small considering how available larger displays are for the same ppi and refresh rate probably
I don't particularly care about refresh rates above 60 Hz (my laptop does 120 Hz, can see the difference, don't care). But I do care about PPI. Which screens are easily available with the PPI of a 4K 24"? I'd expect something like 5k 27" or 6k 32". These are very expensive (>1000 € for a crappy 27" Samsung, 2000 for a 32" Dell) and not that common, at least in France.
I feel basically the same way, and I don't like excessively wide screens or even 16:9. I've always preferred 16:10, and have wavered between 1,2,3 screens over time. 16:9 27" 1440p is not a pleasant form factor, but it's fine in vertical mode.
I tend to prefer PPI, but not at the cost of screen real estate, and I tend to prefer 120hz, but not at the cost of PPI or picture quality. So the Dell Ultrasharp 30" series from years ago, with IPS 60hz and 2560x1600 is perfect for now, and it also lets me run games without investing substantially in brand new gaming PC hardware. The picture quality is great, the price on the used market is great, screen real estate is great, it's just not as sharp or fast as my Mac screen.
I've got my eyes on 32" 6k displays, but since they're so ungodly expensive, I'd really prefer them to have 120hz and good HDR, even though they're not priority attributes for me. I'd keep one of the 30" displays next to it in vertical mode for documentation or log files
Or more precisely, I noticed it eventually as a result of my being primed to notice it after people on this site insisted that GTK cannot handle fractional scaling factors.
Compared to the contents of a browser's viewport, Emacs and the apps that come with Gnome are visually simple, so it took me a year or 2 to notice (even on a standard 110-DPI monitor used at 150% and 175% scaling) any blurriness in those apps since the app I'm most conditioned to notice blurriness is my browser, and Chrome's viewport is resolution independent except when rendering certain image formats -- text is always non-blurry.
Yes, Chrome's entire window can be quite blurry if Xwayland is involved, but it now talks to Wayland by default and for years before that could be configured to talk Wayland, so I don't consider that worth talking about. If Xwayland is not involved, the contents of Chrome's viewport is non-blurry at all scaling factors except for the PNGs, JPGs, etc. For a long time, when run at a fractional scaling factor under Gnome (and configured to talk Wayland) the only part of Hacker News that was blurry was the "Y" logo in the top left corner, then about 2 years ago, that logo's PNG file was replaced with an SVG file and the final bit of blurriness on HN went away.
FWIW, I'm using a 184 DPI monitor with 150% scaling.
> you might not notice the blurriness. [...]
> Compared to the contents of a browser's viewport, Emacs and the apps that come with Gnome are visually simple, so it took me a year or 2 to notice
I'm pretty sensitive to font rendering issues—to the point where I've complained to publishers about their PDFs having unhinted fonts—so I think that I would have noticed it, but if it's really as subtle as you say, then maybe I haven't.
I do have a somewhat unusual setup though: I'm currently using
$ gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer','xwayland-native-scaling']"
MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland
GDK_BACKEND=wayland,x11,*
CLUTTER_BACKEND=gdk,wayland
SDL_VIDEODRIVER=wayland
SDL_VIDEO_DRIVER=wayland
ECORE_EVAS_ENGINE=wayland_egl
ELM_ENGINE=wayland_egl
QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=1
QT_ENABLE_HIGHDPI_SCALING=1
> Yes, Chrome's entire window can be quite blurry if Xwayland is involved, but it now talks to Wayland by default
Ah, good to hear that that's finally the default; that probably means that I can safely remove my custom wrapper scripts that forced those flags on.
That seems weird to me. I remember 20 years ago one of the whole points of macOS version 10 was display PDF, i.e. a vector based UI.
Quartz Extreme?
John Siracusa, Ars Technica:
It's possible that existing consumer video cards could be coerced into doing efficient vector drawing in hardware. Apple tried to do just that in Tiger [note], but then had to back off at the last minute and disable the feature in the shipping version of the OS. It remains disabled to this day.
[note] https://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/14
I got a deal on a used one last year and I love it. It's the only monitor I've used plugged into a MacBook that didn't look notably off (worse) compared to the MacBook's display sitting next to it. Only thing a bit jarring is it's 60Hz but I can live with it.
Asus has picked up the 5k 27" monitor from LG, it's the $730 PA27JCV
I constantly see people saying Apple displays are a terrible value. Last Apple display I had was the Thunderbolt 27 but from now on I'm sticking with Apple.
