Apple Pro Display XDR monitor review: the best Mac monitor will cost you

It might seem a little weird to review a monitor that’s been on the market for over five years, but then again, it’s the Apple Pro Display XDR I’m talking about. Apple hasn’t been in a hurry to upgrade its monitors lately, with its only other monitor, the Studio Display, first going on sale in 2022. The primary reason I’m reviewing the Pro Display XDR is that it seems like a natural mate for Apple’s most recent Macs, and I often see new Mac buyers wondering if they should buy an Apple monitor to go with it.

And in fact, despite their age, both monitors remain two of the best monitors made today — and both are also very expensive. The Studio Display starts at $1,599 with a simple stand, and the Pro Display XDR is even pricier at $4,999 without a stand or VESA connector. Opt for the stand and you’ll spend an extra $999. Yet in a way, the Pro Display XDR, while far more expensive than most people will want to spend, could be considered the relative bargain of the two when compared to its most direct competitors. And independent of price, the Pro Display XDR is a truly spectacular monitor for anyone who might need its awesome image quality.

Specs

By itself, the Pro Display XDR costs $4,999 with the standard glass. That’s a lot. Opting for the nano-textured glass brings the price to $5,999. But you can’t stop there.  If you want to use a VESA standard mount, you can choose the VESA adapter for $199. If not, then you’ll need the Pro Stand that costs a rather insane-sounding $999. That makes the most expensive Pro Dispay XDR cost $6,988. Wow.

The thing is, Apple aimed the Pro Display XDR at reference-level monitors that can cost as much as $20,000 or more. In that respect, even the most expensive configuration is a relative bargain. Since its introduction in 2019, though, several other monitors have been released that challenge the Pro Display XDR in one or more metrics. At the same time, no less costly monitor  can match the Pro Display XDR across the board. So whether it’s egregiously expensive or relatively affordable is something I’ll touch on in the competition section below.

Design

You might be tempted to think that a monitor released over five years ago will look dated, and you’d be wrong. The Pro Display XDR is a stunning monitor in every respect, showing off Apple’s meticulous attention to detail that makes its hardware so consistently excellent. If Apple releases a new model anytime soon, I doubt that it will look very different. In fact, I hope it doesn’t.

First, it looks like an Apple product. With the Pro Display XDR sitting next to (or rather, over) a Mac Studio, for example, you see two distinct products that are obviously made for each other. That’s pretty amazing, considering that the Mac Studio was first released almost three years after the monitor. The design has Apple’s usual minimalism that somehow exudes elegance, likely due to the use of aluminum throughout with not a speck of plastic combined with Apple’s usual design cohesiveness. That along makes it stand out from most other monitors. The Pro Display XDR just looks more like its design matters than the typical monitor.

Look around the back and you see the same sort of “cheese grater” effect made up of a lattice pattern machined into the aluminum. That helps dissipate heat and avoids the need for a fan, and monitors with these specifications can get hot. The construction functions to keep the monitor perfectly silent, which matches nicely with the almost perfectly-silent Mac Studio. The patter is also similar to the exterior design of the Mac Pro, meaning it matches up well with that Apple desktop as well.

Second, the design is incredibly functional. My review unit came with the Pro Stand, and yes, that’s a ridiculously expensive product. But, it’s also incredibly well-made and works better than most stands you can buy today. It’s all-metal, like the Pro Display XDR itself, and it connects to the monitor using a unique mechanism where strong magnets suck the connector into place before everything mechanically snaps together. That makes the connection feel really cool and modern in addition to being drop-dead simple. The VESA adapter connects the same way. And then the stand is incredibly smooth, raising and lowering the monitor by up to 120mm total, tilting in a 30-degree arc, and rotating between landscape and portrait with one finger while holding the monitor firmly in place.

I’ll note that Apple built in a rotation mechanism that requires the monitor to be at its highest point before rotating — thus avoiding the potential to knock an edge against something, which I’ve run into the on some other monitors. It’s a nice feature. Of course, it makes for a very tall display that I couldn’t even easily fit fully in a frame.

