It’s no secret that Apple’s products are among the best designed devices in the tech industry. Just one peek at the MacBook Pro or the iPhone 16 Pro and you know that you’re looking at quality.
There’s a reason for that, and it’s got nothing to do with blind luck. No, Apple’s design philosophy has long been to strip away the unnecessary elements of a device until you’re left with only the essential components. There should be nothing extraneous, no needless fluff. Instead, the product should be the core expression of a concept, such as a phone or a computer. That has led to some of its best designs.
This was the approach taken by Apple founder Steve Jobs and the company’s former design guru Jony Ive, and it’s served Apple well over the years. By focusing on the essentials, Apple has been able to craft designs that turn heads and send its rivals racing for their photocopiers.
The latest Mac Studio epitomises this perfectly. It’s a simple, minimal slab of machined aluminium. There are no inessential aspects or flashy extras anywhere you look, just a beautiful, understated computer that looks almost inch perfect.
I love Apple’s approach here, and not just because it results in devices that are pleasing on the eye. It shows that Apple really understands that design is about more than just pretty products. Sure, the company doesn’t always get things right, but its unmatched consistency gives the impression that Apple doesn’t care about chasing trends or throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Its understanding is more than just skin deep.
The camera bar question
It’s interesting, then, to compare the Mac Studio to the latest iPhone 17 Air rumors, which depict a long, horizontal camera bar along the phone’s back surface. You might think that looks pretty nifty, and to some extent it does. But is it “Apple” enough? I would argue that it absolutely is not.
Let’s look at what the iPhone 17 Air is expected to get in the way of cameras. Here, most rumors are pointing to just a single lens on the back of the device. We can also expect a flash and a tiny cutout for the rear microphone. But given the phone’s extreme thinness, it’s unlikely that Apple will have the space for more camera modules.
If that’s all that’s going to be present on the back of the iPhone 17 Air, why — as multiple leaks from multiple reputable sources have attested — is Apple thinking about housing it all inside a massive camera bar that extends from one edge of the phone to the other? That’s far more space than one lens and a flash will ever require.
So what is the camera bar’s purpose? Is it going to contain something that all the leakers have somehow missed? Or does it exist purely to look interesting? If it’s the latter, that’s a big departure from Apple’s established design philosophy.
To me, that’s a concern. Apple’s design isn’t just about looking good. As Steve Jobs once said, “design is how it works.” In other words, you should focus on making something work really well, and that means you remove anything that might get in the way of its optimal operation. Random visual flourishes are not key to how a product works, so they should be removed.
If this camera bar has a bunch of empty space that doesn’t seem to serve any practical purpose, it runs counter to the thinking that has crafted so many excellent Apple products over the years.
A new design direction
Yet despite all that, I’m not overly worried about this development. The Mac Studio is brand new, after all, and it still sticks to Apple’s tried-and-true design principles. Apple is full of incredibly talented designers who are among the best in the industry. They’re not going anywhere.
Yet there are a few things I’ll be watching closely. The entire iPhone 17 range is rumoured to be getting large camera bars, while iOS 19 — which will launch alongside the phones — is expected to come with a massive visual overhaul. That suggests that Apple could be looking to take its devices in a new direction.
Ultimately, it’s going to be fascinating to see what happens with the iPhone 17 range this September. There’s no way Apple will have just totally forgotten all the valuable design lessons it has learned over the years, and I don’t expect the iPhone 17 Air to be a disaster in that regard. Apple is too stacked with talent for that to happen.
But the camera bar could signal a new design development that gives me pause for thought. I love the Mac Studio’s design, and I hope Apple sticks to the principles that have served it so well over the years. In six months’ time, we’ll find out what Apple is truly thinking.
I’ve reviewed well over 300 laptops, a handful of displays, and a smattering of accessories. Naturally, I’ve gained an appreciation for great hardware design and construction, and I can pretty immediately get a sense of where a device stacks up. While several companies make great hardware, one stands apart. I’m talking about Apple, and I’m writing this after having reviewed the new Mac Studio, the MacBook Air 13 (M4), the MacBook Air 15 (M4), and the Apple Studio Display.
