For HDR, I had asked around, and the current owner confirmed that the ASD does playback HDR, and is capable of display wide colour gamut. Consider peak brightness for ASD is 600 nits (400 nits on the Dell), it should be more capable for HDR.
So I think you can cross out HDR as a con from ASD and compare to the Dell is actually a pro.
Yeah. I don’t think a 350 nits 163PPI monitor can even compare with the Apple Studio Display. But of course if price is a concern, then fine. The so called HDR400 on that Dell and many other monitors are close to false advertising. They are nowhere near the HDR we are expecting on OLED or mini LED monitors.
The HDR on my LG C1 OLED TV is super amazing, the true black of an OLED panel is just jaw dropping. The peak brightness of the mini-LED panel on my MacBook Pro 14-inch and iPad Pro ‘21 is eye-blinding, and the local dimming zone is great, even so better on the MBP because it doesn’t have as much blooming as the iPad Pro.
I can say this with confidence because I also own an LG 27UL850 4K 27 inch monitor. The only pros is the price, I got it under USD400 in 2020. The cons, I have a long list:
- Lower PPI, of course.
- Colour reproduction is obviously much worse, although it claims to be 99% sRGB - any layman can tell the difference between it and an iMac 5k display.
- The so called HDR mode makes the colour way off - nobody can tolerate that level of inaccuracy. (Okay, probably not nobody)
- Also, “HDR” only goes up to 350 nits around, i.e. the so called HDR400 crap. It’s even worse than a good SDR monitor like Apple’s iMac 5K panel, it looks washed out.
- Plastic everywhere, although I don’t really care that much as long as it can display the content I want.
- A very big external power brick.
- Oh yes, the on-screen control by the flimsy stick below the monitor complete with 1990s style setting screen - the only use is to turn on and off the monitor. Any setting inside will make the picture very weird.
All of the above comments is from a comparison with the LG monitor and the iMac 5K display.
I actually have a lot of buyer’s remorse for the LG monitor, I just convinced myself to keep it because I only use it for WFH office work, and the price. I wish there was the ASD two years ago.
Yes, the ASD is expensive, the whole computer monitor market is weird, on one side of the spectrum we have super low PPI monitors with super high refresh rate complete with ‘gamer’ teenager design, and on the other side of the spectrum we have color accurate, high PPI monitors at very expensive prices. Here is what we have.
So the ASD is overpriced, but comparing it to the weird computer monitor market, if we want something like that, it may be one of the very few choices right now.
