There are already other monitors with USB-C input on the market, and there will undoubtedly be many more coming in the next years. Other than the fact that Apple showcased this, I don't see why this monitor is better than other USB-C monitors.
I hope that someone will make a USB-C monitor that better matches Apple styling and hopefully also has at least 2 USB-C inputs and a built-in KVM switch. Given that HP has copied the Macbook style in some of their laptops, they may create a better Apple monitor.
If it's like any of the HP kit I've owned then I don't think it'll last as long.
Joint venture between Apple And LG ...yet there is no Apple logo or Any Hint of Apple design theme there... Big mistake by Apple to approach monitors in such a secondary way..
reducing Apple logo and Design theme visibility at the high end.
How would you use the Touch Bar with an external monitor? Use the MacBook's internal keyboard with the external monitor? Someone at the helm lost his mind.
There are already other monitors with USB-C input on the market, and there will undoubtedly be many more coming in the next years. Other than the fact that Apple showcased this, I don't see why this monitor is better than other USB-C monitors.
I hope that someone will make a USB-C monitor that better matches Apple styling and hopefully also has at least 2 USB-C inputs and a built-in KVM switch. Given that HP has copied the Macbook style in some of their laptops, they may create a better Apple monitor.
This is a Thunderbolt 3 5K monitor. The only one that can be connected to a Thunderbolt 3 capable computer with one cable. Thunderbolt 3 carries two DisplayPort 1.2 signals. Effectively, this is a 5K MST monitor with one cable unlike other 5K monitors that require two cables with a DisplayPort 1.2 signal traveling via each cable. Until DisplayPort 1.3 is finalized, there will only be MST 5K external monitors, so Thunderbolt 3 allows one to reduce the number of cables, but that is only a cosmetic improvement because the image is still stitched together from two discrete DisplayPort 1.2 signals.
Apple should enable the 27" 5K retina iMacs to be used as external monitors by using two Thunderbolt 2 ports simultaneously for receiving two discrete DisplayPort 1.2 signals. The two Thunderbolt ports are there already on the 27" 5K iMacs. This should be possible with a firmware upgrade. After Apple discontinued monitors, they owe this to their customers.
Apple should enable the 27" 5K retina iMacs to be used as external monitors by using two Thunderbolt 2 ports simultaneously for receiving two discrete DisplayPort 1.2 signals. The two Thunderbolt ports are there already on the 27" 5K iMacs. This should be possible with a firmware upgrade. After Apple discontinued monitors, they owe this to their customers.
So, I should buy a $1800 computer to use as a monitor rather than a $600 monitor? How does Apple "owe" this to their customers?
Assuming that the LG 5K is essentially similar, other than in size, to my smaller LG 4K that arrived last week, it'll be worth having for 2016 MBP owners looking for a large display. The single cable connection for video/audio/USB/charging is really convenient. Display quality is bright, super-sharp and exhibits excellent color. Appearance and build quality are better than I expected, definitely on the higher side as third party monitors go, with a gimmick-free design and satin black finish. There's a much needed height adjustment that Apple's own monitors never offered. It's worth noting that the LG display has no controls of any kind, not even a power switch. Everything is controlled from the host Mac.
While they don't outweigh this product's fundamental merits, there are some downsides: - No USB-A port for an external keyboard (it's dongle time...), and the display's USB-C expansion ports are slow USB 2 only. - Unlike Apple's old Thunderbolt display there's no ethernet connection. - Should be 16:10 aspect ratio instead of 16:9, and 24" rather than 21.5" would have been nice, too. - No connectivity to the host other than TB3/USB-C. (With a 2016 MBP I don't care, but this limits the LG's market.) - Speakers are meh, with poor treble and a midrange that sounds as if it's coming down a drainpipe.
As far as value goes, cost is in the wallet of the beholder. I think the current sale prices of both monitors are about right, but the full list prices are a bit spendy. For those of us who always buy a second power supply for their laptops (one for the office, one for home/travel) the display's built-in charger avoids an extra $69/$79 purchase, so there's that.
