Best Mac Monitors and Displays 2024
However, picking a new monitor can be daunting. Not only are there many manufacturers to choose from, but there are also lots of sizes, resolutions, and features to consider–and when we say lots, we mean lots.
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Apple sells displays for its Macs, and you could go with its offerings, but its displays are a quite bit more expensive than what third parties have. Buying from a different company may mean you may not get a feature that Apple offers, but it may also be a feature that you don’t need, depending on how you use the monitor.
There are indeed many available displays, but the Apple Pro Display XDR and Apple Studio Display are the only ones they list that have the proper Retina resolution. The Studio Display’s camera is presented as a “Pro.” LG and Samsung do still sell Retina 5K displays, but I’m not aware of any other options.
Previously:
- Cheaper Studio Display Alternatives
- ViewFinity S9
- The State of External Retina Displays
- The Best Mac External Displays
- The LG UltraFine 5K, kernel_task, and Me
Update (2024-11-19): Casey Liss:
There’s been a handful of not-Apple 5K monitors that have come out in the last year or two. Does anyone have a list these days?
(I’m leaving aside the LG UltraFine 4K/5K.)
In 5K 27-inch there’s
- Samsung Viewfinity S9
- Dell UP2715k
That’s it. That’s the end of the list.
Dell released a 6k monitor that uses the same panel as the XDR display. It is inexplicably hideous.
This [ASUS ProArt Display 5K PA27JCV] is probably the new one Casey is thinking of.
The new Asus 5k is also an interesting option, arguably better connectivity (though its USB-C not Thunderbolt), internal power supply, better warranty and I think/hope less aggressive anti-glare coating.
Previously:
Update (2024-11-25): Miguel Arroz:
BenQ is also going to release a 5K 27 inch display!
Also, a review of the Asus 5K that shows local dimming being turned off (thanks for the link @daveeed). Sadly the display has no macOS integration for brightness control.
Around 5:20 is the main issue I have with the Samsung 5k display and every other display that’s not made by Apple. @#$@!@# matte coatings!
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There is the Dell 32" 6K, as an alternative to the XDR. It likely doesn't have the color quality etc, but if you are looking for retina, that seems like a very viable option. (the camera is quite ugly though)
It is truly shocking that monitors with cameras, microphones, speakers, and reasonable Retina resolution are still so hard to find in 2024. 🙄
The Dell U3224KB is great. It's a 6K display with resolution slightly higher than the Pro Display XDR. When it first came out, there were some interoperability problems with it and macOS, but those seem to have been all fixed by the macOS 14.1 update. I have one and I'm very happy with it.
My workplace got me a 49” 5k x 1440p monitor a while back, so it’s standard DPI. Years ago, I made a big fuss here in the comments about the loss of subpixel antialiasing, but nowadays I think Apple’s current text smoothing approach is good enough to where I don’t really miss losing the almost-retina quality I had with a 4k monitor.
Sonoma does have a weird bug though where some Cocoa text views get slightly blurry until I quit and relaunch the affected app. There are also a few other places where one can tell that Apple doesn’t really check how things look at standard DPI anymore, such as the table formatting buttons in iWork.
I do miss my old triple-screen setup sometimes, but it’s effectively impossible to keep macOS from messing up window layout when waking from sleep or switching inputs.
> I'm genuinely surprised that this is still a thing after apple launched the studio display.
Considering the price of Apple's displays offer and that the cheapest display option (studio display) was plagued with bugs when it was introduced, it's not surprising a lot of customers would look for other solutions.
In my case, I don't plan to buy any display now or ever that requires a reboot.
Regarding 5K displays: I'm a display snob who rejects anything not retina density, so for almost 10 years I've been using 27" 5K main display paired with a 24" UHD display in portrait mode both at work and at home. Apple's Studio Display as main ever since it was released. Recently there was an offer for Samsungs ViewFinity S9 27" 5K display for a bargain price (850 CHF, less in USD), so I replaced my secondary display with that. It's panel is fine, camera I don't need, intelligent OS don't want but can be mostly ignored, overall good for the price. However they have coil whine, as do 2 others bought by 2 friends.
I've ended up settling on 24" 4K as my preferred monitor size. The DPI is retina and I found I really don't need the screen real-estate of a 27" monitor; at least for my needs which are mainly software development with a bit of photo editing.
My main trouble with the Studio Display is the audio - the mic adds too much bass and if the other person also has a Studio Display, it's just awful sound. To make it worse, Macos doesn't have a built-in equalizer.
HDR would be nice too, but Apple being Apple, it's locked to the super expensive 6k display.
@remmah regarding the blurry text bug: I reported it back in November (FB13377210). Of course, the ticket has been ignored, remaining "open" with "recent similar reports: none".
Whenever I research or buy monitors, the factors I look at are the screen area, pixel density (dpi), and aspect ratio. But of course, displays are sold by pixel count and diagonal distance. I wish articles like these would do the math and present a table so it's clear which displays are really competitors with each other.
