Apple Studio Display  Monitor Review

The Apple Studio Display 27 has a simple yet elegant design that looks like an iMac without the larger housing at the bottom. It has black bezels, silver metal throughout, and branding on the back.

The Apple Studio Display has fantastic build quality. There aren't any obvious issues, and the body and stand are made of solid aluminum that doesn't flex anywhere. The stand is also solid, and the screen stays in place when you tilt it. The base of the stand is a bit small for the size of the display, but it won't fall over unless you really push it. There's also a vent on top, and you don't hear it, which is great. The main downside to this monitor is that the power cable is fixed to the display, so if it gets damaged, you'll have to bring the entire monitor to get it repaired.

The ergonomics are poor with the tilt-only stand. If you prefer, you can buy the version with a height-adjustable stand, but neither stand offers swivel adjustment. You can't remove the stand from the monitor, so you can't use a mounting arm. There's a variant with a VESA mount 100x100 adapter instead, so you can get this variant if you want to mount it on an adjustable arm. If you prefer a monitor that comes with an extremely ergonomic stand, the ASUS ProArt Display PA279CRV is a good alternative.

The back of the Apple monitor is basic, and there's a cutout in the stand for cable management.

The base on the tilt-adjustable stand doesn't take up much space. The base of the height-adjustable stand is different, with an advertised depth of 8.1 inches (20.7 cm).

As you can't remove the stand, we couldn't measure the weight of the display without the stand. Apple advertises the variant with the VESA mount adapter to weigh 12.1 lbs (5.5 kg).

The Apple 27 Studio Display doesn't have any physical controls. The monitor turns itself on when you connect a device, and you can access all display settings through the settings on a macOS device. Unfortunately, you can't access any settings with a Windows PC, and it uses the last saved picture mode from a previous macOS device.

• Thunderbolt 3 cable
• User guides and manuals
• 2x Apple stickers

The Apple Studio Display has a low contrast ratio, so blacks look gray next to bright highlights in the dark, and there's no local dimming feature to improve it.

This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. We still film these videos on the monitor so you can compare the backlight performance with a monitor that has local dimming.

The SDR brightness is excellent. It easily gets bright enough to fight glare in bright rooms, and although smaller highlights are a bit dimmer, the difference isn't noticeable. These measurements are from after calibration in the 'Apple Display (P3-600 Nits)' Picture Mode.

This monitor doesn't support HDR.

The gray uniformity is great. The edges of the screen are a bit darker than the center, but it isn't too noticeable, and there's minimal dirty screen effect in the center.

The black uniformity is okay. There's noticeable backlight bleed in the corners, and sadly, there's no local dimming feature to improve this.

The accuracy before calibration in the sRGB mode is simply exceptional. You can only get this mode with a macOS device, and it locks most settings, including the brightness, which is dim, but that's the industry standard for this mode. There are hardly any inaccuracies to the colors and white balance, and the color temperature is nearly spot-on with the 6500K target.

This monitor also has a DCI-P3 picture that we tested in SDR; you can see the results from it below. It's still good, but the white balance and gamma are a bit worse than in sRGB. It gets brighter, and you can change more settings with it than in the sRGB mode.

• White balance
• Gamma
• Color space

The accuracy after calibration is remarkable as you won't notice any issues, but it isn't that much better than before calibration. The main benefit of calibration is that you can customize more settings in the 'Apple Display (P3-600 nits)' mode and have a brighter screen.

The Apple Studio Display has an incredible SDR color gamut. It has perfect coverage of the sRGB color space used in most web content, and colors aren't oversaturated. It has great coverage of the Adobe RGB color space, which is important if you're a photo or video editor that uses this space. but it oversaturates reds. However, some colors are oversaturated in it.

We normally test the DCI-P3 color space in HDR, but because this monitor doesn't support HDR, we decided to test it in SDR, too, and it has 99.8% coverage in DCI-P3.

This monitor doesn't support HDR. While it has some picture modes meant for HDR color spaces, like DCI-P3, it isn't true HDR support.

We usually test DCI-P3 coverage in HDR. However, this monitor doesn't support HDR, so we tested it in SDR, where it has 99.8% coverage in DCI-P3.

If you're a content creator looking for something with full support for HDR, look at the LG 40WP95C-W instead.

This monitor doesn't support HDR.

The horizontal viewing angle is very good. You won't have issues if you need to share your screen with a coworker or client sitting next to you, but the screen looks a bit darker from really wide angles.

