Pro Display XDR - Owners Thread

[Maxim Glukhov]

Are there any users with 2 XDR displays here? Could you share your experience using a dual monitor setup?
In the original post I see a link to a similar question but no answers so I wanted to resurface.

I always preferred a single monitor setup and few months back got the XDR display after being on the fence for a while. Now I find myself in the same situation once again, considering adding a second display to my home office.

 

[Macdude2010]

does anyone else have this weird dim spot at the bottom near the center? I know DSE is normal in IPS LCD's, but im not sure what this is.

 

[romanof]

So I took a gamble from Amazon for an open box Pro XDR display that stated it has major cosmetic damage, I figured if it was on the screen, I would just return.

View attachment 1744865



It came in a really beat up brown box which was the original Apple brown box with foam inserts and well....


Guess my gamble paid off, it was brand new and sealed...... I'm guessing the major cosmetic damage was the brown box it came in??

My new one was delivered by Fed Ex in the XDR regular brown shipping box and looked like it was dropped in the road and only recovered the next day. I was really upset, but took pictures of everything, with time and date overlay enabled and a witness before opening. Fortunately, since Apple spends more time on the quality of their packaging than most companies do on their product, the well protected insides were ok, with just a single ding in the white box inside.

Works ok and looks beautiful.

Hope that my new Apple Mini-Pro MegaCore Photonic Processor to be announced next week has packaging that is as good.

 

[supaninjax]

Has anyone been able to control the brightness from Windows?

I downloaded Apple’s Bootcamp package and attempted to install them for the driver on a Windows PC (3090 RTX 3700X.) The issue I had was, even with that installed I still couldn’t get the specific driver to control the brightness.

I'm having the same issue, so far no solution. Did you figure anything out? I have an XDR display plugged into a W5700 on a PC and it works great, full 6K resolution but no brightness control. My eyes hurt it's so bright and no way to turn it down

 

[naughtybehavior86]

I'm having the same issue, so far no solution. Did you figure anything out? I have an XDR display plugged into a W5700 on a PC and it works great, full 6K resolution but no brightness control. My eyes hurt it's so bright and no way to turn it down

I ended up returning my XDR as it ended up having a defect on the right side (a single purple thin vertical line down entire screen). However the only way I know of to change brightness in Windows with the XDR is to enable HDR in Win10. It will dim it a bit but also changes the coloring (contrast it seems) so you may not like it.

Worth a shot to ease the eyes especially at night.

 

[RainbowSWE]

I'm having the same issue, so far no solution. Did you figure anything out? I have an XDR display plugged into a W5700 on a PC and it works great, full 6K resolution but no brightness control. My eyes hurt it's so bright and no way to turn it down

Sorry for the late reply. Work time crunch really kicked my ass.

So here is what I found that wasn’t clear in the instructions.

Install the boot camp package downloaded by the Mac Pro

This package is bigger and includes more drivers than the Mac Mini. On the next boot, the BootCamp Assistant will have a “Display” tab. It is here where you control the brightness and can use the presets for the different color spaces.

Bam! No More wearing sun glasses to use the display.

Problem: You cannot have full disk encryption enabled(BitLocker.)

On my personal laptop (Elucktronics Mag-2070) and my desktop (3080/3700X) I can open the BootCamp App and it just works. On my work laptop that has full disk encryption, BootCamp assistant will fail to open because it needs access to the volume. This appears to be prevented by Bitlocker in my case. I tried running it in Administrator mode, did not work.

Because I can not open the BootCamp App on my work laptop, I cannot set the brightness or presets. I have not found a work around for this.

 

[supaninjax]

Where do I download the Mac Pro bootcamp drivers / assistant?

 

[supaninjax]

Where do I download the Mac Pro bootcamp drivers / assistant?

 

[supaninjax]

Sorry for the late reply. Work time crunch really kicked my ass.

So here is what I found that wasn’t clear in the instructions.

Install the boot camp package downloaded by the Mac Pro

This package is bigger and includes more drivers than the Mac Mini. On the next boot, the BootCamp Assistant will have a “Display” tab. It is here where you control the brightness and can use the presets for the different color spaces.

Bam! No More wearing sun glasses to use the display.

Problem: You cannot have full disk encryption enabled(BitLocker.)