So, I should buy a $1800 computer to use as a monitor rather than a $600 monitor? How does Apple "owe" this to their customers?
There is a large infrastructure of existing iMacs & out there, and not everyone needs (or wants) the limitation (2 vs 4 displays), graphic load & cost of 27" retina displays. Flexibility while mobile would be greatly helped with universal DisplayPort support per the Thunderbolt spec... One could for example use an older iMac as a display & make it a server, along with 2 Cinema displays flanking in portrait mode...
Two Apple store employees & a usually most knowledgable Authorized Dealer here were astonished that the 2016 macbook pro did not fully support Thunderbolt 3 spec (ie. DisplayPort) for all the existing non-retina LED Cinema Displays nor pre-retina iMacs, which can be found used for around the $600 suggested above...
The refurbished Apple TB displays seemed an especially good deal here, where the exchange rate makes the new LG options very pricey even with the current 25% discount, if/when they might even be available, if well reviewed...
One can only guess at the support overhead required to accommodate Target Display in retina iMacs or DisplayPort, and the supply issues leading to what seems a complete display-gate between running out of TB Displays & selling headless macs, but I know a friend called me last night asking if I knew where he could get a TB display that matched his iMac, and he didn't care about retina resolution...
Those with design oriented spaces may care about matching aesthetics...
Perhaps if users ASK enough, like returning RAID support to Disk Utility, full DisplayPort support and the Thunderbolt Display might return (perhaps with USB3), at an even more attractive price, and 'it just works'... 'for the rest of us'...
How would you use the Touch Bar with an external monitor? Use the MacBook's internal keyboard with the external monitor? Someone at the helm lost his mind.
By using an external bluetooth keyboard with Touch Bar. There are no known technical barriers to such a product.
How would you use the Touch Bar with an external monitor? Use the MacBook's internal keyboard with the external monitor? Someone at the helm lost his mind.
By using an external bluetooth keyboard with Touch Bar. There are no known technical barriers to such a product.
Maybe, maybe not, but there are certainly practical barriers. First, how much bandwidth would a peripheral TB keyboard need, and what method of connectivity would be required to support that? (I do not assume that Bluetooth would reliably handle it.) How much would this cost to implement? I replace several wired keyboards a year in our office, and at $50 each consider them to be consumables. An Apple TB keyboard with fingerprint sensor might well run in the $150-200 area, which would be a whole 'nother thing.
Apple should enable the 27" 5K retina iMacs to be used as external monitors by using two Thunderbolt 2 ports simultaneously for receiving two discrete DisplayPort 1.2 signals. The two Thunderbolt ports are there already on the 27" 5K iMacs. This should be possible with a firmware upgrade. After Apple discontinued monitors, they owe this to their customers.
That is a great idea ! I still absolutely in love with the retina screen and would be cool to hook a 12' Macbook to it.
Yes, we need even 10K displays on 27 diagonal screen. That sounds just great. I need to invest in solid magnifier to see those details. Stick to standard 27 inch with 4K is pretty standard and already overkill. Time to start building 29-40 inch monitor that will replace multimonitor configurations.
How would you use the Touch Bar with an external monitor? Use the MacBook's internal keyboard with the external monitor? Someone at the helm lost his mind.
By using an external bluetooth keyboard with Touch Bar. There are no known technical barriers to such a product.
Maybe, maybe not, but there are certainly practical barriers. First, how much bandwidth would a peripheral TB keyboard need, and what method of connectivity would be required to support that? (I do not assume that Bluetooth would reliably handle it.) How much would this cost to implement? I replace several wired keyboards a year in our office, and at $50 each consider them to be consumables. An Apple TB keyboard with fingerprint sensor might well run in the $150-200 area, which would be a whole 'nother thing.
No, with regard to the tech. This has been discussed thoroughly in the threads about the Touch Bar. The problems that face a Touch Bar bluetooth keyboard have already been solved for the Apple Watch. The Touch Bar runs watchOS. It will work, and work well. It's not really up for debate.
