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The Best Monitors For Your Mac in 2023
Apr 30, 2024
Full Article on Cult of Mac: https://www.cultofmac.com/770205/best-monitor-mac/
More Apple news: http://www.cultofmac.com
What’s the best #monitor for your #Mac? Desktop displays aren’t just for desktop computers anymore — 77% of you are buying MacBooks, but you probably want a nice setup when you’re at home. And if you do have a Mac mini or Mac Studio, you want to make sure you’re picking the right #display.
Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac
Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:26 Retina Displays
4:24 Standard Displays
6:12 Ultrawide Displays
8:05 Small Displays
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0:00
What's the best monitor for your Mac
0:02
Desktop displays aren't just for desktop computers anymore. Even though 77% of you are buying MacBooks
0:08
you probably want a nice big monitor that you can plug your Mac into when you're at home
0:13
And if you have a Mac Studio or a Mac Mini, the monitor you pick is very important
0:17
So I'm going to walk you through all of the options on the market today, or at least, all the ones worth considering
0:25
I'm going to start by talking through some retina displays. Now a retina display is any display
0:30
display that has twice the resolution of a standard display. It packs four pixels in the space of just
0:35
one pixel, so you get smoother text and crisper images. In order for a display to be a retina display
0:41
the pixels have to be small enough that you can't discern any individual one at a normal distance
0:46
That equates to 4K on a 24-inch display or 5K on a 27-inch display. Apple's been building retina
0:53
displays into all of their products for years now, but if you want an external display, your options are
0:58
kind of limited. And if you already have a Mac, the best all-around option is Apple's own
1:02
studio display. It has a 5K resolution at 27 inches. It doesn't have some of the most advanced
1:08
features like HDR, which is where colors can get extremely bright, or promotion where it can
1:13
adaptively go down to 24 hertz or all the way up to 120 hertz in refresh rate for super smooth
1:19
images. But for a giant retina display made out of premium materials, it's a pretty good price
1:24
Some reviewers found the display sits a little short, and for an extra $400,000, you
1:28
You can get a height adjustable arm, but honestly, it's cheaper to just put it on a monitor stand
1:34
The real advantage to using Apple's own monitor is all of the convenience features, like Center Stage
1:39
where it uses an ultra-wide camera that'll zoom around and stay centered on your face no matter where you are in front of it
1:45
And of course, you never have to turn it on or off. When you turn your Mac on, the display comes on
1:49
It's really simple. And you have a lot of handy ports on the back, one Thunderbolt 3, and 3 USBC
1:54
Now, if you don't need as many premium features, but you still want to have a retina display, at least, you can get the LG
2:00
this. It only costs $300, and it still has an iPS screen, so it'll still look
2:06
good, no matter at which angle you're at in front of it. There's no color distortion
2:10
But that's about where the similarities end. It doesn't get as bright and only 250 nits
2:14
which is enough for a reasonably lit office like this but if a direct laser beam of sunlight falls on it you won be able to read anything for a little bit It a pretty cheap plastic body that gets wobbly over time so you have to retitin the screws in the stand
2:29
You can plug it in over HTML, or you can get an HTML to USBC cable
2:33
but there are no extra ports on the back. And again, it's not as big at only 24 inches
2:37
but because it's a retina display, you can run it in a scaling mode where you get the same amount of screen space
2:42
So if you only care about having a retina display for that crisp text
2:46
it's hard to beat the value of the LG. You literally can't
2:50
At the highest end of the market is Apple's Pro Display XDR. A 32-inch 6K screen add up to 1,600 nits with full HDR
3:00
This thing is basically precision tuned for the brightest and most accurate colors money can buy for video editing and graphic design
3:08
Honestly, if your line of work is at the professional level where you think you need a $6,000 monitor
3:13
nothing else on this list matters because it's the only one, and if you are absolutely
3:18
sure that you need it. You definitely don't. So let's move on. The Dell Ultrasarp 32 made a big splash
3:24
in the news this year, because it also has a pretty wide collar gamut, although it falls a little
3:28
short of being full HDR, but it matches the Pro Display XDR in brightness, passes it in resolution
3:35
and connectivity, all for almost half the price. Now, it definitely falls short in the looks department
3:42
For some reason, it has this giant, chunky forehead, and the camera that sticks out of the top
3:47
is even bigger, but at least it's a pretty good camera. It's 4K and it has an ultra-wide field of view
3:53
And as I said, it has a lot of ports. It has a Thunderbolt 4 port that you can use for charging at
3:57
140 watts. That's enough for the biggest MacBook Pro. Another Thunderbolt 4 port for peripherals
4:03
3 USBC ports, 5 USBA ports, and Ethernet. You can upgrade it to an 8K display and still undercut
4:11
the Pro Display XDR by $2,000. It's the highest resolution 32-inch display
4:17
on the market. So unless you really need HDR, this is probably what you should buy if you have all