I've had nothing but issues with non-Apple monitors as well. Customer service ime is non-existent if you need a repair. For something I rely on to get work done, I'm starting to think the premium is worth it.
I have an ASUS ProArt Display 27” 5K. And I somewhat regret it.
I love the pixel density. But I don’t love the matte finish. Which is apparently a controversial take. But I really don’t. I like the crisp pop of typography you get with a glossy display. And, for UI design, the matte finish just doesn’t “feel” like the average end-user experience. I am constantly pushing Figma between my laptop display and my monitor to better simulate what a design will look like on an average glossy LCD or OLED display.
For me though, I am frequently working in different rooms with arbitrary lighting situations. Net effect of the gloss is negative for me unquestionably.
I used to daily drive an apple thunderbolt display (the last non-retina one, 2560x1440). That thing was atrocious. I could often see the reflections of my glasses, or a white glare if I was wearing a white shirt. At nigh, in a dark office (lights off, just whatever came in from the street).
I'm typing this on a matte "ips black" dell ultrasharp something-or-other at 10% brightness, wearing glasses, a white t-shirt, with an overhead light, and see no reflection or glare on my screen. There's no way in hell I'd go back to a shiny screen.
I understand "anti-glare" technology has improved. The most recent apple screen I've tested is an m1 mbp. It seems somewhat better than my 2013 mbp, but still a worse experience than my 2015 (or thereabouts) 24"@4k dell, which is pretty old technology. My 2025 lenovo has a screen that's much more confortable to use inside.
Paradoxically, I'd say the one environment where I prefer my macs to my matte screens is in bright sunlight. Sure, there are more reflections than you can shake a stick at, but there's always an angle where you can see the part of the screen you want. You have to move around, which is obviously annoying, but you can see. The matte screens just turn to mush. Luckily for me, I hate being out in the sun, so I never encounter this situation in practice.
I think the "frost" you're talking about depends a lot on the screen implementation. I tested once an HP model, 27"@4k, and it did have such an effect. Anecdotally, it didn't handle reflections all that well, either. So maybe it's just a question of lower quality product?
I presume you also mean "when used for text heavy work" here, yes? Or do you mean that these displays tire out your eyes even when used "for what they're for", i.e. gaming? (Because that's a very interesting assertion if so, and I'd like to go into depth about it.)
Edge use case I know.
Here’s some monitors you can buy at that price point:
- 6k 32” monitor (similar PPI) (Acer PE320QX)
- most high-end 4k displays (even OLEDs) with 144hz+ refresh rate
32” 4k isn’t great PPI, but it’s still fine PPI, at a reasonable distance. Double the refresh rate is a much more noticeable improvement to me than 40% better pixel density, at a distance where retina matters a bit less than laptops & handhelds. And you can get that for less than half the cost
Plus, you can get it with multiple outputs & KVM to switch between MacBook & PC. And still run it off a single USB C cable.
120 Hz can also noticeably improve frame pacing for 24p video*.
120 Hz vs 144 Hz? Barely noticeable when flipping between the two. Not sure if I'd pass an ABX test with 100% accuracy.
Can't speak for 240 Hz or higher, as I haven't used them.
* Though 119.88 Hz is probably a better default for this since most non-DCI "24p" video is still 23.976 FPS; this is changing, but until browsers and streaming apps support VRR for video, I'm not convinced this is a good thing due to the mountain of legacy 23.976 FPS content.
It's night and day when you're going back and forth between looking at them and wiggle your mouse around in circle. But after a few seconds of being focused on your work, you're not thinking about it anymore.
Being able to watch 24fps video without non-integer frame weirdness is the only real advantage outside of twitch-reaction gaming.
especially noticeable with typing. and scrolling.
Only when looking at demo pages to show off high refresh rates can I tell.
Though what I do notice is replacing the mouse with a higher polling rate from 125Hz to 250Hz.
Usually these exists only to bump the price of the pro model.
I personally wouldn’t buy a new LCD based display anymore at this price. There are flaws inherent to the technology that affect all of my recent Apple displays (Studio Display, M1 Pro iPad, M1 Pro MPB, M4 Pro MPB). After using OLED TVs and OLED iPhones for years, it’s very difficult to look past LCD’s issues (edge yellowing+dimming specifically affects all my Apple screens more than I am happy with).
