Apple today unveiled the new Apple Thunderbolt Display, the world’s first display with Thunderbolt I/O technology and the ultimate docking station for your Mac notebook. With just a single cable, users can connect a Thunderbolt-enabled Mac to the 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display and access its FaceTime camera, high quality audio, and Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt ports. Designed specifically for Mac notebooks, the new display features an elegant, thin, aluminum and glass enclosure, and includes a MagSafe connector that charges your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.
“The Apple Thunderbolt Display is the ultimate docking station for your Mac notebook,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, in the press release. “With just one cable, users can dock with their new display and connect to high performance peripherals, network connections and audio devices.”
With a beautiful 16:9 edge-to-edge glass design, the Thunderbolt Display uses IPS technology to provide a brilliant image across an ultra wide 178 degree viewing angle. Any Thunderbolt-enabled Mac notebook can dock with the display to quickly and easily create a full-fledged desktop solution. The Thunderbolt Display includes a built-in FaceTime HD video camera for crisp video conferencing, a 2.1 speaker system for high quality audio, an integrated MagSafe charger to keep Mac notebooks charged, three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, one Gigabit Ethernet port and a Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining up to five additional Thunderbolt devices.
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The Thunderbolt Display is the world’s first display to include Thunderbolt I/O technology. Featuring two bi-directional channels with transfer speeds up to an amazing 10Gbps each, each Thunderbolt port delivers PCI Express directly to external peripherals such as high performance storage and RAID arrays, supports DisplayPort for high resolution displays and works with existing adapters for HDMI, DVI and VGA displays. Thunderbolt-based Macs with discrete graphics can drive two external displays giving professional users over 7 million additional pixels of display real estate and the ability to daisy chain additional Thunderbolt devices, as well as video and audio capture devices.
The Thunderbolt Display includes an ambient light sensor which automatically adjusts the display brightness based on external lighting conditions and uses only as much energy as necessary to provide an optimum viewing experience. Made with mercury-free LED technology, arsenic-free glass and highly recyclable materials, the new display meets Energy Star 5.0 requirements and achieves EPEAT Gold status. The new display contains no brominated flame retardants and all cables and components are PVC-free.
The new Thunderbolt Display will be available within the next 60 days through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of US$999. The Apple Thunderbolt Display requires a Mac with a Thunderbolt I/O port.
Source: Apple Inc.
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Display looks sweet, but that loaded-up MBA at $1700 looks like it’s going to do some very nice things for AAPL.
This is MUCH better than the previous way to connect two monitors to a Mac laptop (gruml USB!!)
Perfect. Apple Thunderbolt Display + MacBook Air (next iteration). My perfect work/mobility balance.
Thunderbolt Eh, first and only product it would seem.
But atleast Apple is supporting it own format!
Hope other vendors would support thunderbolt
i recall a raid array..
and external HD..
I want my brominated Flame Retardants. They should make it optional on the new thunderthigh displays.
Seriously though, does anyone know if I could connect two of these monitors to my thunderbolt Macbook Pro, without mirroring?
Yeah, change the settings in display.
Really? And have all three displays (including the MacBook Pro) displaying different images?
If so, that will make work so much more productive.
Forecast on display-1, Excel or ERP on display-2, Email, Cal, Chat on Macbook display, and I’m not forced to use a MacPro. Spaces, you are no longer needed.
This could potentially eliminate the need for the 15″ or 17″ MacBook Pro – all they need to do is beef up the processor options, and then all you’d need would be screen space, which this would cover, not to mention getting extra ports. 🙂
And would the displays come with levitating carriers, so that you can take them with you when traveling?
Not necessarily, but I suppose you could take the MBP with you on the road to do some catch-up work, and then save the heavy duty visual work for when you get back to your desk.
Orphaned already?
I’m a photographer and spent over 10K on a loaded Mac Pro, Nehalem (2009-10) my colleague, a videographer spent the same amount on two MacPros, Westmere (2010). We both have the Mini Ports for our Cinema Displays. We were waiting for the latest Apple 27″. With a thunderbolt connection only, we’re both orphaned in a year……such is life in the fast lane.
But Thunderbolt is based on PCI Express……. The Mac Pro has PCI Express slots so a Thunderbolt add in card is certainly a possibility