Yes, $999 is a lot to spend on a stand. But this isn’t your typical stand. Is that incredible design enough to justify spending almost $7,000? Almost certainly not. But, as we’ll see, that’s not really what you’re paying for. It’s just a nice perk.

I’ll also note that once again, I’m as impressed as always with Apple’s packaging. That might seem like a trivial thing, but unpacking monitors is almost always a painful process. Most often, various parts are scattered around a Byzantine construction that requires pulling things apart and complicates putting the monitor itself together. That’s just not the case with the Pro Display XDR — just like it’s not the case with any of Apple’s products. The box is easy to open, everything is neatly organized, the monitor is easy to take out, and as mentioned above, the method of attaching the display to the monitor is downright satisfying. And I know that boxing the monitor back up will be drop-dead simple. It’s just another thing that makes you feel like you got your money’s worth.

Connectivity and features

In terms of connectivity, the Pro Display XDR isn’t nearly as functional as some other monitors. It’s not meant to serve as a central hub to connect all of your various computing parts. It’s not like the Dell UltraSharp 32 4K USB-C Hub monitor, which has a very long name with “hub” literally included because, in fact, that’s what it is. It includes a host of various connections along with a built-in keyboard-video-monitor (KVM) switch, and it allows you to connect multiple PCs and various peripherals without needing an external dock or hub.

That’s just not the Pro Display XDR. Instead, it has just four USB-C ports, one upstream Thunderbolt 3 for connecting to a PC and three downstream USB-C ports for connecting various peripherals. That’s as close to a “hub” as you’ll get with this monitor. The upstream Thunderbolt 3 provides up to 96 watts of power, which is enough to keep a MacBook Pro running well enough (as long as it’s not pushing an M4 Max chipset too hard). And per Apple’s usual design aesthetic, the ports are flush with the back of the monitor and in a simple line. Personally, I prefer the setup, because the mini-wiring closets on some monitors are located on the bottom and are a pain to access.

Another significant hardware difference between the Pro Display XDR and the Studio Display (not to mention some other monitors) is that the Studio Display has an excellent six-speaker audio system that’s the best I’ve seen on a monitor. When I’m using it, I’m able to put away my external speakers and use the built-in audio exclusively — it’s that good, something I have yet to see on another monitor. The Pro Display XDR, on the other hand, has no speakers whatsoever. It’s exclusively an image-only solution, which fits its primary focus but is something to keep in mind.

In terms of controls, the Pro Display XDR is exactly like the Studio Display. There are no external controls at all, and no on-screen display (OSD) like you’ll find on most monitors. There’s not even a power button. Everything is controlled via software running on the connected PC. And, that matters a lot, because there’s no standalone utility, either. Clearly, Apple monitors are made for macOS machines, where you get a full set of software control within the standard macOS Settings. This is a monitor that is simply not a great choice for Windows users, because you lose virtually all functionality in Windows. You can’t even change the brightness.

In macOS settings, you’ll find several options you can configure. As usual, there’s Apple’s True Tone, which changes the white point to match ambient lighting, and automatic brightness that also enhances the content black level. The Pro Display XDR has dual ambient light sensors, one on the front and one on the back, to ensure a precise match between the display and ambient light conditions. Most important, perhaps, are the various presets. These change the monitor’s characteristics to fit specific reference workflows. The presets range from the default that utilizes the full brightness for displaying HDR content do presets for various types of video work and for photographers.

Image quality – sharpness

The Pro Display XDR is built around a 32-inch 16:9 panel running at a very high 6K (6016 x 3384) resolution for 218 PPI. It uses IPS LCD technology, with a full-array local dimming (FALD) backlight with 576 blue LEDs compared to the usual IPS side lighting. That means it’s not quite the same as a mini-LED display that has thousands of mini-LEDs for very fine local dimming zones, but Apple utilizes several proprietary components to minimize blooming while providing extremely high sustained and peak brightness for high dynamic range (HDR) content. While there’s more blooming than modern min-LED (and OLED) displays, it’s still manageable in all but very dark environments. And the point of the XDR (Extreme Dynamic Range) moniker is that the Pro Display XDR provides incredibly bright and accurate display of HDR images and video.