There are no reviews/studies on long-term aging of Apple’s LCD displays, so all of this should be taken with a grain of salt, maybe my devices are just unlucky.
I don’t know if the Pro XDR line is better or how that would carry over to the Studio XDR. I haven’t seen many complains about the Pro XDR, but the Studio Display form factor has a different cooling design which would affect longevity.
I will say I can never go back from retina resolution text, and that alone has made the experience of Studio Display good. If we could get OLED it would be perfection. I think I would have to see the XDR in practice to be convinced, but 120hz requiring a whole new computer does make it a non-starter for me.
> A US Department of Energy paper shows that the expected lifespans of OLED lighting products goes down with increasing brightness, with an expected lifespan of 40,000 hours at 25% brightness, or 10,000 hours at 100% brightness
Plus, coding at night on OLED just makes me want to write more code. It's great.
23 years for an older generation OLED seems fine to me, I don't understand the problem here?
[1] https://youtu.be/H43wnV-v7V0
[2] https://youtu.be/RbEgQrigiLc
[3] https://youtu.be/AZfwHcMLorY
In my case, 3205 hours of use:
- 428 pixel cleans
- 1/3 brightness (my room is pretty dim and I often code during the night)
- static control on
- pixel shift on
- apl low
- sub-logo dim on
- corner dim on.
During the day I am not able to see any burn in. During the night it's unnoticeable unless you're looking for it. And it's only visible on gray backgrounds, unnoticeable during normal use. My phone (Nothing Phone 2) fails to capture it no matter how hard I try (even during the night).
The only issue I had was at 2417 hours and it was vertical white stripes like this: [4] but they were completely gone after a manual pixel clean. No issues since. I am never going back, worth every penny I spent.
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/1gyv1db/fo32u2_ve...
> You’re babying it with low brightness
That's the same brightness I was using on my IPS. And if you watched the videos then you'd know that those people use OLEDs at "almost max brightness" and see no burn in.
> dynamic dimming
Such features are unnoticeable during normal use and most of them are defaults.
> the fact that there’s anything, even if you have to “look for it”
Again, this is only noticeable if your room is completely black and you're staring at gray content.
To counter your argument, you have a much worse backlight bleeding on IPS, which is very but very visible during normal use. To quote you: "the fact that there's anything, is not a good sign".
It's weird how you call OLEDs bad but completely forget about IPS downsides, and I'm not gonna even start on VA.
At the current state, OLED wins.
Adding one more reference, here is a recent post to /r/monitors showing burn-in after 2 years of constant use: https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/1pf0tmi/here_is_m...
And as a personal anecdote, I've experienced burn-in on my pixel 3a after 2 years. When switching to a full-screen solid grey, you could clearly see the bottom button bar with the home/back buttons.
Debatable, it's not what those content creators say, and I definitely wouldn't call it alarming if it requires you to stare at gray background in a dark room. It isn't even half as bad as IPS backlight bleeding or VA angles. Different people have different standards. You don't have to buy it if you don't like it.
> Adding one more reference, here is a recent post to /r/monitors showing burn-in after 2 years of constant use
Pixel clean cannot run if the monitor is constantly receiving signal.
Also show me an IPS after 2 years of constant use. The backlight can degrade as well.
[edit] Furthermore, 3 year warranty covers your burn in, so I guess they would happily replace your monitor once the burn in normally visible. [/edit]
> Get back to us about your burn-in after 8.6 more years.
Feel free to ping my email (@gmail.com) at that time.
> I've experienced burn-in on my pixel 3a after 2 years
2019. My Nothing Phone 2 is from 2023. I've been having it for 1y 8mo+ and experienced zero burn in on the same gray test. For reference, I don't use automatic brightness and it's almost full-brightness all-day (except evenings).
Quoting one of your videos: "After 21 months, seeing these artifacts is certainly annoying". If I spend $3k on a monitor, it should _not_ be annoying after 2 years.
Also "If your primary monitor use case is productivity, you likely have up to 3 years of decent usage under normal conditions before burn-in starts to become a concern". I almost exclusively use my monitor for productivity, and it definitely needs to last more than 3 years.
> Pixel clean cannot run if the monitor is constantly receiving signal.