At the end of 2023, I wrote extensively about why I made the decision to switch to Mac after decades of Windows loyalty. I made that decision based in part on the outstanding power-performance ratio that Apple Silicon brings to laptops, — along with a growing frustration with Windows. Apple’s software isn’t nearly perfect, especially considering the company’s flawed rollout of Apple Intelligence. But since I’ve made the switch — which included migrating from an Android smartphone to an iPhone and incorporating an Apple Watch — I’ve been extremely happy. And reviewing so many Apple products at once just reinforced an impression that’s been growing on me for a while: nobody makes hardware that’s nearly as great.
It starts with the unboxing
It might seem just a little crazy, but I’m serious. To fully appreciate the sheer meticulous nature of Apple’s design, you have to start with the unboxing.
Since I started buying a bunch of Apple products a couple of years ago, and with receiving quite a selection of packages with my recent spate of reviews, I couldn’t help but notice not only how nicely Apple packages its products, but also how consistently. Every single Apple package I’ve opened, from the Apple Card credit card I signed up for to the Apple Studio Display, had exactly the same zip-pull tabs and overall easy-open design. And I mean that literally — getting to the Apple Card was basically the same as every other product. Who does that?
You have to enjoy a great deal of institutional control for every single department to use exactly the same packaging. Finance, mobile, laptops, desktops, monitors, accessories — opening one product is exactly like opening another. That means that even before you pull a product out of the box, you’re already conditioned to expect the same experience. And the experience immediately reinforces the idea that you made a great decision. I can confidently say that no other manufacturer comes close — their packaging can be sheer frustration, and it can vary widely from one product to another.
Consider the Studio Display. Often, unpacking and setting up a large display can be a real pain. Most often, you have to burrow through a Byzantine contraption to pull out the accessories and the stand, then carefully pry up the panel and set it somewhere to put everything together. You have a bunch of styrofoam to sort through and parts to unpack, and you have to be careful not to damage the glass as you wrestle it around. With the Studio Display, you unzip, lay the box down, swing open the sides, and the monitor is easily accessible and already assembled. Pick it up and set it on your desk, in one smooth motion. And then packing it back up is just as easy — something that’s sheer frustration with every other monitor I’ve reviewed.
Now, imagine that you’re also unboxing a Mac Studio. That box is designed exactly the same way, only smaller. Unzip it, swing open the sides, and easily lift it out. In all Apple products, the power cables are nicely arranged with the same kind of holder. It looks and feels great.
In my recent review process, I unboxed two Mac Studios, a Studio Display, a Magic Keyboard, a Magic Trackpad, and a Magic Mouse, all in quick succession. I came away impressed by the almost obsessive attention to detail and how it felt a little like Christmas morning — mission accomplished, I’m sure. And when I need to box everything back up at some point, it will be just as easy. For anyone purchasing an Apple product, the unboxing process pulls them in via its simplicity and lack of hassle — there’s nothing to get in the way of enjoying the product.
The attention to detail continues inside
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
The point isn’t just that Apple creates a great unboxing experience, which is certainly true. Moreso, it’s that this kind of persistent consistency extends across its entire product line. Consider the Mac Studio and Studio Display pictured above. They closely match in their aesthetic, and it looks great. They’re both constructed of the same solid aluminum and the colors hint that they’re made for each other. And that makes sense, because someone purchasing a Mac Studio might very well want an excellent monitor that maintains the same minimalist aesthetic.
Both feel the same, as well. They’re not light devices, exactly, but they’re not egregiously heavy, either. But they’re dense, and to me, that density equates with solidity, which equates with quality. That’s an attribute that I’ve attributed to Apple MacBooks in my reviews. No, they’re not the lightest laptops you can buy, but they’re thin and solidly constructed and so in handling them you you — once again — feel like you got your money’s worth.
