When Apple debuted its at its Peek Performance event[1], the $1,599 starting price tag seemed like a relatively good bargain. After all, the company's previous stand-alone launched at an eye-watering[2] $4,999, and that didn't even include the extra $999 Apple was charging[3] for what was a fairly barebones stand.
Now that the industry has had a few days to let the new Studio Display's specs sink in, and to question Apple about a few things it didn't cover at the event, the new monitor may be looking like slightly less of a bargain.
Also: How to choose the right monitor layout for working from home[4]
The first issue is with the starting price itself. That will only get you a standard version of the display on either a tilt-adjustable stand or with a VESA-compatible adapter that will require you to provide your own stand or arm. You can't have both without paying extra. The extremely basic stand can also be replaced by a "tilt- and height-adjustable stand[5]," which adds an extra $400 to the price.
Of course, this is less than half of the aforementioned $999 stand mentioned above, but it's also an add-on for a monitor that costs barely over one-quarter of what the Pro Display XDR did. It also only gets you 30 degrees of tilt and 10.5cm of height adjustment.
To put this into a little more perspective, the most expensive arm produced by Ergotron for standard PC monitors is its LX Desk Monitor Arm, Tall Pole model, which offers two points of height adjustment (for 33cm of height range), three pivot points (2x360 degrees and 1x180 degrees), 75 degrees of tilt, and 360-degrees of rotation. It has an MSRP of $309