The Studio Display: A Windows Lovers' Dilemma?

HDR is disappointing most mid to high-end monitors offer this now and you can see on my LG here for example how Mac OS actually smartly dims the UI around the HDR video however in its favor we do have those nice to haves like the great built-in camera mics and speakers plus it's a lot cheaper than the Pro but here's a question what if you want to use this with a non-Apple laptop I have my Dell XPS 13 hooked up here via Thunderbolt 4 and it works but there are a couple of issues so here's the setup and I've got the single cable which is very nice and it does support power delivery so it is charging my laptop but as you can see the brightnesses are a little bit different because while of course I can change the brightness with the keyboard here for the Dell display I can't actually do anything to adjust the brightness on the Studio Display because there are no buttons there is no on-screen display or anything I can mess around with in typical Apple form over function fashion and in the settings here I can only control the brightness of the laptop screen not the Studio Display so that's one limitation you are limited basically to the maximum brightness the good news though is that the webcam does work as you can see if I move around it doesn't support Center Stage that is a Mac exclusive feature but we still are getting that high-quality webcam up there including the microphones as well we don't get Spatial Audio Support for the speakers they sound great but know that Apple Exclusive Spatial Audio but that's still a nice feature so the Studio Monitor is fine as a second screen for a Windows laptop but it wouldn't be my first choice especially at this price really you do want to pair it with a Mac and also the fact that you won't have access to any firmware updates that may come through Mac OS when you're using a Windows device

If you are a regular on the channel you know that mainly I use this 38-inch LG Ultra Wide I've had this for about a year and so far I've not really been tempted to switch except for a short period when I used a 48-inch OLED TV I love this because well it's massive giving me plenty of room for two or three apps side by side it's also 21x10 not 21x9 which gives me that little bit extra vertical height and more screen space it's also color accurate with specific color profiles I can switch between and it's 144Hz and it supports G-Sync so it's great for gaming as well it also has terrific speakers Thunderbolt support and it costs about the same around $1500 however in favor of the Studio Display it is a lot sharper 218 PPI versus just 108 on the Ultra Wide even though it has a WQHD+ resolution and it's also a more manageable size for a home or office monitor plus the speakers are incredible the best on any display I've tested and we also have that camera which these days is actually pretty important so yes they are very different but they cost about the same and actually I've been using them both at the same time via Thunderbolt connected to the Mac Studio and it's been working really well

Final Thoughts

Should you actually buy this? Well honestly I think for most people no it's too expensive it is a lot cheaper than the Pro Display which most people don't really need but that does also get you a significantly better display in terms of contrast and HDR honestly I just think it's worth looking outside of Apple's shiny ecosystem for this one and buying a regular 27 or 32-inch 4K monitor plus a nice webcam as well and this will fully work with both Mac and Windows but if you do want the nice built-in webcam terrific speakers and a good 5K screen and money maybe is less of a problem then sure it is a lovely monitor just a lot of money come on also it's worth considering that we may see a Studio Display Pro or an updated Pro Display XDR in just a couple of months perhaps in June after WWDC where we may finally see that sort of high refresh rate promotion and a mini LED screen on a desktop display no doubt that will be a lot more expensive but if you are thinking about dropping $1500 or more if you want now texture and a height-adjustable stand then maybe it is worth waiting a little bit longer and also paying a bit more to get a super duper Pro Display XDR2 in a couple of months but what do you think are you tempted to buy this let me know what you make of the Studio Display in the comments below so I hope that was helpful and if you did enjoy the video a little like and subscribe would be very much appreciated and I'll see you next time right here on the Tech Chat

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enah far too close hey guys i'm thomas techchap and this is the new apple studio display it costs 1500 quid it is 27 inches it is 5k and it is very nice now i was actually going to start this video by using the new camera as you can see we have this 12 megapixel ultrawide camera at the top here which supports center stage so it actually keeps you in the frame but i have to say even with this decent lighting it is actually quite noisy so this has been recorded with the webcam up top you can see it's a little bit noisy i think the reason for that is it doesn't have the m1 chip like we see in the imac and on the macbooks um and so we haven't got that ai noise reduction obviously we've got the a13 chip in here which we'll come to in a second but it's not the best webcam they've ever made and obviously with that center stage if you've got a group of people it'll uh sort of widen it to get everyone in or if it's just you billy no mates it'll keep you central now with that apple a13 chip which is the same one used in the iphone 11 series i reckon this makes this the world's most powerful monitor and that helps power all the extra features like the center stage we get with webcam as well as spatial audio and even allows us to get future updates that might add even more features so the studio displays basically an imac but without the mac