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
The example that comes most immediately to mind is the MacBook Air 13 that I’ve been using as my primary portable machine (when I’m not actively reviewing another laptop). I have some other thin-and-light laptops I can use, but none are so insanely thin and none feel so incredibly solid. Those laptops are lighter, yet somehow, the MacBook Air feels better balanced and easier to carry around, not only with the lid closed but also — and here, it’s obvious how closely Apple’s paying attention to how people use their laptops — with the lid open. Are Apple laptops necessarily more robust or longer lasting? Maybe not, I don’t really know. But my impression is that they are, and for Apple, that’s what matters the most when it comes time for someone to buy a laptop — or to buy the next one.
There are many individual details I could talk about, like how the Mac Studio remains amazingly silent no matter how hard you push it, while the MacBook Air somehow doesn’t turn into a toaster although it runs without a fan. There’s the lid that opens smoothly with one hand and –here’s Apple paying attention again — closes even more smoothly. There’s the cohesiveness in design between the various MacBook sizes and models, down even to the simple port cutouts, and the keyboards and touchpads are identical no matter which one you use. Even the notch is the same, even if many people just don’t like it very much.
The point is, all of these details, large and small, contribute to an overall experience that you might not even consciously notice. But, taken together, they’re what makes using an Apple product just different somehow. When you handle so many of them at once, it becomes immediately apparent.
What does all that mean for you?
I know I sound a lot like an Apple fan here, and that’s not at all my intention. After all, if I’m simply a fan of one company or another, then my reviews can’t be trusted. And as I mentioned in the introduction, Apple’s software has been a bit problematic lately. Apple Intelligence is a mess, macOS is stable as always but not always intuitive, and iPadOS is ridiculous in its inability to genuinely multitask with a fast M4 chipset and 16GB of RAM. So while Windows has been a hot mess for me lately, Apple hasn’t exactly knocked its software out of the park, either.
Rather, my point is that Apple’s relentless attention to detail in its hardware makes a meaningful difference in how I perceive its products — starting from when I first open the box. I would be lying if I said that didn’t impact my reviews, and really, it should. After all, people are looking for my recommendations as to which laptop they should buy, and there’s more to using a laptop than its speeds and feeds. Of course, Apple’s latest MacBooks excel in their performance and efficiency, as well. If the MacBook Air 13 (M4) wasn’t really fast and really long-lasting, I wouldn’t have given it a perfect score no matter how much I like its design.
Apple doesn’t do any of it for free, of course. Its products are more expensive — in some cases, a lot more expensive. The point of this entire piece is that at least in terms of its hardware, Apple has a knack for making you feel like you get what you pay for.
9The Apple Studio Display is a few years old, but it remains as the most popular and affordable Apple monitor — and one of the best monitors overall — with a starting price of $1,599. The Apple Pro Display XDR is more capable for professionals, but it starts at a much more expensive $4,999 and is a lot more of a niche product.
Of course, $1,599 is very expensive for a 27-inch display. But right now, it’s among the best displays to mate with a Mac. It’s possible that Apple will be releasing an upgrade to the Studio Display, and you’ll likely want to know if you should choose that one or grab the current model at the inevitable discount.
Specs
Apple Studio Display
Screen size
27 inches
Panel type
IPS
Resolution
5K (5120 x 2880)
Peak brightness
600 nits
HDR
None
Contrast ratio
1,200:1
Response time
Not defined
Color gamut
1.097 billion colors
Refresh rate
60Hz
Curve
No
Speakers
Six-speaker system with force-cancelling woofers
Ports
1 x upstream USB-C with Thunderbolt 3
3 x downstream USB-C
Adjustments
30 degrees tilt
105mm height (optional)
Dimensions (HxWxD)
24.5 inches (width) x 18.8 inches (height) x 6.6 inches (depth)
There are a few configuration options with the Studio Display that affect its price. For $1,599, you get the standard glass and tilt-adjustable stand. Upgrading to the nano-texture glass add $300, while the tilt- and height-adjustable stand adds $400 and the VESA mount adapter substitutes for the standard stand at the same price. The most expensive configuration is therefore $2,299, which makes the Studio Display a very premium monitor indeed.
