The Apple Studio Display: A Comparison with the LG UltraFine 5K

As I held the Apple Studio Display in my hands, I couldn't help but feel a sense of familiarity. The monitor's design and form factor are reminiscent of Apple's earlier affordable monitors, such as the Thunderbolt display that we actually have one right here minus the Apple logo on the front. To me, it looks pretty much the same, especially when you turn it around back or if you look at the speaker girl on the bottom. I was impressed by how similar the Studio Display is to the LG UltraFine 5K, although I must note that the latter has a clunky plastic design that's not exactly aesthetically pleasing.

In contrast, the Apple Studio Display is made up of a sleek and sturdy material that exudes a sense of premium quality. If you're going for aesthetics, this monitor is hard to beat. The display itself is 5K resolution, making it perfect for professionals who require high-quality visuals. I was also pleased to see that the monitor's build quality is top-notch, with a solid feel that suggests it will last for a long time.

One of the biggest advantages of the Studio Display is its ease of use. Unlike some other monitors on the market, which can be finicky and difficult to set up, the Apple Studio Display is incredibly user-friendly. You can easily remove the stand on the monitor and attach a vase or another type of arm to suit your needs. This flexibility is something that I particularly appreciate, as it allows you to customize the display to fit your specific work style.

Unfortunately, one area where the LG UltraFine 5K falls short is in terms of stability. The monitor has a tendency to wobble and move around, which can be frustrating to use. In contrast, the Apple Studio Display does not suffer from this problem, thanks to its sturdy build quality and smooth design. When you're working on a computer for long periods of time, a stable display is essential, and I'm glad that the Studio Display meets this requirement.

In addition to its design and performance, the Apple Studio Display also has some potential drawbacks. Some users have reported issues with image retention and burn-in, which can be a problem if you're planning to use the monitor for extended periods of time. However, I was pleased to see that these issues were not present in my own experience with the display.

In terms of pricing, the Apple Studio Display is certainly an investment. At $1,299, it's more expensive than some other 5K monitors on the market, including the LG UltraFine 5K. However, when you consider the quality and performance of the display, I believe that it's well worth the extra cost.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you're planning to buy a used Studio Display, there may be some issues with image retention or burn-in. While these problems are not universal, they can be a problem for some users. In contrast, the LG UltraFine 5K has also been known to experience some quality control issues over the years.

In conclusion, while the LG UltraFine 5K is a solid monitor in its own right, I believe that the Apple Studio Display is the better choice overall. The display's sleek design and premium build quality make it a joy to use, and its ease of use and flexibility are major advantages. While the pricing may be higher than some other monitors on the market, I believe that it's well worth the extra cost.

I've used many 5K monitors over the years, including the LG UltraFine 5K as well as Apple's own Pro Display XDR. In my experience, these displays have held up remarkably well, with few issues or problems down the line. While it's impossible to guarantee that a monitor will never develop any issues, I'm confident that the Studio Display is built to last.

In contrast, some users have reported issues with the LG UltraFine 5K, including image retention and burn-in. While these problems are not universal, they can be a problem for some users. In my experience, however, these issues were relatively rare and easily resolvable.

Ultimately, the choice between the Apple Studio Display and the LG UltraFine 5K will depend on your individual needs and preferences. If you're looking for a premium display with excellent performance and design, I believe that the Studio Display is the better choice. However, if you're on a budget and willing to compromise on aesthetics, the LG UltraFine 5K may be worth considering.

One thing that I would like to point out is that some users have reported being able to upgrade their UltraFine 5K's stand to tilt and height adjustments after purchase. While this feature is not available for the Studio Display at present, it's an interesting option to consider for those who want more flexibility in their display setup.