True, but pixel clean works by burning-in the rest of your (sub)pixels so that they are evenly burned. Therefore what you are seeing in that photo is permanent degradation of those (sub)pixels. The clean will smooth it out so it doesn't look bad, but those pixels will never be as bright again. That portion of their life is spent. It is an unavoidable part of how OLED works.
I agree that emissive displays are the future. But OLED is not the way to get there.
Why are you insisting to spend 3k? I've already said that 1k is enough. Also he said "but generally speaking it hasn't been a noticeable problem in most tasks". In the same productivity scenario, with a gray background, IPS backlight bleeding would've been even worse (unless you win the lottery and there's little to no bleeding). RTings showed this on many monitors (unfortunately they paywalled everything due to AI [1]).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DshOOs39vA
> It is an unavoidable part of how OLED works.
True.
> OLED is not the way to get there.
I'm not a screen scientist so I'll refrain from making a statement like this. I don't have anything to add. I guess we'll see how it pans out in the future.
Edit: I bought my FO32U2P mostly to reduce eye strain. 4k 240hz with nice colors is also a very neat upgrade.
I bought my OLED TV when fearmongering was the highest, and it still works perfectly with zero burn-ins. So it is definitely possible. I bought the tv 8 years ago.
In the 7 years since they’ve gotten better, with micro lens arrays and stuff to improve brightness without heat causing faster decay.
RTINGs has some great content on TV longevity, but I haven’t seen anything for monitor workloads.
The implementation is great, since it doesn't add fix up profile on top factory calibration, but actually fully replaces factory calibration internal LUT. It worked wonders to completely fix my M1 MBP screen that got noticeably tinted over time. I don't mind brightness reduction since I almost never use it at more than 200 nits, usually around 100. Nominal 1600 leaves lots of buffer for decay over time.
I've had similar issue my OLED TV with the same fix. Got my LG C1 calibrated as well and it looks fantastic again.
It's a shame there are no iOS or Android phones that support calibration out of the box. Some iPads support subset of pro display calibration software (called fine tune calibration), but still lack full recalibration support.
> Mac models with M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra, M2, and M3 support Studio Display XDR at up to 60Hz. All other Studio Display XDR features are supported.
Also the base M4 doesn’t habe Thunderbolt 5 and it support 120 hz.
Can you point me to said list? All I could find was:
> Mac models with M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra, M2, and M3 support Studio Display XDR at up to 60Hz. All other Studio Display XDR features are supported.
And The Verge reports:
> There’s also support for adaptive sync that can adjust between 47Hz and 120Hz (if it’s connected to an M4 Mac or later, or the M5 iPad Pro)
I got an M3 Max and was strongly considering upgrading my old monitor, but if I can't do 120hz, I'll just wait until I upgrade my laptop as well.
I had no idea what it was for the longest time. As it turns out, macOS frequently enables it even when it’s unnecessary, and without any way to override.
Dell U4025QW: 5120 x 2160 = 11,059,200 vs Apple Studio Display XDR: 5120 x 2880 = 14,745,600
So your display has 25% less pixels.
There’s no list per-se. The MacBook Pro (2021 and later) is listed as supported. The M3 Pro and M3 Max are not listed as only supporting 60Hz while the M3 and M1 Pro are.
(Notice how they listed the M1 chips individually.)
Also works great with other sources like an Xbox
I used a Pro Display XDR as my daily driver at work and the difference is minimal
Nano texture in mixed lighting scenarios is worth every penny even on a lower resolution and lower refresh rate panel.
Also the non-XDR is only a small upgrade otherwise, no 120Hz, no HDR, only Thunderbolt 5 and a new camera. Finally a downstream Thunderbolt port though.
This is all after 4 years?
The camera is still 12MP but offers Desk View. Maybe this is a feature unlocked by the improved onboard A-series chip (A19?).
I wouldn't sniff too hard about Thunderbolt 5. Thunderbolt 5 doubles throughput to 80 Gbps from 40.
Would have loved refresh above 60Hz but then who's gonna get the XDR?
just buy a nice one on amazon for $100, it's still VESA mounts
[1] https://store.hermanmiller.com/home-desk-accessories/jarvis-...
- Design Patterns by the Gang of Four
- Modern C++ Design by Andrei Alexandrescu
- Code Complete from the Microsoft Press
That's enough old paper to raise the display height to a comfortable level.