A drop-dead gorgeous design that looks and feels a lot like Apple
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
When I was taking pictures for my 2025 Mac Studio review, I used the Studio Display as one of the connected components. That wasn’t just because it’s another Apple product. It’s because it’s an unusually lovely monitor, with Apple’s typical design acumen and minimalist elegance fully on display (no pun intended). The two Apple products matched perfectly, with the same sliver-ish aluminum, the same lines, and the same gorgeous simplicity. It was, in short, very photogenic.
Right now, I have three other displays connected to the Mac Studio sitting on my desk, two Dell 27″ 4K monitors and one Lenovo 32″ 4K OLED. They’re fine, aesthetically, but they just don’t have the same panache. They don’t distract from my environment’s aesthetic, but they don’t add anything, either. The Studio Display does just that. It makes my setup look better, which no other monitor I’ve used or reviewed has done.
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
And the Studio Display has the typical meticulous Apple construction. It’s all aluminum, to begin with, which as with many Apple products just makes it feel like it’s worth more. It’s a solid-looking and -feeling construction as well, with a density that plastic constructions can’t match. The other monitors I’ve reviewed, and the ones I used that I mention above, are all solid enough but they just don’t exude quality in the same fashion.
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
My review unit had the simple tilt-adjustable stand, and the mechanism is smooth as silk. There’s also a tilt- and height-adjustable stand option that I’m sure is just as buttery smooth. The VESA mount adapter is also a configuration option. This choice must be made when you order the Studio Display, because as far as I know, it can’t be changed later. In this respect, the Studio Display feels a lot like MacBooks that have the smoothest hinges around.
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
I’ll add another point. Unboxing displays is generally a pain. The packaging can be Byzantine, and putting things together requires carefully placing the panel somewhere and connecting the stand. Then, putting everything back together to ship back to the manufacturer is like trying to put together a puzzle, only one where if you don’t align things perfectly you risk damaging something expensive.
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
Apple’s packaging is unparalleled in its consistency and its ease of opening and, importantly, putting things back. You just pull the usual Apple tabs to open the box, and then when you set it down, the sides swing out to provide easy access to the Studio Display. And, it comes already put together, with plenty of space to lift it out of the box and simply place it on a desk. It’s a great experience, and I never felt like I ran the risk of breaking something.
Minimal ports, minimal features
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
Some displays offer a host of features that can turn them into highly configurable and capable hubs to serve as a centerpiece of a home office like mine. The Studio Display is not such a product. Consider the Dell UltraSharp 32 4K USB-C Hub monitor, which literally has its capability included in its (rather long) name. That has a host of USB-C and other ports and a keyboard-video-monitor (KVM) switch built in. Many other monitors have similar features, and if you look around back, you’ll find a veritable wiring closet tucked away.
The Studio Display is quite different. It has just four USB-C ports, one upstream with Thunderbolt 3 for connecting to a PC and three downstream running at up to 10 Gbps for connecting other peripherals. That’s kind of a hub, I guess, but it’s not nearly as functional as some others. The upstream port can power up to a MacBook Pro 14, which is a good thing. And if you have several Apple devices, you can use Apple’s Continuity features to share displays, keyboards, and mice. But if you’re a Windows user, you’re out of luck.
And here’s what really makes the Studio Display less attractive to Windows PC users. Unlike the vast majority of monitors — maybe virtually all of them — the Studio Display has no on-screen display (OSD) for configuring settings. In fact, there aren’t that many settings to configure, and they’re all controlled using the macOS Settings app. There seem to be some hacks that will let you change various settings on a Windows PC, but I simply wouldn’t recommend buying a Studio Display to use with Windows. Some things will work with Windows via standard USB devices, like the speakers and the webcam, but controls are minimal.
On macOS, the settings are more meaningful but well behind many other monitors. You can change the resolution, adjust the gamut, and control the white point. Compared to other monitors, though, your control over the finer points of the Studio Display’s performance are quite limited. Really, that fits the Apple ethos, where plugging into a Mac gives you near-perfect performance out of the box but with lesser ability to fine tune things. There are a number of reference modes available to fit various purposes (photo editing, video editing, and web), but outside of selecting the mode you can’t really dig into the details.