4:22
that money to spend. Now, how about some more standard displays? Basically, if you take the retina
4:27
out of the Pro Display XDR, you end up with the Samsung S60A. This is a 32-inch display with a little
4:33
less screen space, but you have HDR 10 and a billion colors. It's a little less bright at just 300
4:39
nits but it has a higher refresh rate of 75 hertz and it comes included with a stand that raises lowers tilts swiveles and rotates It a pretty attractive option at just On the cheaper side the Dell S
4:55
offers a standard 1080p at a standard 24 inches. You can also get a 27-inch at the same resolution
5:01
for a little bit more. Much like the S-60A, it also has a 75-hertz screen, a pretty good contrast
5:06
ratio, and an anti-glare coding. I've personally used these displays before, four of the
5:11
on the same computer, in fact, and I can say that even though they have a plastic body
5:15
they have an excellent build quality. The only downside is that the colors are distorted
5:19
when you're not looking at them straight on. But at only 120 bucks, it's a good pick
5:24
The Samsung M8 is also a pretty good map to the Pro Display XDR. It's the same size
5:28
It has a little bit more screen space, the same 60 hertz refresh rate, although it's not as bright at only 400 nits
5:34
But you do still have HDR10, and this monitor will look really good sitting next to a color-matched iMac
5:39
Now, this display also comes with a built-in chip that lets you browse the web, watch movies, and work on projects all on its own without
5:47
an attached computer. Why you would want to do this on a low-powered Android chip
5:53
instead of the computer you presumably have plugged into it, is beyond me, but I won't judge
6:01
Well, not that much. Yeah, I will. So personally, I'd probably go for the S-60A
6:07
but if you want the fun colors and the added screen space, this is an attractive option, too
6:11
Now let's talk ultra-wide displays. If you have a big area to fill, but you don't want a big seam running down the middle of your line of sight
6:18
an ultra-wide display might be for you. This can give you a better experience gaming or watching some movies
6:24
Some of them are curved so that you're always looking dead on, whether you're looking at the left or right extreme of the display
6:30
But, of course, curved displays are a little more expensive. Overall, though, buying one ultra-wide display might be cheaper than two smaller displays
6:37
So at the high-end, LG makes a 40-inch curved ultra-wide display, with a resolution of 5120 by 2160
6:44
It offers 96 watt charging through a USBC cable, so it's the only thing you have to plug in your laptop with
6:50
It supports HDR with a billion colors and the P3 color gamut, just like the Pro Display XDR
6:56
although, again, at a dimmer 300 nits. It also has a high refresh rate at 72 hertz compared to 60
7:01
The stand tilts raises and lowers, but obviously it doesn rotate to portrait That be ridiculous So it comes to a Thunderbolt 4 port for power delivery a second Thunderbolt port for Daisy chaining another display and two USB 3 ports It might seem pricey at but when you consider you getting
7:17
two HDR displays, it's honestly not that bad. On the cheaper side is the Scepter IPS 43.8 inch ultra wide display
7:24
This is effectively two 1080p displays side by side. So you have a lower vertical resolution at only 1080p
7:32
but of course that affords you a really high refresh rate of 120 hertz. It runs at a pretty bright 600 nits and it has 125% of the
7:40
srgb range, which isn't quite full HDR, but it's a lot nicer than a lot of other displays on this
7:46
list. Now in my experience, Scepter displays have pretty abysmal build quality, especially the
7:52
speakers. They sound worse than iPod earbuds from 2001. But you got to understand what
7:58
you're buying it for. The resolution, the brightness. It's under 500 bucks and it's hard to argue with
8:04
that. Now let's talk small displays under 22 inches. There's a lot of reasons why you might want
8:08
something like this. Maybe you're a student and you don't have a lot of space on your dorm room
8:12
desk. Maybe you have a server running in a closet, but you want a backup display just in case
8:17
Maybe you take your Mac Mini on the go occasionally and you don't want to lug around a giant thing
8:22
The best small display I found is the Dell P2223HC. Now small doesn't have to mean cheap
8:30
This is made with the same high-billed quality as the other Dell monitor I told you about earlier
8:35
and it has a full 1920-by-1080 resolution. If you pay a little more, you have 65-watt power delivery to charge your MacBook 2
8:41
and you have four USB ports on the back, so it's a full docking station. And it starts at just 120 bucks
8:47
Now, cheaper than that is this offering by Scepter, it's a little short of full 1080p at 1600 by 900
8:53
but it's a 20-inch display for under 80 bucks. It has a 75-hertz refresh rate
8:58
a really thin bezel around the edge, and it weighs less than some MacBooks
9:03
Now, as I mentioned before, a Scepter build quality isn't anything to write home about
9:08
but it's a 20-inch display that costs less than a fancy dinner date at Texas Roadhouse
9:14
So you get what you pay for. So if you want to read about these in more detail, if you want an easy-to-digest comparison table
9:20
there's a link in the video description. If you learned something from this video, be sure to like and subscribe
9:25
I'm DeGraffin-Jones with Cult of Mac
#Computer Peripherals
#Consumer Electronics