During Apple’s March launch event and keynote, the company announced a host of products and core technologies, including a new Apple M1 Ultra chip, and the Mac Studio compact desktop for content creation pros.
It also pulled back the veil on its new Studio Display, a 5K Retina-panel monitor for content production and productivity. The key specs on this new midprice 27-inch panel include a peak rated brightness of 600 nits, an anti-glare coating (with the option for an extra-effective one!), a very high-res camera, and six spatial-audio speakers scattered around the housing.
The Studio Display starts at $1,599, and you can read more about that launch, including the full range of what was announced, at the link here. But note: We said the monitor starts at $1,599. (Cue “Uh-ohs!” in the background.)
The Monitor-Stand Money Train
Apple watchers surely remember, and most surely lust after, this monitor’s big sibling, the $4,999 Apple Pro Display XDR. It debuted a few years ago. The industry had a field day with one aspect of it—its $999 “optional” stand—and we had some fun with it, to be sure…
The thing is, the Apple Pro Display XDR actually turned out to be a thoroughly spectacular content creation monitor. But that stand. It was a $999 example of Apple at its most, well, Apple.
Now, the new Studio Display is nowhere close to the Pro Display XDR in price. (The panel alone for that monitor was, and remains, $4,999.) There’s no way a $1,600 monitor can support a $1,000 stand…or vice versa.
Still, while that Pro Display XDR stand may have been machined from, we can only presume, the purified tears of Microsoft executives, the racket has returned in a new form. The scary-expensive stand, or at least a little-brother version of it, is back. But now it’s 60% off. And at that price it’s basically a steal…right?
Maxing Out the Studio Display’s Specs
The situation, this time, isn’t quite as outrageous as last time. Shell out for the Studio Display at its $1,599 base price, and for the money, you get either a VESA mount (you supply the arm or other mounting scheme), or a basic desktop stand that tilts. Progress! But tack another $400 onto that, and you can change out that basic stand for a more featured one that supports…drum roll, please….height adjustment.
Imagine the gall, the sheer arrogance of expecting height adjustment thrown in for free! The very thought of it! That’s right; the base Studio Display won’t have a stand that adjusts for height—only the ability to tilt through the industry-standard range of -5 degrees to +25 degrees. Height adjustment (all 105mm of it) is presumably a massive premium feature in the minds of Apple’s product-planning cognoscenti. Note: 105mm is about 4 inches. Or about $100 an inch.
Below, we decided to go for the gusto in our own mock-Apple Studio Display cart, throwing in both the $400 option to adjust the height of our monitor, as well as the “nano-texture glass” for another $300 just to make sure we’re future-proofed well into the 2050s. (The Studio Display ostensibly comes standard with an anti-glare panel surface, but this $300 upsell is supposed to work well in studio environments with bright surrounding lights. Dimming the lights would be a lot cheaper.)
This brought the total of our originally-$1,599 monitor to $2,299, for what amounted to some amped-up anti-glare coating and again, a few inches of height adjustability.
Is the VESA Mount the Stealth Bargain Here?
Now color us skeptical. But we bet most shoppers won’t be all that thrilled with the idea of buying a hunk of, admittedly, well-machined metal for the same price as an entire Razer Raptor 27 monitor (no slouch of a panel itself) during one of its many clearance sales. (And, ahem, the Razer monitor, like most monitors, includes the stand in the price.) At least this time, Apple has graced the Studio Display with the default tilting stand, or the VESA adapter compatible with 200mm mounts, for the same starting price.
But who would have thought a VESA mount, by definition the very absence of a stand, might be the dark-horse bargain choice? If you’re set on getting the Studio Display for your next Mac Studio build, consider going the VESA adapter route first and foremost.
Why? You can find plenty of desk-mounted VESA-ready options that will give you immense amounts of flexibility in your office or creative space. Wild, whimsical things like height adjustment, tilt, and even, gasp….a 90-degree pivot! The kicker? Most basic VESA mounting arms won’t set you back more than $50 for a sturdy model. And if you get one that clamps to your desk, you free up that much more desk surface.
This Will Not Stand
So, sure, you can fork over that extra $400 to get a stand that, well, stands a little taller on demand. But that will just encourage that kind of extortion. We haven’t seen the new Studio Display or its two possible stands in person yet, so we’re not sure if the actual $400 stand option is physically the very same as the $999 one for Apple’s Pro Display XDR. (They look vaguely similar, but the Studio Display’s may be smaller in stature, due to the smaller panel size, 27 inches versus 32 inches.) So those new top-end Studio Display stands probably aren’t back stock of original Apple Pro Display XDR stands. But we do have to wonder how many people bought them the first time around.
“A grand for a stand; this must not stand!” we thought back with the Pro Display XDR. With the Studio Display, we’re down to a $400 upsell and what looks like a workable included stand. Perhaps, if we, ahem, stand firm, next time Apple may throw in the height adjustment for free. What a concept!