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
The good thing is that what features do exist are excellent. Take the audio, for example. These aren’t just a couple of speakers added in as an afterthought. It’s a six-speaker system, with force-cancelling woofers, supporting Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio powered by an A13 Bionic chip. And the audio is fantastic, much better than you get from any other monitor I’ve used or tested. I have a separate pair of Logitech speakers that are pretty decent, but I’m putting those in the closet for as long as I’m using the Studio Display. The audio is just that good, and I love saving some desk space.
The 12MB webcam is also great, with lovely video quality and great low-light performance. It supports Apple’s Center Stage feature that keeps you nicely framed as you move around. I’ll also be putting my standalone webcam away, because the Studio Displays’ version is so much better.
Ultimately, in a sense, the Studio Display is bare-bones in terms of features and functionality. But like so many Apple products, what’s there just works supremely well. The monitor follows Apple’s mantra of “it just works” perfectly, and if you have a Mac and all but the most demanding requirements, you’ll likely be quite happy.
Excellent image quality that’s best with a Mac
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
The Studio Display is built around a 27-inch IPS panel running at 5K (5120 x 2880) resolution and supporting Apple’s True Tone technology that adjusts the display for the ambient lighting. It supports 1 billion colors, P3 wide color, and promises up to 600 nits of brightness, which is a lot for an external display. Apple doesn’t list a contrast ratio in its materials, but digging around looks like it’s rated at 1,200:1. Importantly, the 5K resolution perfectly matches Apple’s HiDPI implementation, providing the sharpest possible image and the best text quality — something that other resolutions cannot do.
I used my colorimeter to test the display, and the result vary widely based on which preset is enabled. With the default, this is a very good display. It’s very bright at 584 nits, almost matching the specifications and being much brighter than any other external IPS display I’ve tested. The MSI Modern MD271UL display I reviewed came in at 376 nits, above our 300-nit standard but not nearly as bright as the Studio Display. Colors were similar, with Apple’s panel coming in at 100% sRGB, 88% AdobeRGB, and 99% DCI-P3, compared to the MSI at 100%, 89%, and 97% respectively. And the Studio Display’s color accuracy was very good at a DeltaE of 1.48, compared to the MSI’s 1.84. Contrast was just short of our 1,000:1 threshold at 910:1, but blacks still looked excellent without even a tinge of gray.
When you select a preset, brightness is locked in at a lower level and colors are optimized for the task. The Photography preset, for example, drops brightness to 157 nits and color accuracy improves to 1.24 (1.0 or less is indistinguishable to the human eye). Contrast remains close to the same at 900:1. The Digital Cinema (DCI-P3) present also drops brightness and contrast falls off to 810:1 and color accuracy bumps up to a DeltaE of 2.07.
I didn’t test every preset, but you get the drift. Selecting a preset locks the monitor into a distinct quality level that Apple clearly thinks is best. I didn’t bother calibrating the display, because I doubt that things would have gotten any better if I had.
As it is, display quality is excellent. Brightness, colors, and contrast are all excellent, you have True Tone if you want it, and you’ll get the sharpest image when mated with a Mac. And it’s all drop-dead easy to optimize for your task. I reviewed the standard glass model, but there’s also a nano-textured glass option that scatters light to further minimize glare. I’ve tried it with the latest MacBook Pro 16, and I wouldn’t mind using that model.
One important note is that the Studio Display doesn’t support high dynamic range (HDR) video. That will matter for gamers and media consumers, although I found both to be very good experiences with the Studio Display. If HDR is important to you, then you’re out of luck with this one.
The best display for most Mac users, at a price
As a writer, I love the Studio Display for its unmatched text sharpness. My other displays are fine, but there can be some fuzziness that the Studio Display avoids. I’m not a photographer or video editor, though, so colors don’t matter as much. And I have an OLED display for when they do, and for the inky blacks and awesome HDR performant that only OLED provides.