part there is no computer here it is simply just a display it's just one big glass panel with a slim symmetrical bezel underneath so actually unlike most displays there's no ugly protruding plastic edge on the back we have this single cable for the power which you can't actually remove alongside four usb-c ports although only one of these is thunderbolt 3. that's the one you'll want to use to connect to your mac or your macbook and it does also support 96 watt power delivery so you can charge your laptop whereas the other three usb c ports are a bit slower but really they're meant for connecting storage drives or charging peripherals and that is it there are no buttons no joysticks or on-screen display options here everything is controlled by your mac and as such there's also no physical way of disabling this webcam which i know some people do like to have now if i spin this towards the windows you'll see that while it does have an anti-reflective layer or coating it's not amazing although actually it's much better than some old macs and imax i'm not sort of staring at myself back all day as like a mirror but this also doesn't have the optional nano texture coating which i did have a play with on the more expensive apple pro display xdr and it's basically tiny micro etchings into the glass which helps scatter the light and therefore reducing reflections giving it a more matte finish if you are using this in a bright room or with windows directly behind it then yes i would definitely recommend paying the extra 250 to get that nano texture but for most people assuming you can control the lighting a little bit around you then it's probably not worth it but what i do have here is the height adjustable stand which bizarrely costs 400 pounds more than just the standard tilt adjustable stand it's kind of insane i mean i appreciate that unlike the flagship pro display xdr where you have to pay like a thousand pounds to get any kind of stand at all i do appreciate that we get at least a stand for no extra cost but simply adding this functionality is 400 pounds that is ridiculous and you can also visa mount it as well for free and apple showed off some fancy two and even three monitor setups in videos from their recent apple event which i'm definitely keen to try but however you set this up bear in mind you do only get a one meter thunderbolt cable with a studio display but if you want a 1.8 meter cable which i do and comes with the more expensive pro display xdr you'll have to pay an extra 125 pounds now right now i have this hooked up to the new mac studio via the thunderbolt cable but it will play nice with any recent macbook air pro or mac mini or anything like that so this studio display is the smaller slightly cut down and significantly cheaper version of apple's pro display xdr so in some ways they are very similar the sharpness the refresh rates optional extras but there are a couple of big differences and the main one i think is the fact the new studio display uses a single zone backlight versus 576 full array local dimming zones on the pro display which gives us much higher contrast whereas the studio's typical ips contrast can look a bit washed out in dark scenes and also at night i noticed some ips bleeding in the corners but actually slightly more unforgivable the studio display doesn't support any kind of hdr which for a 1500 pound monitor that's aimed at creators and semi-pros is just baffling the fancier xdr display gets dolby vision hdr 10 hlg the studio gets well nothing just 600 nits of sdr brightness to his credit though i did measure closer to 700 nits around 686 so it is still impressively bright and actually brighter than the xdr for non-hdr content but the lack of any kind of dedicated hdr is disappointing most mid to high-end monitors offer this now and you can see on my lg here for example how mac os actually smartly dims the ui around the hdr video however in its favor we do have those nice to haves like the great built-in camera mics and speakers plus it's a lot cheaper than the pro but here's a question what if you want to use this with a non-apple laptop i have my dell xps 13 hooked up here via thunderbolt 4 and it works but there are a couple of issues so here's the setup and i've got the single cable which is very nice and it does support power delivery so it is charging my laptop but as you can see the brightnesses are a little bit different because while of course i can change the brightness with the keyboard here for the dental display i can't actually do anything to adjust the brightness on the studio display because there are no buttons there is no on-screen display or anything i can mess around with in typical apple form over function fashion and in the settings here i can only control the brightness of the laptop screen not the steer display so that's one limitation you are limited basically to the maximum brightness the good news though is that the webcam does work as you can see if i move around it doesn't support center stage that is a mac exclusive feature but we still are getting that high quality webcam up there including the microphones as well we don't get spatial audio support for the speakers they sound great but know that apple exclusive spatial audio but that's still a nice feature so the studio monitor is fine as a second screen for a windows laptop but it wouldn't be my first choice especially at this price really you do want to pair it with a mac and also the fact that you won't have access to any firmware updates that may come through mac os when you're using a windows device now if you are a regular on the channel you know that mainly i use this a 38 inch lg ultra wide i've had this for about a year and so far i've not really been tempted to switch except for a short period when i used a 48 inch oled tv i love this because well it's massive giving me plenty of room for two or three apps side by side it's also 21x10 not 21x9 which gives me that little bit