The embargo on reviews of Mac Studio and the brand new Studio Display has lifted today. Since they are not available to us due to the suspension of supplies and sales of products to Russia, we studied the opinions of foreign colleagues in order to understand what they think.
Mac Studio
Many journalists and bloggers call the new Apple nettop a beautiful device. Of course, there is no dispute about tastes, but it is hardly worth calling it the most beautiful computer of the company.
But the main thing, of course, is not in appearance. Monica Chin of The Verge praises the new Mac Studio for its performance. Apple allocated two nettops to the publication at once in two different versions. The most interesting for us was the top one on the M1 Ultra with 20 CPU cores, 64 GPU cores and 128 GB of combined memory. In the US, such a nettop will cost $6199 before taxes. The second version is weaker: 10 CPU cores, 32 GPU cores and 64 GB of combined memory. The price is $3199.
The first thing I noticed was that every professional I gave this nettop to could sit down and start working on this device almost immediately without any serious problems. It was quite different with the Mac Pro, where people constantly had to fix various software glitches before they could really start working.
The Verge
In general, Mac Studio performs very well in video editing, in large musical projects, in working with graphics. But there are also difficulties. For example, when working with Adobe After Effects:
The person who gave Mac Studio the most trouble was Alex Parkin, our director of video art. He tried Adobe After Effects, using colors, glows, gradients, motion blur, and all sorts of effects at full resolution. Alex noticed a slight delay between pressing the spacebar and starting or stopping playback. The playback speed did not impress him. But it was still able to get the job done much faster than the various Intel iMacs we have in the office. He said the computer is about twice as fast as a 2015 Core i7 iMac with the Radeon R9 M395X he usually uses.
The Verge
However, it is still a very good indicator. Things are worse with the graphic part:
However, with graphics performance, things were different. Apple has said that the M1 Ultra will outperform the NVIDIA RTX 3090. I have no idea why Apple said that. We’ve launched Geekbench Compute, which tests the system’s GPU power on both a Mac Studio and a gaming PC with an RTX 3090, Core i9-10900, and 64GB of RAM. And Mac Studio was…destroyed. In this test, it scored half as well as the RTX 3090 – not only does it not outperform the NVIDIA chip, it doesn’t even come close to it.
The Verge
The test numbers look like this:
Despite the dissatisfaction with Apple’s statement, The Verge employees were very pleased with the computer:
After all, I can tell you about the tests and export times. But for me personally, the best thing about this computer is that it really works. I haven’t seen anything crash or glitch.
But what I’ve seen are pros blown away by how much they could do with Mac Studio. They used the same software they use every day, but they did things with it that they had never done before.
The Verge
Another important feature is the number of ports:
On the front, there are two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C connectors and an easily accessible SD card slot. In addition, on the rear panel there are four more Thunderbolt 4 connectors in the form of USB-C, two USB Type-A connectors, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 2.0 and a headphone jack. I was shocked that Apple even remembered the existence of USB Type-A, but I’m sure many customers will be happy that they can still use their old equipment.
Engadget
But what the author of Engadget did not appreciate is the inability to update the computer:
You won’t be able to update Mac Studio. This is a bummer if you suddenly want to change your SSD to a faster one in a few years. The RAM is built right into the M1 chip, meaning there is no physical way to expand the memory.
Engadget
If suddenly you are interested in the numbers in benchmarks, then here they are:
Studio Display
Apple’s new display, which many had high hopes for, turned out to be a very controversial product.
Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal called in film and commercial colorist Daniel Silverman to rate the three displays. These are Apple Studio Display, LG UltraFine 5K, as well as Samsung and Dell monitors. All have the same diagonal of 27 inches. But the resolution of some is different: Apple and LG have 5K, while the rest have 4K.
Daniel chose LG UltraFine 5K and LG UltraFine 4K. He also added that with True Tone turned off, the image in the Studio Display is really very good. It will impress you if you haven’t seen progress since 2014, when the original 27-inch 5K iMac came out. The fact is that over these eight years the industry has nevertheless taken a step forward.
If you’ve ever looked at a 27-inch iMac 5K display, you know exactly what it looks like. The Studio display has the same 27-inch diagonal, the same 5120×2880 resolution, the same 218 ppi density, the same 60Hz refresh rate, and the same single-zone LED backlighting. The only real difference in the specs is that Apple says the Studio Display now has a “typical brightness” of 600 nits versus the iMac’s 500. However, in my actual use next to a 2015 27-inch iMac, the difference is very hard to see.
The Verge
If the image of the iMac and, accordingly, the new Studio Display is really good and many are ready to accept that there is no dynamic update, many local dimming zones and an OLED matrix, then other functions are more difficult.
The biggest complaint is the camera. It looks like this:
All as one very much scold the camera:
The Studio Display camera consistently produced grainy and blurry images. Some shots had so many missing details that it reminded me of my old BlackBerry’s camera. But there is also a positive point: no one saw my curly hair.
The Wall Street Journal
Basically everything:
The webcam performs terribly in good light and is downright pathetic in low light. I’ve tried connecting the Studio Display to Mac Studio and my MacBook Pro running macOS 12.3 – on both machines the camera produced a grainy, noisy image with little to no detail. I’ve tried it on FaceTime, Zoom, Photo Booth, QuickTime – all had the same dismal image quality.
The Verge
In general, there were so many complaints that Apple has already announced that it will fix the camera programmatically.
But what is praised is the acoustic system. No wonder: Apple manages to make very good sound on all of its devices. For example, it is MacBooks that sound better than all laptops. Studio Display is no exception:
The monitor has a built-in system of four low-frequency and two high-frequency speakers. The sound quality is better than anything I’ve ever heard from a monitor. When I listened to Tim Atlas’ Tangerine, I was struck by how deep the bass was. If anything, the low frequencies blended with the velvety vocals and instruments, making the mids sound a bit blown out. Limitations aside, I wouldn’t feel the need to buy Bluetooth or a bookshelf speaker – the display gets loud without distortion, the bass is deep, and Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos handles surround sound well.
Gizmodo
But positive image impressions without show off and excellent acoustics can be killed by a stand. Again, Apple did something wrong. But if it doesn’t come with Pro Display XDR at all, then Studio Display at least has it. True, only the angle is adjustable.
Studio Display has a standard stand; a height-adjustable stand will increase the cost of the display by $400. You can choose a VESA mount instead of a standard stand at no additional cost and connect it to any stand. However, you won’t be able to switch from a stand to VESA after the fact – you must decide in advance how you want to mount this display before clicking the “Buy” button.
The Verge
In general, Apple’s new nettop came out as it should. It’s especially interesting to look at the version with the M1 Ultra, although most users of the basic version on the M1 Max will miss the eye.
But there are questions to Studio Display. The picture is good, but it’s a compromise. The sound is great, but the camera is terrible. Therefore, it is absolutely unclear whether it is worth buying it or looking at the offer of competitors (and this is only LG UltraFine 5K). Still, $ 1599 is not lying on the road and, apparently, you need to look at 4K displays.