Is it the right monitor for you? Well, that depends on how much you value that perfect match of resolutions, the color quality and brightness, and the ease of use (contrasted with minimal configuration options). Is it worth a starting price of $1,599? I think it is, but you can get very good monitors for considerably less. My recommendation and rating here, therefore, is highly dependent on price sensitivity — as is likely the case with many of Apple’s products.
If you’re in the market for one of the best monitors and are leaning towards an Apple-branded product, you’ve got two options right now: the Studio Display and the Pro Display XDR. Yet while these are both excellent monitors in their own right, both of them have their problems — but that might all be about to change.
That’s because a new rumor has claimed that Apple is secretly working on two new monitors. That means there’s a chance the company’s entire monitor range could be refreshed, which would be great news for creatives and professional users.
Updates are needed
Julian Chokkattu / Digital Trends
The Studio Display is a solid option for most creatives thanks to its 5K resolution, impressive color accuracy and nano-texture glass option. But it’s still a long way behind the Pro Display XDR in a few areas: its 600 nits of brightness is far less than the XDR’s 1,600 nits, and it comes with a lower resolution, smaller frame, and fewer ergonomic adjustment options.
Yet the Pro Display XDR has its own problems. For one thing, its starting price of $4,999 makes it incredibly expensive piece of kit. That price doesn’t even include a stand, which is a $999 optional extra.
But the real problem is that it hasn’t been updated since 2019, making some of its technologies feel quite outdated considering the sky-high price you pay for it. You won’t find either OLED or mini-LED tech here, which makes it far less appealing when compared to its rivals.
Two are better than one
Apple
Now, though, Apple could be looking to fix that. It’s previously been reported that Apple is developing a new Studio Display that could launch at some point in the next 12 months or so. Now, Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman’s latest Power On newsletter suggests that Apple has another trick up its sleeve.
According to the report, Apple is actually working on two new monitors, not just one. One possibility is that Apple is simply testing two configurations of the Studio Display and will just launch the one it thinks is best.
But it might also be that Apple is actually working on a new Pro Display XDR to replace the ageing model from 2019. Either that, or the second monitor could perhaps be a higher-end screen branded as a Studio Display. Regardless, this is an idea that will surely excite Apple fans starved of top-tier standalone displays made by the company.
Gurman hasn’t shared any specifics regarding this second monitor — we don’t even know if it will be a Studio Display or a Pro Display XDR, never mind what its specs might be. That means we should look at the report with a skeptical eye until further details emerge.
But a Pro Display XDR refresh would be great news for creative pros who need a top-of-the-line device that goes beyond what the Studio Display offers. If that is indeed what’s being discussed in the Power On newsletter, there could be plenty to look forward to.
Welcome news
Apple
Gurman’s report was light on details not just when it comes to the monitor’s specifications — it also made no mention of its potential release date. While Gurman believes the Studio Display update will launch “at the end of this year or early next year,” he stopped short of giving a timeframe for the other screen.
A new Mac Pro is expected later this year, but I’d be surprised if this rumored monitor launched alongside it. After all, this is pretty much the first we’ve heard of the display, whereas the Mac Pro has been rumored for months. You’d think we would have heard more about the screen by now if it really was close to launching.
Given the niche nature of the Mac Pro and the low numbers of the display Apple would likely sell, the company is probably in no hurry anyway.
Regardless of the monitor’s projected release date, I hope the rumors prove to be true. An updated Pro Display XDR would give demanding users another option for their workstations and would showcase Apple’s commitment to professional customers. That would be further backed up by the refreshed Mac Pro, and the two devices combined could last users years into the future.
Given the tentative nature of Gurman’s report, I doubt we’ll be seeing the new monitor any time soon. But the suggestion that Apple could be planning to upgrade the Pro Display XDR after almost six years of silence will be welcome news to many a Mac user.
It’s received wisdom among a certain set of people that even the best Apple products are criminally overpriced. According to this way of thinking, Apple charges wildly inflated prices for its devices and only suckers pay full whack for anything it sells.
But like much of the world’s received wisdom, this idea isn’t always correct. In fact, I would argue that it’s more wrong than right when it comes to Apple.