On my personal laptop (Elucktronics Mag-2070) and my desktop (3080/3700X) I can open the BootCamp App and it just works. On my work laptop that has full disk encryption, BootCamp assistant will fail to open because it needs access to the volume. This appears to be prevented by Bitlocker in my case. I tried running it in Administrator mode, did not work.

Because I can not open the BootCamp App on my work laptop, I cannot set the brightness or presets. I have not found a work around for this.

Where do I download the Mac Pro bootcamp drivers / assistant?

 

[RainbowSWE]

Where do I download the Mac Pro bootcamp drivers / assistant?

GitHub - timsutton/brigadier: Fetch and install Boot Camp ESDs with ease.

Fetch and install Boot Camp ESDs with ease. Contribute to timsutton/brigadier development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[supaninjax]

GitHub - timsutton/brigadier: Fetch and install Boot Camp ESDs with ease.

Fetch and install Boot Camp ESDs with ease. Contribute to timsutton/brigadier development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Thanks but how do I use this?

 

[ImageAmos]

Hi Folks

I currently own the LG Ultrafine 5K and was considering a move to the Pro XDR. My needs are development and image / video editing. I was just wondering if anyone has made a similar switch and whether they regretted it or not? My desktop is a fully spec'd M1 Mac Mini.

Any opinions would be very much appreciated

 

[mlykke]

Hi Folks

I currently own the LG Ultrafine 5K and was considering a move to the Pro XDR. My needs are development and image / video editing. I was just wondering if anyone has made a similar switch and whether they regretted it or not? My desktop is a fully spec'd M1 Mac Mini.

Any opinions would be very much appreciated

The only thing holding me back is the price. The size and resolution of the XDR display is absolutely perfect. But the price hurts... So I keep going back and forth trying to convince myself to just do it. But I'm hoping that Apple might introduce some 30-32" monitor with the same resolution but maybe slightly lower specs so it can be more consumer friendly priced - Like half price or something along those lines. Most monitors on the market are really awful. Bad stand, bad specs etc.

 

[ImageAmos]

The only thing holding me back is the price. The size and resolution of the XDR display is absolutely perfect. But the price hurts... So I keep going back and forth trying to convince myself to just do it. But I'm hoping that Apple might introduce some 30-32" monitor with the same resolution but maybe slightly lower specs so it can be more consumer friendly priced - Like half price or something along those lines. Most monitors on the market are really awful. Bad stand, bad specs etc.

Agreed. The monitor market is quite poor just now. Aside from the LG 5K, there ain't a lot of choice if HDR is something you genuinely want to start working with.

The LG has been fine for me. It has a well known random bug of pixel mis-align, but working around that is quite easy. I just can't see myself being happy with it over a prolonged period. I used the Apple Thunderbolt Display quite happily for 9 years, partly because of its external footprint. The LG is a bit meh in that regard.

 

[Maxim Glukhov]

Hi Folks

I currently own the LG Ultrafine 5K and was considering a move to the Pro XDR. My needs are development and image / video editing. I was just wondering if anyone has made a similar switch and whether they regretted it or not? My desktop is a fully spec'd M1 Mac Mini.

Any opinions would be very much appreciated

I switched from 27” 5k iMac, while that’s not exactly like your setup I think the experience is similar in terms of size and quality.

I personally do software development, mostly on the frontend side and some backend too. I really enjoy the monitor - it’s bright, colors are incredible, text is very sharp and the extra real-estate is awesome. In fact I enjoy it so much I ordered a second one ?

There are some small issues to keep in mind: some blooming when you have white on black background (not too terrible), viewing angle affects the color, even when you are looking directly at the monitor. Also you can’t tilt it, no camera and no speakers either.
There’s only a single input source (TB3) so if you use multiple macs you need to physically move the cable.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, build quality is superb. From my experience with other LG (and others) monitors it’s a night and day difference.

 

[mlykke]

Agreed. The monitor market is quite poor just now. Aside from the LG 5K, there ain't a lot of choice if HDR is something you genuinely want to start working with.

The LG has been fine for me. It has a well known random bug of pixel mis-align, but working around that is quite easy. I just can't see myself being happy with it over a prolonged period. I used the Apple Thunderbolt Display quite happily for 9 years, partly because of its external footprint. The LG is a bit meh in that regard.

