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Apple announced the Studio Display on March 8th 2022. At that time it was of little interest to me as I wasn’t looking for a monitor. Fast forward to May 2022, and unexpectedly, I was in the market for a monitor having secured a new job that was 99% remote.
I was aware of the Apple Studio Display but I wasn’t willing to part with that sort of cash for a screen to attach to my 16” MacBook Pro. As far as I was concerned, I was pretty convinced I could pay a third of that price for a different monitor with similar results.
I probably spent a good 2 weeks searching the web for a monitor that I felt would tick the boxes I required. The most important factor for me was the clarity, I’m so used to ‘Retina Displays’, anything else never seems good enough. Having said that, I was still pretty sure I could find a great 4K 27” monitor that I would be perfectly happy with in my home office setup. In terms of webcam and speakers, I was willing to purchase these separately if I was able to find a suitable monitor.
The Studio Display is £1500 in the UK but nonetheless I was still curious to know what the critics had to say. What were the reviews for a monitor that costs considerably more than a great 4K monitor? In a nutshell, they were pretty poor. Most complaints were related to the webcam and how the display didn’t support HDR and that it should have been at least 32” etc. These reviews only confirmed my current thinking, I could spend a lot less and still have the same results.
After many days of research and struggling to come to a decision, I decided I needed to go to an actual store and view some of the monitors I had my eye on in real life. Tech specs are great and all but they don’t necessarily tell you the whole story. I had narrowed down my choices to an LG, Dell, BenQ and Huawei.
As I walked towards the store, I was convinced I was going to make a decision on one of these models, or worst case scenario, narrow it down to two options. Luckily for me, all the monitors were on display so I was able to compare them easily. The Huawei MateView was the one that drew my attention initially, it was very Apple like and would look great in my office space, it had good specs on paper, was 28” and had the USB thunderbolt port so I would…