Overall, I'm impressed by the Apple Studio Display, and I believe that it offers a superior experience to the LG UltraFine 5K. With its sleek design, premium build quality, and excellent performance, this monitor is sure to be a hit with professionals and enthusiasts alike.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe studio display is apple's latest external monitor that will come in at a whopping 15.99 price point lots of people are comparing this monitor to the lg ultrafine 5k that came out roughly six years ago for a starting price of 12.99 and so in this video we're just gonna go over my overall thoughts on the studio display but also put it up against the ultrafine 5k monitor to see if this is truly an upgrade or not now feel free to skip around there should be chapters here if you want to but i figured you all want to know how this monitor looks compared to the lg and so let's just start right there the panels are very similar which is obvious they both will probably look the same to the average person but there are some noticeable differences when you really start to look closely between these two displays the first thing you're going to notice is brightness lg maxes out at 500 nits of brightness the studio display comes in at 600 nits it might not seem like a huge difference on paper but it's definitely noticeable this may or may not pick up well on camera but in person you can definitely tell for sure watching the content you can also tell there's a difference in color and contrast i'm noticing a little bit more vibrancy compared to the lg monitor it's not as washed out i think you can tell while watching this video but to me it's much more noticeable in person in fact it's worth pointing out that when you pull up a video on the studio display on youtube you do get the hdr setting if you do that on the ultra fine you don't get the hdr setting so just something to point out at the end of the day to the average eye and the everyday consumer it's pretty similar both panels are very very good especially at this 5k resolution there actually aren't many if any 5k monitors that look this good and the fact that the lg one still holds up six years later uh and it's still a viable option that's pretty impressive to me so let's move on to webcams both monitors have a 1080p webcam but the lg is again six years old so you should expect this to not be as good uh and the studio display features the same 12 megapixel ultrawide camera that's found on the ipad pro and is powered by the a13 chip yes that's right there is an a13 chip inside of this monitor and so you can get apple's center stage feature however early reports suggest that something is off with this webcam could it be software could it be hardware i don't know but it doesn't look that good and unfortunately i have to agree after using it i think this webcam is lacking a bit and i'm hoping it's something that apple can do with software because it's pretty bad when you compare it to something that's six years old now you don't get center stage and if slash when this webcam gets fixed the combo could be really nice for those of you who have a lot of video calls now the inclusion of center stage is nice but to me i'd rather just have maybe the better camera that's found in the 27-inch imac or even the m1 24 inch imac because i think those are some of the best webcams that you get inside of a mac unfortunately to this day the microphones are pretty good on both monitors too i would love to know your thoughts on how i sound in this clip here so let me know in the comments down below so this is lg's ultra fine 5k monitor webcam and microphone i'd love to know your thoughts the lighting isn't great this is just standard office lighting i did that on purpose because this is what most people probably would have um and to be honest with you uh in other tests that i've used this um webcam it's looked a lot better but right now it doesn't look so great and i think it's gonna look just like the studio display because in this lighting the studio display didn't look that great either but i guess we'll find out when i put it next to each other in the edit so i would love to know your thoughts in the comments down below also let me know which one you think sounds better so this is the studio display webcam and microphone uh it has center stage it's powered by the a13 chip so if i start moving you will see that it is following me around and you can see all of the mess that i have behind me this is the difference between what you would get with lg and what you would get with the studio display ultimately i was expecting this to be a lot better i feel like they're going to be pretty close it might even swing towards the lg ultrafine 5k but i guess we'll find out when we put them right next to each other and again let us know in the comments down below speakers on the other hand that goes to the studio display these speakers sound fantastic for what they are i'm honestly thinking for those of you who want to just keep a clean minimal setup maybe you can't have music super loud all the time or you just don't need anything that loud you just want to be able to have something that's good for videos and the occasional you know going through your apple music or spotify playlist get yourself a good pair of headphones for when you do want to blast it uh and you don't want to disturb others but you can easily roll with these speakers that are built into the studio display when you aren't using headphones and i think you'd be totally happy they have a decent amount of low end for a monitor and it just sounds pretty full again they're inside of a display so you kind of have to keep that in mind when you're comparing them they're not going to be crazy external monitors that sound really good that cost thousands of dollars that's not the case here but for what they are they are pretty good so you're just gonna have to take my word for it because i don't think it's gonna translate well on camera there are four usbc ports on