Jonathan Morrison:
My initial review of the Pro Display XDR! Apple’s new 2019 Mac Pro is no doubt but I’m most excited for Apple’s Pro Display XDR which is a 32-inch 6K HDR Display that pack 1,000 nits of sustained brightness and rivals monitors up to $40,000. Yes, the $999 Apple stand sold separately is inarguably overpriced but even if Apple charged $5,999 and included the stand, it would be a great deal.
Now that all the tech pundits have had their say, step back and hear what a video professional has to say.
If you think it’s overpriced, it’s not for you. You don’t
require it for your work.
Let’s hope Apple will start transfering some of that tech to the next iMac.
I don’t think Apple is this smart, but they sure are getting a lot of publicity from that stand, and in Hollywood even bad press is good. Like JimCracky said the people that are going to buy this monitor aren’t the ones that are complaining about the stand.
Which is Apple going to sell more of: the Pro Display XDR or the Mac Pro?
exactly. the online whiners and pundits aren’t the target customer, and aren’t in this market.
This is exactly it. And the people that do need it (IE, production studios that’ll be buying several of them at a time), are probably thrilled that they can just use their existing VESA mounts and save $1,000 per unit.
It really was just a terrible way to explain it though. Apple already has an image of overcharging for their products. Marketing was out of their minds for pitching it this way.
As many have mentioned, if they had said this was a $6,000 monitor but we’ll knock off $1k if you don’t need a stand for it, no one would be talking about it.
They should have announced the display as $6k, period. Then when ordering, give you the option to remove the stand for a $1k discount, and nobody would have said a word. I just can’t understand Apple’s thought process here. Total self-own.
How does anybody know the stand is over-priced? Few people complain about a $1,000 Gitzo tripod being over-priced, even though it does the same job as a $20 cheapie.
True professional quality tools are always expensive.
Because the display works with Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs, I would say the display. I might not be able to justify the Mac Pro, but I can justify that monitor, so can a lot of others. If an iMac or iMac Pro covers your Pro needs, but you need an additional monitor for color critical reference, your prayers have been answered.
I don’t think it’s overpriced, but comparing it to an OLED monitor with various tools built-in like false color, histograms, 6-channel audiometer (and 6 channel audio in), calibration tools and various professional inputs like sdi-in is like comparing apples to oranges.
well, that manfrotto tripod is overpriced. i mean, it’s a manfrotto! for that money you could already get a cheap sachtler or miller.
besides, no, it’s not even a comparison between a 500$ tripod and a 20$ cheapie. if you don’t want to lose your valuable equipment to gravity, get at least a manfrotto.
either way, i think it’s a fair move to exclude the monitor stand. personally, if i needed the monitor i’d just get the vesa mount and a cheaper stand.
I don’t think everyone who uses a Mac Pro will need this display, either.
I think this computer, monitor and stand demonstrate where we are at in the computing world.
There are pundits wondering what can these three things can do that their three things they bought from Best Buy or Gear Best etc can’t do. Unbox Therapy and Linus said they’re just as good, so they must be as good, dammit.
There are YouTubers wondering why these three weren’t priced at their price points. I mean, being a YouTuber surely proves they’re professionals too.
And then there are filmmakers, studios, designers who need workstations for whom these three things were created for. This group drops big money, that is, invests in these three things if they know they’ll get a workflow return on them.
But these days, everyone’s an expert, everyone’s a pro, everyone’s price point and wishlist must be catered to. Whereas once upon a time the pros were a select market.
They still are. It’s just that everybody else thinks they’re one too.
Any tripod can stand up to gravity, and any mount can hold a monitor. The differences are in subtler aspects of performance.
Quality engineering, quality materials and quality design require a serious investment but make a tremendous difference in both.
I would argue they probably make a bigger difference in the case of the monitor stand.
I expect the Apple stand will be exceptionally good, and well worth the price for a large subset of those spending $5k+ on a monitor.
Also I said Gitzo, not Manfrotto. I don’t often come across the opinion that a $1,000 Gitzo tripod is over-priced.
The greatest thing about this monitor and optional stand are that I don’t need them to run macOS. I can choose whatever resolution, size, aspect, curve, height, tilt, stand, I/O, price… monitor that I want. Apple could charge 50k for this thing and it wouldn’t affect my work one way or the other because I have a choice.
So it doesn’t matter what the pundits, bloggers, YouTubers… say to get their clicks because I have options.
Now if only I had more choices for a headless Mac…