As for cost, obviously not $50. The current Apple bluetooth keyboard is $100. My guess would be $180?
Apple should enable the 27" 5K retina iMacs to be used as external monitors by using two Thunderbolt 2 ports simultaneously for receiving two discrete DisplayPort 1.2 signals. The two Thunderbolt ports are there already on the 27" 5K iMacs. This should be possible with a firmware upgrade. After Apple discontinued monitors, they owe this to their customers.
So, I should buy a $1800 computer to use as a monitor rather than a $600 monitor? How does Apple "owe" this to their customers?
No, you shouldn't. But if you bought one already, as the iMac ages, you can still use it as an external 5K monitor for your new MacBook.
How would you use the Touch Bar with an external monitor? Use the MacBook's internal keyboard with the external monitor? Someone at the helm lost his mind.
By using an external bluetooth keyboard with Touch Bar. There are no known technical barriers to such a product.
Yes, we need even 10K displays on 27 diagonal screen. That sounds just great. I need to invest in solid magnifier to see those details. Stick to standard 27 inch with 4K is pretty standard and already overkill. Time to start building 29-40 inch monitor that will replace multimonitor configurations.
You don't understand how the resolution works with macOS. Pixel doubling takes care of the size of screen elements and fonts while displaying pictures and videos at their native high resolutions.
4K displays at 27" dioganally make screen elements too large with pixel doubling and too small without pixel doubling. Additionally, 4K on 27" screen is not a retina resolution. That's the reason that both Apple and Apple-blessed 4K screens come in under 22" diagonal size. This screen size at 4K allows for the proper screen element and font sizes with pixel doubling and provides a retina resolution.
Thats why Apple doesn't make 4K 27" displays.
4K resolutions are fine in larger than 22" screens when the screens are used for watching TV with viewers sitting several yards (meters) away from the TV. 4K resolution is good on 65" and even larger screens as long as the screens are not used as computer displays.
And yes, if you want to use a 40" display as a computer monitor, 5K is not enough, and the monitor should be 8K, but they don't exist yet as consumer products.
How would you use the Touch Bar with an external monitor? Use the MacBook's internal keyboard with the external monitor? Someone at the helm lost his mind.
By using an external bluetooth keyboard with Touch Bar. There are no known technical barriers to such a product.
Maybe, maybe not, but there are certainly practical barriers. First, how much bandwidth would a peripheral TB keyboard need, and what method of connectivity would be required to support that? (I do not assume that Bluetooth would reliably handle it.) How much would this cost to implement? I replace several wired keyboards a year in our office, and at $50 each consider them to be consumables. An Apple TB keyboard with fingerprint sensor might well run in the $150-200 area, which would be a whole 'nother thing.
No, with regard to the tech. This has been discussed thoroughly in the threads about the Touch Bar. The problems that face a Touch Bar bluetooth keyboard have already been solved for the Apple Watch. The Touch Bar runs watchOS. It will work, and work well. It's not really up for debate.
As for cost, obviously not $50. The current Apple bluetooth keyboard is $100. My guess would be $180?
If Apple ever makes one, it will be at least $250 but most likely $300. For now, though, there are scarce external monitors and no external TB keyboards. And then, there's a messy dongle hell.
Apple didn't even release a Gigabit Ethernet dongle for the 2016 MacBook Pros. Third-party USB-C Gigabit Ethernet dongles tax the CPU, which does all the heavy lifting with USB-based NICs. To offload the heavy lifting, a Thunderbolt NIC with a built-in NIC chip must be used, but Apple forgot to make one. So, those who need wired Gigabit Ethernet connectivity on the 2016 MacBook Pros ( who happen to be professional users) will have to daisy-chain two dongles: Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt adapter and Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter just to get a wired NIC on their 2016 MacBook Pros.
As an Apple shareholder, I'm appalled at the mess that Apple created with the release of 2016 MacBook Pros.