- 5k resolution at HIDPI (27inch)
- 120hz refresh rate
- TB5 and single cable connectivity.
There are a couple of other HIDPI displays at 5k with 120hz refresh rate but they don't do TB5.
As the years have gone, the only upgrade I wished to have was 120 refresh for some very limited design work - but 120 really is still not widely adopted in most places anywhere, so it’s really a non-issue for me.
The new XDR is smaller, has a less ergo stand, and also loses the beautiful lattice etchings on the rear which I often admire.
The XDR was overdue for a refresh, it’s nice the price dropped some, but I won’t be upgrading for now.
But even so, these 2 new monitors still don’t support multiple inputs.
I guess we're going to see how the support for DP Alt-Mode will be, as I'm not sure how much bandwidth that can provide, so 120Hz might be out of the question. But for now that has been a simple way to get around the lack of multiple display inputs, you just needed a separate KVM switch for it.
It looks like a nice display, but that’s a deal killer for me.
No Mac today supports 6k 10-bit @ 120Hz because the DisplayPort 2.1 standard can't handle it uncompressed and that's the best Macs offer. HDMI 2.2 just came out last year and would likely be able to handle it over a TB5 cable, but again, no hardware support.
So say that Apple did update the Pro Display XDR, what would it have exactly? More dimming zones for sure, the new Studio XDR has 4x the dimming zones. But they are clearly not confident in OLED tech for standalone monitors yet, so no OLED.
Anyway, their updated XDR would be shipping with the same ol' 60Hz. Reviewers and social media and tech nerds would rip them to shreds, it'd be a PR clownshow. I can already see the "Apple really expects us to pay $7k for a 60Hz monitor in 2026" viral posts.
And Apple being Apple would never explain why a monitor is lacking a feature like 120Hz, because it would mean acknowledging people had higher expectations. So we get an expensive 5k 120Hz monitor instead.
The sort of “visual impact” a screen can have is mostly a combination of what percentage of your FOV it consumes.
People think they’ve got a bunch of screen real estate when they buy a big TV to use as a monitor… and then they use it a twice or more the distance of a regular monitor.
People who want a Studio Display want retina crispness. If you enjoy a 42" 4k, you're more concerned with real estate than image fidelity.
I'm happy with a 65" 4K TV in my living room, but a 4K 27" monitor is borderline too low-res for computer work. Same pixel count, but different use cases.
Especially nice in a small apartment where I use the same display for video, gaming, and desktop.
No USB-C, but HDMI works better for long cable runs anyway, so I can keep my (non-laptop) computers in the other room and just "dock" my wireless input devices to a USB-C charger as needed.
Thunderbolt would be even worse, as even if I could somehow get Thunderbolt out of an Nvidia GPU, I'm not aware of any devices that would allow switching between multiple Thunderbolt inputs, and 4 sufficiently long optical Thunderbolt cables would probably cost more than the display itself.
As for crisp text, I'll replace it with a 120 Hz 8K display in a few years if the price is right. In the mean time, I value screen real estate far higher (and dislike multi-monitor setups).
$1,500 Studio Display
$3,300 Studio Display XDR <-- NEW
$6,000 Pro Display <-- DISCONTINUED ???
EDIT: It appears the Pro Display has been discontinued.
Which means they don't have a 32" display option if true.
Maybe it will also be updated, but on a different day this week?
I recall the XDR being announced alongside the last Mac Pro redesign. No new Mac Pro yet, so maybe they’ll announce the new large display whenever that is announced?
”Studio Display XDR replaces Pro Display XDR and starts at $3,299 (U.S.) and $3,199 (U.S.) for education.”
The Studio Display XDR seems nice, but I wish they would have kept a 32" option.
So targeting checkbox-compliance for places like hospital systems is probably an easy win to generating / keeping some long term contracts.
https://www.monitors.com/products/jvc-cl-s500-rn?variant=427...
$3300 for a 27" display is ridiculous in comparison.
(Acknowledging that the link I provided is for a pair of monitors, but also those monitors are half price because they're refurbished)
Can you recommend any displays with PPI and brightness equivalent to the studio display, with 120Hz+ refresh rates? I was waiting for this announcement to buy a studio display because I thought they might bring 120Hz to the base model, but $3300 is a lot to spend on a single display. I have an original studio display and a high refresh rate 4K OLED monitor, and they are both compromises unfortunately.