I’ll start by discussing the 6K resolution, because that matters a lot when matching up to macOS PCs. Simply put, Apple has long done a great job of producing excellent text as well as sharp images, thanks to its strict approach to HiDPI (High Dots Per Inch) support. macOS is very precise with its scaling, where it wants to produce content with integer-based scaling (e.g., 2x) and not non-integer scaling (e.g., 1.5x). It assumes a base resolution for each device, and then scales the resolution to match the native resolution. On the Pro Display XDR, that means it assumes a base resolution of 3008 x 1692 which it then scales at 2x to make use of the full 6K resolution. By avoiding non-integer scaling, Retina sharpness is maintained no matter what scaling you choose to make the UI larger or smaller (all the way up to the full 6K where everything becomes very tiny).

In order to get the full effect, you need both Retina-level sharpness and a usable resolution that allows for integer scaling. At 32 inches, the Pro Display XDR’s 6K resolution falls in the Retina sweet spot at 218 PPI, and the 3008 x 1692 base resolution is quite usable. If the display was 4K (3840 x 2160), which is just 137 PPI, then the base resolution would be 1920 x 1080 and it wouldn’t be Retina quality. It would also make the workspace feel more cramped on such a large display. But, scaling it up to something more usable like 2560 x 1440 would require 1.5x scaling, which would result in blurriness.

So, the Pro Display XDR’s 6K resolution is very much on purpose. The same is true with the Studio Display’s 5K resolution at a screen size of 27 inches. It’s why that monitor also works better with macOS machines than 4K 27-inch monitors, which would suffer from the same compromises.

Image quality – fidelity

Apple has taken care to produce a monitor that will display content as accurately as possible, and at the widest possible angles. The custom timing controller, synchronized pixel switch and LED modulation, and a superior polarizer combine to maximize color accuracy and minimize reflectivity. I reviewed the nano-texture glass that manages to almost eliminate reflections without hampering contrast or reducing color dynamics. If you check out the Apple Pro Display XDR white paper, you can dig into the details of the screen’s design. You’ll find that a tremendous amount of work was put into each of the six “layers” that make up the display, with various techniques used to ensure optimal uniformity throughout. The result is a monitor that produces a reliable image that can be used for the most exacting reference work.

That all might sound a bit like a marketing blurb, but the point is, while the Pro Display XDR is almost five years old, it remains a monitor that’s laser-focused on image fidelity — something professional creators demand. To a non-creator like myself, I found the display incredibly bright, dynamic, and with very high contrast that’s not quite at the level of mini-LED or OLED’s inky blacks but is still excellent. It’s better for watching HDR content than any other monitor I own, including a 32-inch 4K OLED monitor that’s currently sitting on my desk that’s not nearly as bright. Of course, I’m not this monitor’s target user, and I couldn’t spend that much money only for watching HDR TV shows and movies. But I would sure wish I could.

However, if I was a professional creator who works with HDR content, then I would very much appreciate the superior HDR performance. And that’s where the Pro Display XDR shines the most (no pun intended). When you mate the sustained 1,000-nit HDR brightness with the peak of 1,600 nits, along with all the attention to image fidelity, you get a monitor that professionals can use to do their best work. I’ll mention the cheese grater venting on the back, because running HDR content at such high brightness generates a lot of heat — and these vents keep things cool without need a fan.

When I used my Datacolor SpyderPro colorimeter for objective testing, I got very good results that don’t necessarily blow other monitors out of the water. One reason is because the Pro Display XDR’s primary advantage, as discussed at length immediately above, is about providing consistent quality across the entire display that closely matches the source as possible. A simple colorimeter test doesn’t necessarily reflect everything that makes the Pro Display XDR so great.