Apple didn't even release a Gigabit Ethernet dongle for the 2016 MacBook Pros. Third-party USB-C Gigabit Ethernet dongles tax the CPU, which does all the heavy lifting with USB-based NICs. To offload the heavy lifting, a Thunderbolt NIC with a built-in NIC chip must be used, but Apple forgot to make one. So, those who need wired Gigabit Ethernet connectivity on the 2016 MacBook Pros ( who happen to be professional users) will have to daisy-chain two dongles: Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt adapter and Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter just to get a wired NIC on their 2016 MacBook Pros.
As an Apple shareholder, I'm appalled at the mess that Apple created with the release of 2016 MacBook Pros.
There's way too much "the sky is falling" going on about this. No, it's not a mess, or at least no more than any other technology transition is until things settle down a bit.
I administer about a dozen Mac laptops (along with a bunch more other Macs), now including our first two 2016 MBPs — including the one I'm writing this on now. Our professional setup uses a TB2 dock to provide connectivity for an external monitor, wired keyboard, gigabit ethernet to the office LAN, Lightning cable and any other peripherals the user may have. Once native TB3/USB-C docks start shipping — and at least two have already been announced for early 2017 — I'll substitute them for the dongles that we're using in the interim.
The payback for this mild and temporary inconvenience is an MBP with super-fast universal ports that can provide any combination of charging, TB3, video, USB3 and so on. Thanks, I'll take that in a heartbeat.
As for cost, obviously not $50. The current Apple bluetooth keyboard is $100. My guess would be $180?
If Apple ever makes one, it will be at least $250 but most likely $300. For now, though, there are scarce external monitors and no external TB keyboards. And then, there's a messy dongle hell.
Have to agree with neilm here. The industry will catch up. These machines are future proof.
The idea that the Touch Bar is going to just be for the MBP just doesn't sound like Apple to me. Far more likely this is the introduction of something that will be a signature Apple feature for quite some time. One way to keep the cost down for an external/iMac Touch Bar keyboard would be to drop the fingerprint sensor. Regardless, the Touch Bar will improve, and the competition will not easily match it. It runs watchOS, but the T1 processor isn't designed for the Apple Watch and is likely significantly cheaper.
As for "dongle hell" -- in two or three years people buying a Dell XPS today with a single TB3/USB-C port and a bunch of legacy ports are going to carrying around a TB3/USB-C hub. Your MBP will be just fine. No doubt Dell will come out with a 5K TB3/USB-C monitor that matches the LG soon -- they need it also to function as a hub for that single port. I'm kind of hoping Samsung will also make one too.
Comments
If it's like any of the HP kit I've owned then I don't think it'll last as long.
While they don't outweigh this product's fundamental merits, there are some downsides:
- No USB-A port for an external keyboard (it's dongle time...), and the display's USB-C expansion ports are slow USB 2 only.
- Unlike Apple's old Thunderbolt display there's no ethernet connection.
- Should be 16:10 aspect ratio instead of 16:9, and 24" rather than 21.5" would have been nice, too.
- No connectivity to the host other than TB3/USB-C. (With a 2016 MBP I don't care, but this limits the LG's market.)
- Speakers are meh, with poor treble and a midrange that sounds as if it's coming down a drainpipe.
As far as value goes, cost is in the wallet of the beholder. I think the current sale prices of both monitors are about right, but the full list prices are a bit spendy. For those of us who always buy a second power supply for their laptops (one for the office, one for home/travel) the display's built-in charger avoids an extra $69/$79 purchase, so there's that.
Two Apple store employees & a usually most knowledgable Authorized Dealer here were astonished that the 2016 macbook pro did not fully support Thunderbolt 3 spec (ie. DisplayPort) for all the existing non-retina LED Cinema Displays nor pre-retina iMacs, which can be found used for around the $600 suggested above...
The refurbished Apple TB displays seemed an especially good deal here, where the exchange rate makes the new LG options very pricey even with the current 25% discount, if/when they might even be available, if well reviewed...