I haven't found a glossy competitor, or even one with the same HDR spec, but this is the closest I could find so far.
Entirely unsurprised that someone would refuse to give up their workflow, though! I've rarely found a user with specific needs who wants to change literally anything else about their system, since what they have works for them.
I thought it was weird they spent so much money on Apple hardware when most of what we sold was servers that would be hidden anyway. But they do like OsiriX; once a solution is established in those fields, they stick with it, very conservative professions obviously...
How does a 5k display replace a 6k display? Are they giving up on 6k? Disappointing.
On the other hand this is the company that sells a Mac Pro for $7k and it comes with an M2-based chip...
The 6k XDR has been replaced, apparently they've got something coming for the Mac Pro. I don't know why it wasn't the Mac Studio update last year. Maybe we find out at WWDC this year.
I know I'm privileged but my biggest issue with them isn't the HDR or 120Hz. It's that the seam between them causes me to not be able to use that "middle" real estate.
So I was side-eyeing a 6k display cuz it would have most of the benefits of a dual 4k but more real estate and more flexibility in windowing.
The curved displays also look quite promising (like the Neo G2), but not feeling like spending money when I have two perfectly good monitors that already work.
https://www.samsung.com/us/monitors/gaming/57-odyssey-neo-g9...
Available July 2026 - calling it now.
Really glad Apple is building it.
That is not extensive connectivity. That’s the bare minimum one might credibly expect.
If I were to consider buying a display like this, I would want at least two and preferably more inputs and at least a DisplayPort input. Not everything in the world is USB-C, especially when discrete GPUs are involved.
What are people's current favorites for a 5K 27" screen that doesn't cost as much as a whole damned computer?
Also JapanNext offers a 6k screen for <$1000, but it hasn't started shipping yet to my knowledge
It had some coil whine initially but that has gone. There's a load of nonsense software in it but I just have it disconnected from the internet and only use it as a monitor. The web cam is not useful but I don't use that either.
This was a couple of years ago - I think that there are a lot more options available now?
Text is very crisp at this DPI. The built in thunderbolt dock works reliably.
It is annoying how the cables stick down on the bottom of the monitors. A few right angle adapters helps with that.
You haven't had problems, and would buy it again?
Edit: Also consider the price of speakers, camera, hub, power, and the "it just works" factor.
Most modern usb-c / tb seem to come in an integrated "dock" which provides power. But many provide a laughably low number.
Also, for some reason, many come with external power bricks for some reason, which are a special kind of PITA with their short, permanently attached cords.
It's now vastly cheaper to buy a Mac and a 27" Studio Display XDR than it is to buy a single 21" DICOM display for your clinic. Heck, it's not much more expensive to buy two SD XDRs than to buy one standard DICOM display.
I have the last-gen Studio Display, pretty great during the day (the nano-texture is astonishing), but just looks like trash at night when the backlight overwhelms the blacks.
My guess was that the “Studio Display 2” would introduce Mini-LED, and then a “Pro Display 2” would have the high-refresh and maybe 32". Wake me up in five years, I guess.
- the new 5k XDR has 4x as many dimming zones so it would objectively look better than the old XDR
- not sure what the market for used 6k XDRs is like, but there's a good chance you'd be paying new 5k XDR monitor price for an old 6k XDR used monitor
Did I miss something
There’s a few reasons why.
1. Non integer scaling sucks on Linux. It sucks on all OSs, but it’s just unusable on Linux IMO.
2. Text antialiasing sucks for most OSs except Microsoft ClearType, but I hate Windows.
I currently use an old LG UltraFine 5k. It’s physically cracking / falling apart and has atrocious burn in. I tried replacing it with a Dell 32” 6k monitor. The stupid matte coating on it and seemingly all other high DPI screens is so, so bad.
I just want glossy 5k at 120Hz with decent build quality and color accuracy.
I don’t even like the fact it’s mini LED. Blooming is pretty awful on those things. I hope there’s a way to turn it off.
So yes, I bought a $3,500 monitor to read text because no one else can seem to do it even remotely acceptably.
Im also considering purchasing one of these for codework.
Probably not worth the hassle, but I wish there was literally any other display manufacturer out there with premium build quality.