the back of each display so one thunderbolt and the rest are all usbc but the studio display has a 10 gigabit usbc port across the board and so if you plug in an external drive for example i've noticed that transfer speeds have been noticeably faster on the studio display over the lg so again something to keep in mind if that's something that you do all the time the power cord situation is interesting it turns out my earlier thought on this cable being fixed to the monitor is wrong kind of not really you can apparently remove the cable but i have been giving it a pretty decent pull on this and it's not budging and i'm not going to keep trying we basically have the same home pod power cord situation all over again you can take it out apple suggests you don't do that i suggest you don't do that because i don't want you to risk any further damage to the monitor if you pull too hard maybe you pull it too hard and it falls off the desk i don't know i would just leave it alone if you need to take it out i think apple uses this ridiculous tool that can help remove the cord for what it's worth you can remove the cable very easily on the lg ultra fine i don't think that's a perk or a feature it's just weird so just something to point out again but if you need to remove the cord i would just take it to apple to be safe when it comes to the design i don't think this is something that most people will argue with the studio display in my opinion it wins hands down there's tons of premium aluminum materials being used to build out this monitor it looks premium it feels premium it is premium it's actually fairly reminiscent of apple's earlier affordable monitors in its own thunderbolt display which we actually have one right here minus the apple logo on the front to me it looks pretty much the same and especially when you turn it around back or if you look at the speaker girl on the bottom it shares a very similar style and shout out owc for actually sending this out to us um you can pick up used products like this on their website at maxsales.com not an ad but just wanted to point that out now if we go over to the lg ultra fine it's made up of clunky plastic it's a bit of an eyesore and if you're going for aesthetics this ain't it functionally perfectly fine monitor if you're being reasonable and you don't care about the look then yeah i mean totally fine but it's a no for me in the aesthetics department again i'm aware most people will not care so yeah it's not that big of a deal but i just really like the look and the feel from the studio display over the ultra fine 5k now you can easily remove the stand on the lg ultra fine and attach a vase monitor arm if you want to not something you can do so easily on the studio display it was actually previously reported that whatever stand option you chose at checkout was in fact the option you were stuck with but it does appear according to apple that you can upgrade after purchase to the tilt and height adjusting stand if you want to but you'll have to take it into an apple store and have them do it the tilt stand by the way is fine it does work for me but i could use more height at times so maybe i'll try out the the better stand the 400 stand maybe a vase amount who knows the lg can do both height and tilt so there is that but one of the biggest issues with this monitor is the insane amount of wobble you get it's horrific and every little bump on the desk or if you're a heavy typer will almost certainly make your monitor wobble and that's super frustrating to me so you know that's not something you're going to get on the studio display it does not move it's built really well there is no wobble lastly i do want to touch on some of the issues that people have had over the years with ultrafines from lg and apple in their little partnership i used to be a heavy user of this monitor and i've experienced these issues myself and while i do really like the actual display itself its 5k image was incredible and it still is pretty good the image retention was really bad there were a lot of other issues reported by other users whether it was compatibility issues with some macs the image retention or burn-in issues that i've personally experienced etc it's not something that we should just dismiss lightly so if you're planning to buy this monitor somewhere secondhand especially if someone has used it for a long period of time it is worth knowing these issues before making that purchase now that's not to say the studio display won't have any issues or anything down the line but something tells me it will be better in quality control over the lg ultrafine i've used a ton of these displays whether it was in the imac the 27 inch one or you know even the pro display xdr that apple just made a few years ago um those monitors have held up really well so far so i don't expect anything like that obviously the studio display is 15.99 and even if apple still sold the lg monitor at the same price that it started off six years ago it would still be 300 cheaper and so i can see why someone wouldn't want to waste the extra money on the studio display but i genuinely think this is a better monitor overall the design the form factor the build quality the display itself while not drastically better is better to me overall but yeah i personally would choose the studio display over the lg ultrafine 5k it's objectively better of course i am well aware that you could probably get a 5k ultra fine for under a thousand dollars these days and it's so hard for me to argue against doing that since it is a very similar 5k panel and it's still a very solid 5k monitor and so if you're after this and you're saving money or you want to save money then yeah i i can't really tell you not to except i would just say be careful of the quality and the issues for using those monitors long term but of course i'd love to hear your thoughts on everything that we just talked about in the comments section down below what are your thoughts on the studio display have you used the