Sure, I’m not arguing that Apple products are not pricey — because they absolutely are — and maybe in some cases they are overpriced (Apple’s prices for Mac memory and storage come to mind). But there’s an important difference between expensive and overpriced. Apple devices are often the former, but are they overpriced? That’s a different argument entirely.
The $14,000 bargain
To take an example, look at the iPhone. It’s one of the best smartphones in the world and consistently sells in incredible numbers. If it was overpriced, would millions of users be duped into buying it year after year? Of course not, people aren’t stupid and they can tell a dud from a mile off (just look at the Humane AI Pin).
The recent Mac Studio also demonstrates this well. Configure this device all the way up to the maximum and you can expect to pay the princely sum of $14,099. And no, it’s not even gold plated.
That sounds like an unbelievable amount of money, but consider what you get:
An M3 Ultra chip with the fastest CPU core on the market
512GB of unified memory that, thanks to its unified architecture, performs better than your average RAM
An enormous 16TB of extremely fast SSD storage
A tiny form factor
Superb build quality that will last you years
Try outfitting a Windows system with that kind of power and you’ll be paying far more. Spec up something similar from Dell, for example, and you can easily pay double Apple’s asking price for less performance in a larger, uglier case. At the high end, Apple is surprisingly affordable.
Priced to perform
So why does Apple have a reputation for overcharging? Well, part of it is probably justified, as the memory and storage upgrades I alluded to can attest. But that doesn’t explain the situation entirely — clearly, the Mac Studio is not overpriced, despite costing an arm and a leg.
The way I see it, part of the issue centers on the fact that Apple is a company that unashamedly makes premium devices. As our Mac Studio reviewer said, the machine “exhibit[s] that exquisite Apple manufacturing prowess that the company applies to all its products.” Even its lower-priced products like the iPhone 16e proudly convey their luxury. That’s hard to quantify on paper and might appear overpriced to someone who doesn’t value that sort of aesthetic.
The other aspect is that Apple mainly focuses on consumer products. Accordingly, the majority of its customers are consumers, not demanding professionals. So when a consumer sees something like the Mac Studio or the Mac Pro, they can’t understand how $14,000 could possibly represent value for money.
And compared to their needs, where a $999 MacBook Air or a $1,599 MacBook Pro might easily do the job, $14,000 absolutely is an unreasonable amount to pay.
But these people are not the intended market of these monstrous computers. For people who want to render high-resolution videos in double-quick time, or those who crunch outrageously powerful machine learning algorithms all day long, $14,000 is a fair price to pay. The context matters.
So, does that mean you should buy a Mac Studio? Not unless you have tremendously demanding workloads and it meets your specific needs. It is, of course, extremely expensive, and both the outlay and the power will go to waste if you could reasonably get by on something more affordable.
But not everyone will feel that way, and for those that need power — or just want a premium device the exudes luxury — the cost is well worth it. And if that eye-wateringly expensive $14,000 Mac Studio proves anything, it’s that maybe $14,000 isn’t so much to pay for a pro-level computer after all.
These days, I often feel like I’m one of those rare breeds: a gamer who also loves Macs. My home office work is split between my M1 Mac mini and my small-form-factor Windows PC, and to be honest it’s annoying to have to switch between the two all the time.
Unfortunately, my love of gaming — and Apple’s relative inexperience here — means that I’ve had to stick with both macOS and Windows for some time now. Sure, I’d love to drop Windows once and for all, but it just doesn’t feel as though the Mac is quite there yet in terms of gaming performance.
That said, Apple’s M4 chips have made gaming much more viable on a Mac. As we saw in our Mac Studio review, the M4 Max chip is very capable when it comes to gaming performance.
I’ve previously talked about how the Mac mini’s gaming performance has made it difficult to resist ditching my Windows PC and going all-in on macOS. Now, the Mac Studio is making the whole situation even more confusing.
The Mac Studio arrives
Fionna Agomuoh / Digital Trends
Pricing-wise, the Mac mini and the Mac Studio seem to be fairly far apart, even when you boost the former’s chip for better gaming output. Get a Mac mini with M4 Pro chip and you’ll pay around $1,399 — for the mac Studio with M4 Max chip, you’re looking at starting price of $1,999. That $600 difference is sizeable.