The text clarity is outstanding, thanks to its incredibly high pixel density. Text looks extremely sharp, and enabling Windows ClearType on a Windows PC (top photo) makes the letters bolder, but it isn't necessary. You can see the text clarity using default scaling on a MacBook here.

These photos are with the standard screen coating that has a glossy finish. The variant with the matte screen coating introduces more haziness than the glossy coating, so images and text aren't as sharp.

The direct reflection handling is disappointing. Light reflects back like a mirror due to the glossy coating. However, if you opt for the variant with the Matte Nano-Texture coating, it will spread light out more. If you're looking for a high-resolution monitor with a matte coating that reduces glare, consider the ASUS ProArt Display 6K PA32QCV.

This monitor does a great job at keeping its black levels consistent in a bright room. However, because of its low contrast ratio, blacks still look gray. Also, the black levels are expected to rise more on the Matte Nano-Texture coating, similar to the ASUS ProArt Display PA27JCV.

There are some noticeable reflections in a bright room, but they aren't distracting, even if you place it opposite a sunny window.

The Apple Studio Display has remarkable gradient handling. You won't see any banding in most shades.

Although the monitor shows up as G-SYNC compatible in the NVIDIA Control Panel with an RTX 3060 graphics card, VRR doesn't properly work at all times as the screen flashes and stops working at times. It's more stable between 55–60 fps, but the screen goes black when the frame rate drops below that, so don't try using VRR.

Although this monitor doesn't support VRR technology, we still measure the CAD at 60Hz so you can compare it to a monitor with VRR support. However, the CAD is so high that it passes the limits of the chart, and you can see an alternative chart here.

The refresh rate compliance is bad. Its response time isn't fast enough to make full color transitions before the monitor draws the next frame.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 60Hz is bad. There's noticeable smearing and blur with fast-moving objects, and there's no overdrive setting to improve anything.

This monitor doesn't support a 120Hz signal.

This monitor doesn't support a 120Hz signal.

The CAD at 60Hz is bad. There's noticeable smearing and blur with fast-moving objects, and there's no overdrive setting to improve anything.

There's no optional backlight strobing feature to reduce persistence blur.

This monitor doesn't support VRR, so there's no VRR flicker.

The Apple Studio Display has a completely flicker-free backlight at all brightness levels, which helps reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to it.

The input lag is low enough that you won't notice any delay during regular desktop use.

As this monitor doesn't have any HDMI inputs, you need an adapter to connect the PS5, and we don't have an adapter to test it. There are reports online that it doesn't work with the PS5 anyway.

Like with the PS5, you need an adapter to connect the Xbox Series X|S to the monitor.

The USB-C input that supports Thunderbolt 3 has 96W of power delivery, which is enough to charge your MacBook while working, and it's the only port that accepts video signals. The other three USB-C ports are for downstream data transfer and charging with 15W of power delivery. This isn't enough to charge a laptop, but you can still charge devices like your phone.

As it's an Apple monitor, it works without any issue with a macOS device. However, you can only access the display's settings, like its sRGB mode, with a macOS device. You can even rotate the screen into a vertical orientation, and the interface automatically rotates on its own.

This monitor has a few extra features, like its webcam, six-speaker system, and three-array microphone. The webcam and speakers also work with Windows PCs, but you can't access the monitor's settings or processing with a Windows PC. Even though it has a built-in processor, you can't use it as a stand-alone monitor like the Samsung Smart Monitor M8 S32BM80, which has a built-in smart system.

The webcam is disappointing. See the test video here, which was tested with firmware 15.4. The camera has a center stage feature that follows you as you move, and you can only use this feature with macOS devices.

The speakers are fantastic for monitor speakers, which would score a 9.5 using the laptop speakers methodology below:

• Max Volume: 83 dB SPL
• Standard Error @ Normal Vol. (65 dB): 4.3 dB
• Slope @ Normal Vol. (65 dB): 1.2 dB
• Bass Extension (Low-Frequency Ext.): 79Hz
• Treble Extension (High-Frequency Extension): 20kHz
• Dynamic Range Compression @ Max Vol.: 2.0 dB

This monitor doesn't have an on-screen display; you can only change the display settings with a Mac computer. If you use a Windows PC, it uses the last saved settings from a previous macOS device. Also, all firmware updates are done through a macOS device.