Yeah, I've been using the Thunderbolt display for many years as well. I just want something that is 30-32" inches(32 would be preferred and NO ultra widescreen), a minimum of 4K(5-6K would be greatly preferred) resolution, great color-range and some decent connectivity. Wrap that in a thin bezel and with a stable stand, and I'll buy it right now.

 

[romanof]

Hi Folks

I currently own the LG Ultrafine 5K and was considering a move to the Pro XDR. My needs are development and image / video editing. I was just wondering if anyone has made a similar switch and whether they regretted it or not? My desktop is a fully spec'd M1 Mac Mini.

Any opinions would be very much appreciated

It is a super monitor, without doubt, solidly built and definitely a professional device. If it weren't for the price, it would be foolish to get any other. I replaced both a 5k iMac (using M1 mini now) and a Thunderbolt display with the Pro and have no regrets. The brightness is such that you can almost get a tan from sitting in front of the screen.

I need screen real estate more than fine pixel density and a 32 inch allows me to have everything in front of me rather than having to scan across 4 feet of dual screens. That being said, however, even my plain text is sho'nuff purty.

The only problem yet to be fixed on the M1/Pro Display is the boot and/or wake from sleep glitch that often puts the display at full glaring, eye squinting brightness, requiring a click on the display slider to instantly bring it back down.

 

[jmho]

Anyone else with a Pro Display XDR trying out the Monterey beta? I installed it on my M1 Air and the XDR presets menu has disappeared from the Displays page and the screen seems locked at P3-500.

Just wondering if it's something with my setup or if there is a bug in the beta. I've reported it to Apple though so hopefully they'll fix it before release.

 

[SamPotts]

...the XDR presets menu has disappeared from the Displays page and the screen seems locked at P3-500.

I have the same issue but on the 11.5 beta.

 

[Maxim Glukhov]

Are there any users with 2 XDR displays here? Could you share your experience using a dual monitor setup?
In the original post I see a link to a similar question but no answers so I wanted to resurface.

I always preferred a single monitor setup and few months back got the XDR display after being on the fence for a while. Now I find myself in the same situation once again, considering adding a second display to my home office.

My second display arrived, so if anyone is wondering about the experience feel free to quote and ask.

 

[awsom82]

Anybody used this display with MacBook 12'' ? How smooth experience is?
I'm currently thinking about this beast. And I choose between uncommon things: XDR or iMac 2020.

iMac 2020 is cool, but will quickly fade as the new m-chip Imacs will come. I currently work on MacBook, but need a bigger display badly.

I know MacBooks 12 is working in 5k, but how the overall experience for long work with that setup?

 

[joevt]

I know MacBooks 12 is working in 5k, but how the overall experience for long work with that setup?

Do you have a link to an example of where MacBook 12 inch is working in 5K?

The MacBook 12 inch (Mid 2017) has Kaby Lake CPU. Apple enabled 5K width for iGPU of Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake CPUs in Big Sur so it might be possible. It's limited to HBR2 though so the max would be 5K 46Hz for 8bpc and 37Hz for 10bpc (required for HDR). I don't remember if anyone has tried custom timings and refresh rates with the XDR?

6K 33Hz would be possible with HBR2 at 8 bpc but I don't think macOS drivers would allow more than 5K width from pre IceLake iGPU. Maybe a patch could increase it since 5K is kind of arbitrary once you get over the 4K limit? What about Windows?

 

[awsom82]

Do you have a link to an example of where MacBook 12 inch is working in 5K?

Yeah, this one

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1206645916666449922

 

[joevt]

Yeah, this one

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1206645916666449922

That's a MacBook 12 inch (Early 2015). It has Intel HD Graphics 5300 which definitely can't do 5K even if it was running Big Sur (which it wasn't).

It's using a 5K frame buffer but outputting a 4K signal. You have to use SwitchResX or AGDCDiagnose to see what the actual output signal is.

 

[awsom82]

You have to use SwitchResX or AGDCDiagnose to see what the actual output signal is.

The main problem: I can't find a store locally with XDR in it, to test on my MacBook. I have a 2017 MacBook max config.
I fear that setup would be unusable for work. Like overheating or just too sluggish...

The order wait time is around 1 month currently, it would be very sad to return this gem.