It has been a few days now since I received and set up my XDR, so I wanted to share my experience so far:
Existing System Configuration
My existing setup is a 2018 Mac Mini, 3.2 Ghz 6-Core Intel Core i7 with an after-market upgrade 32 GB RAM.
I use the Blackmagic Radeon 580 eGPU and have been using the Dell P2715Q since May 2017.
My primary use case is professional software development and design. I often spend much of the day staring at lines of code.
Previous to getting the mini, I used the 2018 MBA with the eGPU, which I continue to use as a portable.
XDR Model and Stand Choice
After WWDC failed to deliver my
pipe-dream surprise announcement of a mid-market Apple display, I decided to buy the XDR Pro Display with Nano-Texture and the Pro Stand.
Prior to purchase, I had not seen the XDR in person, because I try to spend as little time in Apple Stores as possible and because I had not seriously considered the XDR until recently.
I have followed the Ultrafine 5k Owner's thread for months (which was the inspiration for creating this one) and I re-watched the XDR portion of the 2019 WWDC announcement keynote in the day leading up to the purchase.
Seeing Apple executives demo Apple Software on the XDR at the 2020 WWDC also influenced my purchase decision. It looked big and cool.
I chose to get the Nano-Texture because I wanted the display to work in any lighting environment and I think a fully-featured version might be easier to sell when I want to change displays again. I also felt like if I was going to lean in on this display I wanted to go all the way.
The Pro Stand is so expensive it really is hard to stomach. I did look at getting the VESA adapter and some arm / stand to try and reduce the cost some.
What tipped the balance for me was imagining setting up a third party VESA arm and having the display drop or fall. No real reason why that would actually happen but I think I decided "Apple designed these things to go together" and wanted to avoid the complexity or potential risk of working around that.
Order / Delivery
I ordered direct from Apple's Business Team. I did not have a local business account manager, so I just dialed the 800 number and was connected to a nice person in Austin, Texas.
The order included some discounting and free super fast shipping, with both monitor and stand delivery in under 48 hours.
I want to address UPS here, because UPS messed the outer box up pretty bad. There was a major hole punctured through it and an impact mark on the actual box for the XDR. So my first concern after getting it was that the product might be damaged.
Secondly, I want to address the materials in the outer shipping box Apple uses with the XDR. It is made of cardboard and a lot of foam which is glued to the cardboard. I know Apple has to pick something to make it safe to ship, but I do not think these materials are included in the Pro Display XDR and the Environment
statement on this page.
To dispose of these materials, you basically have to cut out all the foam so it can be landfilled and the cardboard recycled. Not a huge deal, but I noticed it.
Unboxing and Setup
I was sort of paranoid setting up the display, it is so expensive I was pretty concerned I might damage it in some way.
I started using my old desk and used some pledge to clean it. This was a mistake, because the Pro stand slides very easily on a freshly pledged desk. (imagine that) So don't do that.
Cleaning the Monitor
This was a surprise.
The display I got had two layers of protection, an outer synthetic fabric one (similar to what is inside a new MacBook between the keys and the display) and then a sticker sheet that is glossy.
I noticed the sticker sheet was bubbled up across a portion of the display. When I removed it, there was obvious residue in the shape of the bubbles on the display.
Worried me a lot, as I needed to use the special polishing cloth immediately. There was so much residue on the screen I wondered if actually had something wrong and needed to go back to Apple.
I spent about 10-15 minutes polishing the surface using the special cloth, and found that residue was really on the a good portion of the display front, particularly noticeable on the black thin bezel.
I had to vigorously wipe the screen back and forth in order to remove the residue. This was all before plugging it in for the first time.
This is all more difficult because of my Pledge job which was causing the pro stand being slippery on the desk surface. I needed to sort of cradle the monitor in my arm so I wouldn’t push it backward while I’m vigorously wiping it off. Not awesome!
Turning it On
Finally got to turning it on and realized I should have done cable management before even putting the display on the desk. Probably some planning would have been helpful but I was pretty excited about the display.
The cables on the XDR are quite nice, a woven fabric shielding. Like an old-timey appliance.
I got the screen plugged in, exiting the Black Magic eGPU thunderbolt 3 to the thunderbolt port on the back of the monitor. It came on right away, and it showed this prompt:
View attachment 930312
Before rebooting, I checked Display Settings and saw that the preset for the device is the lower, P3-500 nits setting:
View attachment 930314
I wondered if this default reduces the wear on the monitor. I jacked it up though to the P3-1600 nits mode so I'd get the full effect. I just switched it back to 500 nits and for office work, I kind of wonder if 500 is enough or will increase the longevity. Any feedback on this?
Video Demo and Testing
While the display was obviously very nice, I realized I couldn't even know how good of a monitor I was looking at. Both because my eyes are untrained to recognize display quality this large and this good, and because I didn't have media that would show it off.
I went hunting and found a few good videos that showed off HDR. I'm going to post links to download them in the OP ITT but the filenames of downloads I eventually found were called:
- Real 4K HDR 60fps - LG OLED Perfect Black in HDR.mkv
- LG New York HDR UHD 4K Demo.ts
- LG Eye of Storm 4K Demo.ts
Is a 4k HDR video the best test of the XDR? My Mac Mini and Blackmagic were not able to play back 8k, Even when I had it downloaded for local playback, 8k HDR video spiked CPU to unsustainable levels:
View attachment 930319
Working with the XDR
After all this fiddling with it I settled into just trying to use the monitor and quickly realized it would be a big change from my Dell P2715Q.
On the Dell, I used the
window management app Divvy to send windows to half the left side, half the right side, or a quarter of the screen in any corner.
With the XDR, I had to update my key mappings to use 1/3rds of the screen. Right now, for example I have the Macrumors page using 1/3rd full height of the center of the XDR. Here is a composite of screenshots showing my window management hotkeys and layouts:
View attachment 930325
The window arrangement changes and additional hotkeys is going to take some training. Though, I can already tell that 1/3rd of the width of the XDR (~1000px) is sufficient for most web pages. This means you can keep an IDE, two webpages, iMessage and a terminal window open all at the same time.
It does increase the information density, but I suspect this could be something that I'll get used to. I think it will take some time to find workflow that works for me.
Updated Workstation
I went ahead and upgraded my old wood desk to a Fully Jarvis sit stand, and now the workstation is pretty great. I'll post a photo and more about this later.
DOTA 2 on XDR Pro display
This is the only game I let myself play and only rarely these days. I did fire it up and ran it on full settings and it was smooth with the regular Blackmagic. The display quality for the game was obviously better than I've ever seen it.
Overall Impressions of the XDR
It has only been a few days but I really like the display so far. I think a big question people might have is, "is it worth the price for development?" but I think that is something that might take months or years to know, and possibly even require a comparison with whatever paradigm shift visual output product Apple might come out with such as a head-mounted display.
For now I'm just happy I have it and am still getting to know the display.
