The Mac studio is connected to the studio display and the Maeil Business Newspaper website is displayed.In March, Apple unveiled one monitor and one computer. The name of the monitor is ‘Studio Display’, and it is characterized by a small reduction in size and resolution from the ‘Pro Display XDR’, a professional monitor announced in 2019. There was also a computer ‘Mac Studio’ that was released together. It has a design resembling the Mac mini, twice the size, and significantly improved performance.
First we looked at the studio display. The device I’ve been using has a standard glass screen, which is a standard screen, and an optional height adjustable stand.
Studio display turned offThe overall design is mostly neutral colors such as black and gray. There is no logo on the front, and there is a Thunderbolt/USB-C port on the back with a large Apple logo.
The monitor has a built-in speaker and microphone. In terms of experience, the performance of the speaker was comparable to that of an external computer speaker that can be purchased for regarding 100,000 won. Since there are multiple woofers, the bass sounds particularly hoarse. It is difficult to use for full-fledged music listening, but it is full of performance for watching YouTube videos or for video conferencing.
Back view of studio displayIt has a 27-inch size and a 5K (5120×2880) resolution, so you can feel large and clear at a glance. In fact, since I’ve used an iMac 5K before, I didn’t feel much impressed other than the bezels were a little thinner when I looked at the screen. However, anyone who has used a monitor with a resolution of less than 5K in the past will surely be impressed.
It is also possible to use the studio display as an external monitor by connecting it to the iPad. Starting with iPadOS 16, released earlier this month, when an external monitor is connected to the iPad, it can be used like a laptop. In fact, when I connected the iPad Air and the Studio Display with a USB-C cable, the ‘Stage Manager’ function was launched, allowing me to perform multiple tasks at the same time. iPadOS 16 is scheduled to be officially released around September, but anyone can download the beta version and try it out in advance.
The studio display is connected to the iPad, and the Maekyung eNewspaper app for iPad is displayed in full screen.Although it is a studio display that shows such versatility, it is true that other products catch your eye when you think regarding whether to buy this product for 2.09 million won. A representative example is LG Electronics’ ultra-fine 5K display. Although the brightness is 10% darker than the studio display, it supports the same resolution and Thunderbolt/USB-C port at a relatively low price. In addition, a height adjustment option of 540,000 won for studio display is included as standard in Ultrafine.
However, if you are a person who values the unique beautiful design and excellent finish of this product, it may be an alternative that you can choose under the premise that you have ample money.
Various adjustments of the height and inclination of the studio displayAlong with the Studio Display, I’ve been using the Mac Studio for regarding ten days. The device I used is a basic model equipped with an M1 max processor, a 24-core GPU, 32 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of SSD.
Not many people buy a Mac studio to play games, but I’ve played a few games to test their performance. Blizzard and Riot Games are representative game companies that consider playing games on Mac.
front of mac studioFirst, I played Blizzard’s Starcraft Remastered. Although the remastered specifications have increased the recommended specifications, the Mac Studio’s performance was too full to run a game like this. However, the ‘real-time lighting’ function that requires more than 2GB of graphic memory (VRAM) was not available for some reason. This is somewhat questionable considering that the memory management method of Mac Studio is a method of sharing a total of 32GB of memory with the system and graphics.
I also ran Starcraft 2, which requires a bit more specs. In the first run, I increased the resolution to 5K, and went into the campaign. Again, there was no lag at all, and the frame came out around 30FPS. After setting the same for League of Legends, 90 FPS came out. It was impressive that the fan on the console didn’t spin at all while gaming in 5K resolution.
back of mac studioI measured the Geekbench score to measure the performance of the central processing unit (CPU). 12,384 points came out in ARM native, and 9740 points in x86 mode that I tried running just in case, there was a performance drop of regarding 20%. Still, it’s a very high score compared to other devices. In native standards, the performance is similar to the Intel Xeon W-2191B processor in the iMac Pro, and it is similar to the W-2150B processor in x86 mode. However, if you want to compare it to the Mac Pro, a full-fledged professional device, you should choose the M1 Ultra option.
Mac Studio has a high price/performance ratio, but it also has its drawbacks in terms of performance. Internal parts such as RAM and SSD cannot be replaced at all, so future upgrades are not possible. Especially, people who work on music or video often require high capacity, and if you do not add an SSD option when you first purchase, you may run into trouble later.
mac studio undersideFinally, the trackpad and keyboard that came with the computer were also impressive. The trackpad is a black color that is only available on high-performance computers, and it is more expensive than white if purchased separately. The keyboard is equipped with Touch ID, a fingerprint sensor, so it can be used for logging in, etc. However, in my case, the related menu was disabled due to an error, so I mightn’t actually try it.
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