CNET’s Lori Grunin has posted her first impressions as the review process begins for Apple’s Pro Display XDR.
Apple’s Pro Display XDR features a massive 32-inch Retina 6K display with gorgeous P3 wide and 10-bit color, an extreme 1,600 nits of peak brightness, an incredible 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a superwide viewing angle, all at a breakthrough price point. Together, the new Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR are the most powerful tools Apple has ever put in the hands of pro customers and will change pro workflows forever.
With a P3 wide color gamut and true 10-bit color for over 1 billion colors, pros will have a more true-to-life viewing experience — critical for video and photo editing, 3D animation or color grading. Pro Display XDR also features the industry’s best polarizer technology, delivering a superwide, color-accurate, off-axis viewing angle, so now multiple people can view more accurate content simultaneously. To manage reflected light, Pro Display XDR has an industry-leading anti-reflective coating and offers an innovative new matte option called nano-texture, with glass etched at the nanometer level for low reflectivity and less glare.
To better reflect what the eye can see in the real world, Pro Display XDR takes high dynamic range to a whole new extreme. Pro Display XDR uses a direct backlighting system with a large array of LEDs that produce 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness and 1,600 nits of peak brightness, far surpassing that of a typical display. With an advanced thermal system that uses its aluminum lattice pattern as a heat sink, Pro Display XDR can sustain 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness indefinitely, something that has never been possible before on a display at this price point. And with an amazing 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, images will have the brightest specular highlights, super dark blacks and all the details in between.
I’ve only had it for a brief time, so haven’t begun my formal measurements or more rigorous hands-on testing… Some things just jumped out the first time I fired it up.
Simply eyeballing, it has some of the best blacks I’ve seen in a desktop or laptop monitor. And that includes OLED. While OLED can effectively get down to zero black, the Pro Display XDR actually has some usable tonal range in the deep shadows.
Another pleasant surprise is skin tones. You don’t realize how comparatively imprecise generally well-regarded monitors are in comparison — like the iMac’s — until you pop open some portraits on the Pro Display.
It’s also very quiet. That’s because the back is functional as well as eye catching. It’s basically a big heat sink, designed to dissipate the heat coming off the 1,600-nit-capable backlight. The fans only have to cool the circuit board, and blow the air out the grater. And the air coming out is cool. I’ve used 1,000-nit monitors, and they can generate a lot of heat out the front as well, even when they’re not maxed out. Not this one.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s utterly gorgeous! Even though it’s a steal for pros at $5,999, here’s hoping Apple will also soon make some nice displays for mere mortals, too!
Despite all the social media shade thrown at the price of the Pro Stand, the fact that Apple has created such an aspirational product has created plenty of demand in the Mac ecosystem for a less expensive Apple-branded display. And since Apple has clearly invested so much into making a cutting-edge computer monitor, it would be surprising if the Pro Display XDR is the only product it makes. A separate (lower-priced) prosumer monitor and improved displays of future versions of the iMac would make a lot of sense… — MacDailyNews, June 6, 2019
Counterpoint:
https://diglloyd.com/blog/2020/20200207_1926-AppleProDisplayXDR-reviewed.html
Apple should hire that guy.
Here is a review that compares the XDR to the actual Sony monitor shown at the unveiling. Basically, compared to the Sony it sucks.
I have no idea how great this monitor is, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It has competition: 8K resolution Dell UP3218K costs $3,999 (including the stand!!!).