Sure, most of the time the cable seems secure enough to maintain connection when I accidentally nudge the laptop. But every once in a while, when I slightly shift the laptop here or there, flicker and everything goes batshit. The monitor loses connection, so maybe (depending on config) the laptop screen changes resolution and then eventually reconnects and flickers and changes back. Or the network drops out (if I'm connected to Ethernet over Thunderbolt). Or a program freaks out because the drive it was using disappeared. Or the laptop really freaks out and kernel panics.
Like I said, it doesn't happen a ton, but it's happened a handful of times over the years, just enough that now I always use an external mouse and keyboard with a docked laptop to avoid such nonsense.
Off topic, but Apple seems to be dropping hardware costs / capability - relying more in subscription, app store, and cloud now? On an impulse buy, I bought the entry level MacBook Air at Best Buy about two months ago because it was $200 off list price. Amazingly capable laptop for $800.
I think it's kind of weird that they didn't just do two size options with similar specs.
I was heartbroken all of the flat panel normal aspect monitors in that family since have had other severe tradeoffs and it's only the curved ultrawides that were given the better specs.
My father-in-law is a monitor engineer. He is insanely gifted. We were in a Taiwanese factory together years ago and I asked him what it would cost to build the Pro Display XDR today. I will never forget his answer…
“We can’t, we don’t know how to do it.”
“A lot less than you paid for it.”
Loved the extra screen real estate of the 30" ACD and it's a beautifully designed product that I enjoyed having on my desk.
In its last year or two the backlight wear started to result in colors to become uneven. Blues were less vibrant and reds had tint issues.
Was also difficult to justify the power draw, it had a 150w power supply.
I said about two years back I’d wait to upgrade my 1080p monitor until Apple shipped a high refresh rate one. I knew the monkey’s paw would curl but at nearly $5000 CAD that’s a hard no.
Having a display that "just works" is worth a lot, in my opinion.
But it’s the same pixel density.
I have a iMac 5k that I want to replace with a Mac mini or Studio, but monitors for Mac's are difficult since you need 5k at 27" or even 6k at 32" to keep th pixel density and then they aren't many options.
It's getting better, but prices are very high and a big issue with the 5k 27" monitors is that they are stuck at 60hz, Apple announced an approved offering here, but it's very expensive for the XDR and ideally I'd like to upgrade to 6k at 32" and have 120hz but that just seems unobtainable at the moment.
Using OLED directly in names works because OLED panels inherently have common features like blacks, contrast, and lack of blooming over other panel types. They can have other aspects added in (e.g. tandem OLED or the like) but by saying it's OLED you include these base things without needing a unique term.
Saying other panels are LCD tells you next to nothing as there are so many types which can be paired in so many ways which can all have completely different characteristics. It's not a conspiracy to hide the truth that people must only want OLED displays, it's an attempt to say something rather than nothing in the name of the monitor so you know what it actually is beyond "not an OLED".
If it were about trying to hide something the subhead wouldn't say mini-LED.
Doesn't help much because LCDs getting significantly brighter than OLEDs is normal.
> XDR stands for "Extreme Dynamic Range" - not sure how that's misleading or why sticking "LCD" into the title helps anyone figure out what the features of the panel are as most LCDs have awful range
The dynamic range of this LCD is still not necessarily higher than of an OLED because dynamic range depends both on maximal and minimal brightness. So "extreme dynamic range" is highly uninformative, while "OLED" or "LCD with local dimming", or something like that, wouldn't be.
XDR is simply a marketing term. Apple is doing the same thing here as TV manufacturers who come up with ever new fantasy acronyms.
The point isn't it's brighter than OLEDs specifically, that's just why it can't have been OLED, the point is it's significantly brighter than normal LCD monitors which are usually <=500 nits.
> The dynamic range of this LCD is still not necessarily higher than of an OLED because dynamic range depends both on maximal and minimal brightness. So "extreme dynamic range" is highly uninformative, while "OLED" or "LCD with local dimming", or something like that, wouldn't be.
But the dynamic range is actually significantly wider. It goes from a few nits to 2,000 nits peak/1,000 nits sustained full screen. That OLED goes from 0 nits to ~1,000 nits peak/~400 nits sustained full screen on panels of this size makes the contrast much higher, not the range.
> XDR is simply a marketing term. Apple is doing the same thing here as TV manufacturers who come up with ever new fantasy acronyms.
Well of course it's a marketing term. That isn't the same thing as being meaningless or hiding that it's an LCD. It's literally marketing the main feature.