Yesterday afternoon UPS delivered my new Apple Studio Display. I had ordered it the week before, on the same day that it was announced at the Apple Event on Tuesday, March 8th.
My purpose in writing this review is to share with you my first impressions of the Studio Display. There are already several comprehensive articles discussing all of the technical aspects of the Display, so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel by covering all of that information again. I’d suggest the excellent review articles by Jason Snell and Roman Loyola
I’ll cover some broader impressions, but I’ll go into some detail on how I connected the Studio Display to my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode. Perhaps a description of what I did may help a reader to do so.
MacBook Pro in Clamshell Now, Mac Studio Later
I have a new Mac Studio on order, but it won’t arrive until the first week in April. I intended the Studio Display and Mac Studio to replace my 27” iMac.
My original plan was to set the display aside until the Mac Studio arrived. I’d continue to use my iMac until the Mac Studio was delivered, then switch over to it. When I ordered the Mac Studio from Apple, I also signed up to trade in my iMac. That would allow me to use it until the Mac Studio arrived. However, I found that I could get $700 more for my iMac than what Apple offered if I sold it to cashforyourmac.com. Since I only have about another week to ship my iMac, I decided to use my MacBook Pro in clamshell mode with the new Studio Display.
My First Impressions
I really like the Studio Display! In my opinion, no one makes as good a display as Apple. The Studio Display is pretty much the same quality display as that which was a part of the 5K iMac, with the same technical specs. Overall, it’s a great display and I’m anxious to plug in my new Mac Studio when it arrives.
It continues the tradition of solid build, beautiful aesthetics, clarity, and great color. I like the clean looks of the flat aluminum edges that encircle the glass.
The Studio Display imitates the iMac in including a round cutout in the stand, directly behind the power plugin. By doing so, you can run your power cable and all your peripheral cables through the hole and behind your desk, while hiding them from view behind the solid stand.
The Size of the Studio Display
The first thing I noticed during unboxing and setting up the new display is how much smaller and thinner it is than my iMac. At first glance, it looks like the 27” screen is smaller than the 27” screen on the iMac, but that’s an illusion.
The Studio Display has thinner borders around the active screen, so it looks smaller. Also, there’s no “chin” below the display like there was on the iMac. Viewed from the side, it’s much thinner than the iMac.
The width of the iMac was about 25 ½ inches; the Studio Display is a full inch less at about 24 ½ inches. The height of the iMac was about 17 3/4 inches, while the Studio Display is only 14 1/4 inches.
The Height of the Studio Display
The standard model of the Studio Display comes with the ability to tilt, but no adjustment for height. A model that adds adjustable height and tilt costs an additional $400 more.
The height of the iMac screen fit me well, and I was hoping that the Studio Display would do likewise. I’m not disappointed. If anything, I find the height of the display fits me better than the iMac did.
For people who find the display to be too low for them, several 3rd party companies sold shelves to lift the iMac stand higher and were very compatible with the aesthetics of the iMac. Some of these would look good with the Studio Display’s motif of silver and black. Also, it’s likely stands designed specifically for the Studio Display will soon be available.
Connecting the Studio Display to my Peripherals and MacBook Pro in Clamshell Mode
I’ve never used a laptop in clamshell mode with a display, so I had to do some research to figure out how it worked. One helpful article was here.
Display Connection
The MacBook Pro is connected to the Studio Display with a Thunderbolt 4 cable, which came in the box with the display. There is one Thunderbolt port in the back of the display, so the cord was plugged there and in one of the Thunderbolt ports on the MacBook Pro.
Power for the MacBook Pro
Normally, you’d plug in your power cord to the MacBook Pro when in clamshell mode. However, since the Thunderbolt 4 cord delivers enough wattage to keep a MacBook Pro fully charged (and even fast-charge), there was no need to plug in the power cord.
Ethernet Connection
Although I have wifi access to the internet in my home, I wanted to plug in my system with ethernet, which is much faster. Since there is no ethernet port on the display or the PowerBook Pro, I had to purchase an adapter that would allow me to plug into a USB C port. I chose to plug it into the back of the display.
Peripherals Using USB 3
Neither the MacBook Pro nor the Studio Display had USB 3 ports. However, I had two peripherals that had USB 3 plugs. One is the dongle that connects to my Logitech mouse, and the other is the plug that leads to a USB 3 dock with connections to two hard drives that I use for backup.
The solution was to purchase two Anker USB-C to USB 3.0 female adapters. The mouse controller is plugged into my PowerBook Pro, and the hard drives are plugged into the display.
Keychron Q1 Keyboard
My keyboard has a USB C plug, so all I had to do was plug it into a USB C port on my MacBook Pro. Nothing complicated there.
All of these plugins used all but one port accessible to me; a USB C port on the back of the display. If I had needed more, I guess I would have had to purchase some sort of dock.
The Studio Display Sound System
To my ears, the Studio Display has the best sound system of any display I’ve had. It’s a marked improvement over the speakers in the iMac.
And, frankly, I like the sound from my Studio Display in many ways better than the HomePod mini sitting on my desk. The basses aren’t as deep, but the overall sound clarity is better.
The Studio Display Camera and Microphones
Apple pitched the display as built to facilitate Zoom meetings and FaceTime calls by including a 3-microphone array, and a 12MP Ultra-Wide camera with Center Stage. I didn’t have a chance to test the microphones, so I can’t comment about them.
Frankly, I don’t see much improvement over the quality of the camera image over what was in my iMac. Some reviewers have been very critical of the camera image and Apple has responded by promising some software upgrades to improve performance.
My wife and I proved that Center Stage definitely works. When I’d sit in front of the display by myself, the camera showed a closer image of me. As my wife entered the scene from the right, the camera pulled back and shifted to the right to include her. It was pretty cool! I just wonder whether I’m on a zoom call and my cat walks across the desk if the camera will follow the cat?