extra vertical height and more screen space it's also color accurate with specific color profiles i can switch between and it's 144 hertz and it supports g-sync so it's great for gaming as well it also has terrific speakers thunderbolt support and it costs about the same around 1500 quid however in favor of the studio display it is a lot sharper 218 ppi versus just 108 on the ultra wide even though it has a wqhd plus resolution and it's also a more manageable size for a home or office monitor plus the speakers are incredible the best on any display i've tested and we also have that camera which these days is actually pretty important so yes they are very different but they cost about the same and actually i've been using them both at the same time via thunderbolt connected to the mac studio and it's been working really well so final thoughts should you actually buy this well honestly i think for most people no it's too expensive it is a lot cheaper than the pro display which most people don't really need but that does also get you a significantly better display in terms of contrast and hdr honestly i just think it's worth looking outside of apple's shiny ecosystem for this one and buying a regular 27 or 32 inch 4k monitor plus a nice webcam as well and this will fully work with both mac and windows but if you do want the nice built-in webcam terrific speakers and a good 5k screen and money maybe is less of a problem then sure it is a lovely monitor just a lot of money come on also it's worth considering that we may see a studio display pro or a updated pro display xdr in just a couple of months perhaps in june after wwdc where we may finally see that sort of high refresh promotion and a mini led screen on a desktop display no doubt that will be a lot more expensive but if you are thinking about dropping 1500 quid or more if you want now texture and a height adjustable stand then maybe it is worth waiting a little bit longer and also paying a bit more to get a super duper pro display xdr2 in a couple of months but what do you think are you tempted to buy this let me know what you make of the studio display in the comments below so i hope that was helpful and if you did enjoy the video a little like and subscribe would be very much appreciated and i'll see you next time right here on the tech chatah far too close hey guys i'm thomas techchap and this is the new apple studio display it costs 1500 quid it is 27 inches it is 5k and it is very nice now i was actually going to start this video by using the new camera as you can see we have this 12 megapixel ultrawide camera at the top here which supports center stage so it actually keeps you in the frame but i have to say even with this decent lighting it is actually quite noisy so this has been recorded with the webcam up top you can see it's a little bit noisy i think the reason for that is it doesn't have the m1 chip like we see in the imac and on the macbooks um and so we haven't got that ai noise reduction obviously we've got the a13 chip in here which we'll come to in a second but it's not the best webcam they've ever made and obviously with that center stage if you've got a group of people it'll uh sort of widen it to get everyone in or if it's just you billy no mates it'll keep you central now with that apple a13 chip which is the same one used in the iphone 11 series i reckon this makes this the world's most powerful monitor and that helps power all the extra features like the center stage we get with webcam as well as spatial audio and even allows us to get future updates that might add even more features so the studio displays basically an imac but without the mac part there is no computer here it is simply just a display it's just one big glass panel with a slim symmetrical bezel underneath so actually unlike most displays there's no ugly protruding plastic edge on the back we have this single cable for the power which you can't actually remove alongside four usb-c ports although only one of these is thunderbolt 3. that's the one you'll want to use to connect to your mac or your macbook and it does also support 96 watt power delivery so you can charge your laptop whereas the other three usb c ports are a bit slower but really they're meant for connecting storage drives or charging peripherals and that is it there are no buttons no joysticks or on-screen display options here everything is controlled by your mac and as such there's also no physical way of disabling this webcam which i know some people do like to have now if i spin this towards the windows you'll see that while it does have an anti-reflective layer or coating it's not amazing although actually it's much better than some old macs and imax i'm not sort of staring at myself back all day as like a mirror but this also doesn't have the optional nano texture coating which i did have a play with on the more expensive apple pro display xdr and it's basically tiny micro etchings into the glass which helps scatter the light and therefore reducing reflections giving it a more matte finish if you are using this in a bright room or with windows directly behind it then yes i would definitely recommend paying the extra 250 to get that nano texture but for most people assuming you can control the lighting a little bit around you then it's probably not worth it but what i do have here is the height adjustable stand which bizarrely costs 400 pounds more than just the standard tilt adjustable stand it's kind of insane i mean i appreciate that unlike the flagship pro display xdr where you have to pay like a thousand pounds to get any kind of stand at all i do appreciate that we get at least a stand for no extra cost but simply adding this functionality is 400 pounds that is ridiculous and you can also visa mount it as well for free and apple showed off some fancy two and even three monitor setups in videos from their recent apple event which i'm definitely keen to try but however you set this up bear in mind