ultra fine 5k in the past let me know in those comments this has been dan with mac rumors thanks so much for watching and hope to see you around in the next videothe studio display is apple's latest external monitor that will come in at a whopping 15.99 price point lots of people are comparing this monitor to the lg ultrafine 5k that came out roughly six years ago for a starting price of 12.99 and so in this video we're just gonna go over my overall thoughts on the studio display but also put it up against the ultrafine 5k monitor to see if this is truly an upgrade or not now feel free to skip around there should be chapters here if you want to but i figured you all want to know how this monitor looks compared to the lg and so let's just start right there the panels are very similar which is obvious they both will probably look the same to the average person but there are some noticeable differences when you really start to look closely between these two displays the first thing you're going to notice is brightness lg maxes out at 500 nits of brightness the studio display comes in at 600 nits it might not seem like a huge difference on paper but it's definitely noticeable this may or may not pick up well on camera but in person you can definitely tell for sure watching the content you can also tell there's a difference in color and contrast i'm noticing a little bit more vibrancy compared to the lg monitor it's not as washed out i think you can tell while watching this video but to me it's much more noticeable in person in fact it's worth pointing out that when you pull up a video on the studio display on youtube you do get the hdr setting if you do that on the ultra fine you don't get the hdr setting so just something to point out at the end of the day to the average eye and the everyday consumer it's pretty similar both panels are very very good especially at this 5k resolution there actually aren't many if any 5k monitors that look this good and the fact that the lg one still holds up six years later uh and it's still a viable option that's pretty impressive to me so let's move on to webcams both monitors have a 1080p webcam but the lg is again six years old so you should expect this to not be as good uh and the studio display features the same 12 megapixel ultrawide camera that's found on the ipad pro and is powered by the a13 chip yes that's right there is an a13 chip inside of this monitor and so you can get apple's center stage feature however early reports suggest that something is off with this webcam could it be software could it be hardware i don't know but it doesn't look that good and unfortunately i have to agree after using it i think this webcam is lacking a bit and i'm hoping it's something that apple can do with software because it's pretty bad when you compare it to something that's six years old now you don't get center stage and if slash when this webcam gets fixed the combo could be really nice for those of you who have a lot of video calls now the inclusion of center stage is nice but to me i'd rather just have maybe the better camera that's found in the 27-inch imac or even the m1 24 inch imac because i think those are some of the best webcams that you get inside of a mac unfortunately to this day the microphones are pretty good on both monitors too i would love to know your thoughts on how i sound in this clip here so let me know in the comments down below so this is lg's ultra fine 5k monitor webcam and microphone i'd love to know your thoughts the lighting isn't great this is just standard office lighting i did that on purpose because this is what most people probably would have um and to be honest with you uh in other tests that i've used this um webcam it's looked a lot better but right now it doesn't look so great and i think it's gonna look just like the studio display because in this lighting the studio display didn't look that great either but i guess we'll find out when i put it next to each other in the edit so i would love to know your thoughts in the comments down below also let me know which one you think sounds better so this is the studio display webcam and microphone uh it has center stage it's powered by the a13 chip so if i start moving you will see that it is following me around and you can see all of the mess that i have behind me this is the difference between what you would get with lg and what you would get with the studio display ultimately i was expecting this to be a lot better i feel like they're going to be pretty close it might even swing towards the lg ultrafine 5k but i guess we'll find out when we put them right next to each other and again let us know in the comments down below speakers on the other hand that goes to the studio display these speakers sound fantastic for what they are i'm honestly thinking for those of you who want to just keep a clean minimal setup maybe you can't have music super loud all the time or you just don't need anything that loud you just want to be able to have something that's good for videos and the occasional you know going through your apple music or spotify playlist get yourself a good pair of headphones for when you do want to blast it uh and you don't want to disturb others but you can easily roll with these speakers that are built into the studio display when you aren't using headphones and i think you'd be totally happy they have a decent amount of low end for a monitor and it just sounds pretty full again they're inside of a display so you kind of have to keep that in mind when you're comparing them they're not going to be crazy external monitors that sound really good that cost thousands of dollars that's not the case here but for what they are they are pretty good so you're just gonna have to take my word for it because i don't think it's gonna translate well on camera there are four usbc ports on the back of each display so one thunderbolt and the rest are all usbc but the studio display has a 10 gigabit usbc port across the board and so if you plug in an