One can only guess at the support overhead required to accommodate Target Display in retina iMacs or DisplayPort, and the supply issues leading to what seems a complete display-gate between running out of TB Displays & selling headless macs, but I know a friend called me last night asking if I knew where he could get a TB display that matched his iMac, and he didn't care about retina resolution...
Those with design oriented spaces may care about matching aesthetics...
Perhaps if users ASK enough, like returning RAID support to Disk Utility, full DisplayPort support and the Thunderbolt Display might return (perhaps with USB3), at an even more attractive price, and 'it just works'... 'for the rest of us'...
http://www.apple.com/feedback/
Maybe, maybe not, but there are certainly practical barriers. First, how much bandwidth would a peripheral TB keyboard need, and what method of connectivity would be required to support that? (I do not assume that Bluetooth would reliably handle it.) How much would this cost to implement? I replace several wired keyboards a year in our office, and at $50 each consider them to be consumables. An Apple TB keyboard with fingerprint sensor might well run in the $150-200 area, which would be a whole 'nother thing.
As for cost, obviously not $50. The current Apple bluetooth keyboard is $100. My guess would be $180?
4K displays at 27" dioganally make screen elements too large with pixel doubling and too small without pixel doubling. Additionally, 4K on 27" screen is not a retina resolution. That's the reason that both Apple and Apple-blessed 4K screens come in under 22" diagonal size. This screen size at 4K allows for the proper screen element and font sizes with pixel doubling and provides a retina resolution.
Thats why Apple doesn't make 4K 27" displays.
4K resolutions are fine in larger than 22" screens when the screens are used for watching TV with viewers sitting several yards (meters) away from the TV. 4K resolution is good on 65" and even larger screens as long as the screens are not used as computer displays.
And yes, if you want to use a 40" display as a computer monitor, 5K is not enough, and the monitor should be 8K, but they don't exist yet as consumer products.
Apple didn't even release a Gigabit Ethernet dongle for the 2016 MacBook Pros. Third-party USB-C Gigabit Ethernet dongles tax the CPU, which does all the heavy lifting with USB-based NICs. To offload the heavy lifting, a Thunderbolt NIC with a built-in NIC chip must be used, but Apple forgot to make one. So, those who need wired Gigabit Ethernet connectivity on the 2016 MacBook Pros ( who happen to be professional users) will have to daisy-chain two dongles: Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt adapter and Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter just to get a wired NIC on their 2016 MacBook Pros.
As an Apple shareholder, I'm appalled at the mess that Apple created with the release of 2016 MacBook Pros.
I administer about a dozen Mac laptops (along with a bunch more other Macs), now including our first two 2016 MBPs — including the one I'm writing this on now. Our professional setup uses a TB2 dock to provide connectivity for an external monitor, wired keyboard, gigabit ethernet to the office LAN, Lightning cable and any other peripherals the user may have. Once native TB3/USB-C docks start shipping — and at least two have already been announced for early 2017 — I'll substitute them for the dongles that we're using in the interim.
The payback for this mild and temporary inconvenience is an MBP with super-fast universal ports that can provide any combination of charging, TB3, video, USB3 and so on. Thanks, I'll take that in a heartbeat.
The idea that the Touch Bar is going to just be for the MBP just doesn't sound like Apple to me. Far more likely this is the introduction of something that will be a signature Apple feature for quite some time. One way to keep the cost down for an external/iMac Touch Bar keyboard would be to drop the fingerprint sensor. Regardless, the Touch Bar will improve, and the competition will not easily match it. It runs watchOS, but the T1 processor isn't designed for the Apple Watch and is likely significantly cheaper.
As for "dongle hell" -- in two or three years people buying a Dell XPS today with a single TB3/USB-C port and a bunch of legacy ports are going to carrying around a TB3/USB-C hub. Your MBP will be just fine. No doubt Dell will come out with a 5K TB3/USB-C monitor that matches the LG soon -- they need it also to function as a hub for that single port. I'm kind of hoping Samsung will also make one too.