I received my Studio Display (Standard stand, standard glass) late Friday evening. Spent a good part of the weekend setting it all up, configuring all the required reference modes I would need.

The best part: It worked with my Hackintosh with a litte bit of tinkering. And everything works.

Initial Thoughts

A13

The A13 makes absolutely no sense. It handles the camera (which, as you may have already read, is terrible at the moment), handles the spatial audio bit (which is a hit-or-miss especially playing audio through Apple Music) and not much else. Its mere pressence complicates internal wiring so the extent of the display being a Smart Display. It cannot take AirPlay input on its own, or process HDMI signals (it doesn’t even any other input sources), or have anything to do with managing the USB ports on the back panel (that I know of).

Image Quality

🤯🔥💯

Yup, those 3 emojis pretty much sum up my feelings. Combined with the capability to configure various reference modes, it’s the display you should get if you need 5K and everything else this display comes with.

Did I mention it also works with Windows? And games look incredible on it. I’m most probably spending the upcoming weekend playing Forza.

The Stand

The default stand configuration actually is perfect for my personal setup. It’s at the same height (or probably 2cm taller) compared to my previous setup.

The Bezels

Why are they so big? Why, Apple! Why!?

The Build

The Studio Display is built to last! Or atleast it feels like that. But I’m still going to get AppleCare for it given Apple’s recent track record with hardware and random stuff breaking with OS updates. Considering this monitor ships with an A13 chip, and there has already been an incident (now resolved) of people unable to update the firmware on it, I’m skeptical.

4.5/5 ⭐️