But things get a bit more interesting when gaming becomes a more serious consideration. Because there’s no discrete GPU in these Macs, and because the M4 Pro is far from Apple’s strongest chip, you’ll probably want the beefiest M4 Pro you can get. Upgrade to the version with a 14-core CPU and a 20-core GPU and you’re looking at a $1,599 price — a more reasonable $400 less than the Mac Studio.
That’s important because the M4 Max is much better for gaming than the M4 Pro. In our Mac Studio review, the M4 Max hit 114fps in Civilization VI and managed smooth frame rates when running Baldur’s Gate 3 at 4K resolution, for example. It also outdid the M3 Ultra in gaming performance, which we were not expecting.
Apple
When we tested the Mac mini, it performed worse than the previous-generation M3 Max chip. While we don’t have a direct comparison of the M4 Pro and M4 Max yet, it’s clear that the latter should be way ahead.
This has upended things a bit for me. When the M4 Mac mini came out, I was so taken by its dinky size and so impressed by its overall performance (despite it lacking a little in gaming) that I was almost ready to get rid of my M1 Mac mini and my Windows PC together and replace them with Apple’s tiny desktop machine.
Now that the Mac Studio with M4 Max is here, it’s looking like the more attractive option for gamers. Sure, you’ll have to pay more, but it offers more reliable gaming performance while simultaneously outdoing even the M3 Ultra in terms of frame rates. That’s obviously pretty confusing, but if it means I don’t have to spend $4,000 and up for an M3 Ultra Mac Studio, that’s fine by me.
We need more native games
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
So, does that mean that the Mac Studio is the best option for Apple gamers in search of a desktop machine? Maybe, but Apple still hasn’t solved the biggest problem here: a lack of native games.
The recent addition of Cyberpunk 2077 was a big win for Mac gamers, but it really feels like the exception that proves the rule. Illustrating the gulf with Windows, there’s still no native support for Grand Theft Auto V, Call of Duty, Elden Ring and other AAA games and franchises on the Mac.
Sure, you could supplement your Mac with Nvidia GeForce Now, and that’s something I’ve considered before. But that can get expensive and doesn’t cover every game. And really, I’d like to game natively rather than relying on another pricey subscription that drains my bank account every month.
It’s a shame that you have to spend Mac Studio money to get decent gaming performance within Apple’s ecosystem. Considering current GPU prices for Windows machines, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. But I’d still rather not have to sell a kidney to enjoy a spot of Mac gaming at smooth, stable frame rates.
Still, I can’t deny that we’re seeing progress. That the M4 Max can offer solid gaming performance at all is a welcome improvement over previous years. Hopefully 2025 will be the year of top-tier games coming to the Mac — and of Apple solving the biggest problem Mac gamers are currently facing.
Apple is giving its high-end Mac Studio desktops a refresh this month, their first spec bump in almost two years. Considered on the time scale of, say, new Mac Pro updates, two years is barely any time at all. But Apple often delivers big performance increases for its Pro, Max, and Ultra chips from generation to generation, so any update—particularly one where you leapfrog two generations in a single refresh—can bring a major increase to performance that’s worth waiting for.
It’s the magnitude of Apple’s generation-over-generation updates that makes this Studio refresh feel odd, though. The lower-end Studio gets an M4 Max processor like you’d expect—the same chip Apple sells in its high-end MacBook Pros but fit into a desktop enclosure instead of a laptop. But the top-end Studio gets an M3 Ultra instead of an M4 Ultra. That’s still a huge increase in CPU and GPU cores (and there are other Ultra-specific benefits, too), but it makes the expensive Studio feel like less of a step up over the regular one.
How do these chips stack up to each other, and how big a deal is the lack of an M4 Ultra? How much does the Studio overlap with the refreshed M4 Pro Mac mini from last fall? And how do Apple’s fastest chips compare to what Intel and AMD are doing in high-end PCs?