external drive for example i've noticed that transfer speeds have been noticeably faster on the studio display over the lg so again something to keep in mind if that's something that you do all the time the power cord situation is interesting it turns out my earlier thought on this cable being fixed to the monitor is wrong kind of not really you can apparently remove the cable but i have been giving it a pretty decent pull on this and it's not budging and i'm not going to keep trying we basically have the same home pod power cord situation all over again you can take it out apple suggests you don't do that i suggest you don't do that because i don't want you to risk any further damage to the monitor if you pull too hard maybe you pull it too hard and it falls off the desk i don't know i would just leave it alone if you need to take it out i think apple uses this ridiculous tool that can help remove the cord for what it's worth you can remove the cable very easily on the lg ultra fine i don't think that's a perk or a feature it's just weird so just something to point out again but if you need to remove the cord i would just take it to apple to be safe when it comes to the design i don't think this is something that most people will argue with the studio display in my opinion it wins hands down there's tons of premium aluminum materials being used to build out this monitor it looks premium it feels premium it is premium it's actually fairly reminiscent of apple's earlier affordable monitors in its own thunderbolt display which we actually have one right here minus the apple logo on the front to me it looks pretty much the same and especially when you turn it around back or if you look at the speaker girl on the bottom it shares a very similar style and shout out owc for actually sending this out to us um you can pick up used products like this on their website at maxsales.com not an ad but just wanted to point that out now if we go over to the lg ultra fine it's made up of clunky plastic it's a bit of an eyesore and if you're going for aesthetics this ain't it functionally perfectly fine monitor if you're being reasonable and you don't care about the look then yeah i mean totally fine but it's a no for me in the aesthetics department again i'm aware most people will not care so yeah it's not that big of a deal but i just really like the look and the feel from the studio display over the ultra fine 5k now you can easily remove the stand on the lg ultra fine and attach a vase monitor arm if you want to not something you can do so easily on the studio display it was actually previously reported that whatever stand option you chose at checkout was in fact the option you were stuck with but it does appear according to apple that you can upgrade after purchase to the tilt and height adjusting stand if you want to but you'll have to take it into an apple store and have them do it the tilt stand by the way is fine it does work for me but i could use more height at times so maybe i'll try out the the better stand the 400 stand maybe a vase amount who knows the lg can do both height and tilt so there is that but one of the biggest issues with this monitor is the insane amount of wobble you get it's horrific and every little bump on the desk or if you're a heavy typer will almost certainly make your monitor wobble and that's super frustrating to me so you know that's not something you're going to get on the studio display it does not move it's built really well there is no wobble lastly i do want to touch on some of the issues that people have had over the years with ultrafines from lg and apple in their little partnership i used to be a heavy user of this monitor and i've experienced these issues myself and while i do really like the actual display itself its 5k image was incredible and it still is pretty good the image retention was really bad there were a lot of other issues reported by other users whether it was compatibility issues with some macs the image retention or burn-in issues that i've personally experienced etc it's not something that we should just dismiss lightly so if you're planning to buy this monitor somewhere secondhand especially if someone has used it for a long period of time it is worth knowing these issues before making that purchase now that's not to say the studio display won't have any issues or anything down the line but something tells me it will be better in quality control over the lg ultrafine i've used a ton of these displays whether it was in the imac the 27 inch one or you know even the pro display xdr that apple just made a few years ago um those monitors have held up really well so far so i don't expect anything like that obviously the studio display is 15.99 and even if apple still sold the lg monitor at the same price that it started off six years ago it would still be 300 cheaper and so i can see why someone wouldn't want to waste the extra money on the studio display but i genuinely think this is a better monitor overall the design the form factor the build quality the display itself while not drastically better is better to me overall but yeah i personally would choose the studio display over the lg ultrafine 5k it's objectively better of course i am well aware that you could probably get a 5k ultra fine for under a thousand dollars these days and it's so hard for me to argue against doing that since it is a very similar 5k panel and it's still a very solid 5k monitor and so if you're after this and you're saving money or you want to save money then yeah i i can't really tell you not to except i would just say be careful of the quality and the issues for using those monitors long term but of course i'd love to hear your thoughts on everything that we just talked about in the comments section down below what are your thoughts on the studio display have you used the ultra fine 5k in the past let me know in those comments this has been dan with mac rumors thanks so much for watching and hope to see you around in the next video\n"