Starting with brightness, colorimeters test SDR video by default, because HDR content is by definition more sporadic and inconsistent and thus harder to measure. So, the 520 nits shown here using the default preset of “P3-1600 nits” reflects almost exactly the 500 nits that Apple specifies for SDR video. That’s similar to the mini-LED display on the MacBook Pro 16, which is only slightly brighter in SDR at 585 nits. This preset is the one that’s intended for general content including HDR, so HDR content will sustain at 1,000 nits and peak at 1,600 nits. The “P3-500 nits” is for when you will only be working with SDR content, and then the other presets, of which these are just a subset, are intended to precisely match various reference models for specific kind of work. So, the brightness is set at a particular point and can’t be changed.

The Pro Display XDR’s contrast ratio is very good, well above the 1,000:1 to 1,500:1 ratio you’ll find with most IPS displays, but it falls short of mini-LED and OLED. That’s to be expected, and I suspect that whatever replaces the Pro Display XDR in Apple’s lineup will be one of those technologies (if not something even more advanced like micro-LED).

Color gamut support is excellent for both sRGB and DCI-P3, the latter of which will matter most to video producers. The AdobeRGB coverage is very good, but OLED is much better. It’s good enough for professional creators, especially when you consider the devotion to image fidelity and consistency. The colors are also very accurate in most presets, with only the “Digital Cinema (P3-DCI)” coming in above the 1.0 or less that’s considered indistinguishable to the human eye. And Gamma is pretty much perfect in each preset.

Competition

When the Pro Display XDR was introduced, its high price was very easy to justify against the $20,000+ reference monitors that were its only competition. At that point, mainstream mini-LED and OLED monitors weren’t common, and few monitors were introduced with such high resolutions. Today, things have changed a bit. You can get a variety of 27- and 32-inch monitors with some combination of high resolution, high brightness, deep contrast, and wide colors, including with a small variety of 5K and 6K monitors that optimally match macOS HiDPI support. The challenge is finding a monitor that offers the full package.

The Dell UltraSharp U3224KB comes closest right now. It’s a 31.5-inch 6K Black IPS display with 221 PPI of sharpness, so it hits the Retina sweet spot. It has superior contrast over standard IPS, although not nearly that of the Pro Display XDR, mini-LED, or OLED panels. And it has 10-bit color that’s likely to be quite accurate. It also includes features that the Pro Display XDR lacks, like decent built-in speakers and a 4K webcam, with a more reasonable price of around $3,000. I will be reviewing that monitor soon, and so will be able to provide a head-to-head comparison. But the one thing the Dell monitor does not have is the Pro Display XDR’s extremely bright HDR support, making it less attractive for creators who work with HDR content.

There are several 5K 27-inch monitors available that will provide the right combination of size and resolution, but those are only IPS and so not great for HDR. The Asus ProArt PA32UCG is a 4K 32-inch mini-LED display that matches the Pro Display XDR’s brightness, but it’s not going to match up as well with macOS HiDPI support. Both Asus and LG have announced upcoming 6K 32-inch displays, with the LG UltraFine 6K also looking like an IPS Black model. All of these monitors will fall in the range of $1,000 to $3,000, making them much more affordable.

The bottom line is that depending on your needs, you have (or will soon) more options in a 6K 32-inch display than were available when the Pro Display XDR was introduced. Many of them will be a lot more accessible to typical Apple users. None of them, though, will provide the same combination of resolution, image quality, and HDR support that the Pro Display XDR provides — at its very high price.

Still the best monitor for Macs, although few will buy it

I’m in love with the Pro Display XDR. It’s the highest-quality monitor I’ve ever used, with a mouth-watering design that’s as easy to use as it is flexible. It has gorgeous image quality, including incredibly sharp text (really important for me as a writer) in a very large display size, and it’s the best HDR monitor I’ve ever used.

Of course, it’s also more expensive than I would ever spend with my own money. As much as I love it, I simply don’t have $7,000 to spend. So, like most Mac users, I wouldn’t buy it. But if you’re a professional whose livelihood depends on your producing color-accurate work, including lots of HDR content, then that money will be well spent. And, surprisingly, it represents something of a bargain, while also integrating tightly into the macOS ecosystem.