Thoughts on the Apple Studio Display

After having the Apple Studio Display on my desk for about a month and a half, I continue to be delighted with both it's form and function.

I had two large Dell monitors at my most recent corporate job that provided me with enough screen space to have reference material and project management apps open. At the same time, I did the bulk of my active work, mostly management reporting, performance reviews, Zoom or Teams meetings, and email, on the other. While the screen real estate was plentiful, the pixel density and overall image quality were subpar.

Now, my computing options are either an iPad Air or a MacBook Air, so while both have a high quality display, neither has much room to work with.

If, like me, you’ve recently read The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul, where the author shares the science behind why more screen space helps us remember more, you will know how important it is to have more room. I was already in the market for something bigger, but many options available didn't quite hit the mark in terms of build quality or style, so when the Studio Display was announced, I picked one up at my local Apple Store within a week.

The Studio Display offers me an outstanding balance of screen real estate and image quality, with a 5K native resolution display created in Apple's design language. As a result, I can have multiple apps open with plenty of room to breathe, and the image quality and brightness are excellent.

For my needs, I went with the standard glass display as my office doesn't have any glair issues. I'm also using the default stand, and it's working fine for the height of my workspace.

The speakers sound pretty good. I use AirPods for nearly all audio consumption, so i didn't need external speaker level quality.

I have not used the camera with its image quality issues, although I will try it out once the new firmware is out of beta. It's disappointing that a display of this quality and price shipped with an issue like that, and Apple needs to fix it. Apple knows how to do camera hardware and software properly, so I remain hopeful.

The Studio Display came in at the upper end of my budget. However, I'm comfortable with the price because I plan to use this display with either a MacBook in clamshell mode or a Mac Mini for some time to come.

Do you have the Studio Display? Let me know what you’re enjoying and where you think it doesn’t quite meet your expectations. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to work on cable management so my desk is tidy again.