you do only get a one meter thunderbolt cable with a studio display but if you want a 1.8 meter cable which i do and comes with the more expensive pro display xdr you'll have to pay an extra 125 pounds now right now i have this hooked up to the new mac studio via the thunderbolt cable but it will play nice with any recent macbook air pro or mac mini or anything like that so this studio display is the smaller slightly cut down and significantly cheaper version of apple's pro display xdr so in some ways they are very similar the sharpness the refresh rates optional extras but there are a couple of big differences and the main one i think is the fact the new studio display uses a single zone backlight versus 576 full array local dimming zones on the pro display which gives us much higher contrast whereas the studio's typical ips contrast can look a bit washed out in dark scenes and also at night i noticed some ips bleeding in the corners but actually slightly more unforgivable the studio display doesn't support any kind of hdr which for a 1500 pound monitor that's aimed at creators and semi-pros is just baffling the fancier xdr display gets dolby vision hdr 10 hlg the studio gets well nothing just 600 nits of sdr brightness to his credit though i did measure closer to 700 nits around 686 so it is still impressively bright and actually brighter than the xdr for non-hdr content but the lack of any kind of dedicated hdr is disappointing most mid to high-end monitors offer this now and you can see on my lg here for example how mac os actually smartly dims the ui around the hdr video however in its favor we do have those nice to haves like the great built-in camera mics and speakers plus it's a lot cheaper than the pro but here's a question what if you want to use this with a non-apple laptop i have my dell xps 13 hooked up here via thunderbolt 4 and it works but there are a couple of issues so here's the setup and i've got the single cable which is very nice and it does support power delivery so it is charging my laptop but as you can see the brightnesses are a little bit different because while of course i can change the brightness with the keyboard here for the dental display i can't actually do anything to adjust the brightness on the studio display because there are no buttons there is no on-screen display or anything i can mess around with in typical apple form over function fashion and in the settings here i can only control the brightness of the laptop screen not the steer display so that's one limitation you are limited basically to the maximum brightness the good news though is that the webcam does work as you can see if i move around it doesn't support center stage that is a mac exclusive feature but we still are getting that high quality webcam up there including the microphones as well we don't get spatial audio support for the speakers they sound great but know that apple exclusive spatial audio but that's still a nice feature so the studio monitor is fine as a second screen for a windows laptop but it wouldn't be my first choice especially at this price really you do want to pair it with a mac and also the fact that you won't have access to any firmware updates that may come through mac os when you're using a windows device now if you are a regular on the channel you know that mainly i use this a 38 inch lg ultra wide i've had this for about a year and so far i've not really been tempted to switch except for a short period when i used a 48 inch oled tv i love this because well it's massive giving me plenty of room for two or three apps side by side it's also 21x10 not 21x9 which gives me that little bit extra vertical height and more screen space it's also color accurate with specific color profiles i can switch between and it's 144 hertz and it supports g-sync so it's great for gaming as well it also has terrific speakers thunderbolt support and it costs about the same around 1500 quid however in favor of the studio display it is a lot sharper 218 ppi versus just 108 on the ultra wide even though it has a wqhd plus resolution and it's also a more manageable size for a home or office monitor plus the speakers are incredible the best on any display i've tested and we also have that camera which these days is actually pretty important so yes they are very different but they cost about the same and actually i've been using them both at the same time via thunderbolt connected to the mac studio and it's been working really well so final thoughts should you actually buy this well honestly i think for most people no it's too expensive it is a lot cheaper than the pro display which most people don't really need but that does also get you a significantly better display in terms of contrast and hdr honestly i just think it's worth looking outside of apple's shiny ecosystem for this one and buying a regular 27 or 32 inch 4k monitor plus a nice webcam as well and this will fully work with both mac and windows but if you do want the nice built-in webcam terrific speakers and a good 5k screen and money maybe is less of a problem then sure it is a lovely monitor just a lot of money come on also it's worth considering that we may see a studio display pro or a updated pro display xdr in just a couple of months perhaps in june after wwdc where we may finally see that sort of high refresh promotion and a mini led screen on a desktop display no doubt that will be a lot more expensive but if you are thinking about dropping 1500 quid or more if you want now texture and a height adjustable stand then maybe it is worth waiting a little bit longer and also paying a bit more to get a super duper pro display xdr2 in a couple of months but what do you think are you tempted to buy this let me know what you make of the studio display in the comments below so i hope that was helpful and if you did enjoy the video a little like and subscribe would be very much appreciated and i'll see you next time right here on the tech chat\n"