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Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

engadget.com

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Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#141

Post by tsujp »

I’m not an Apple apologist, I don’t even have an Apple monitor. My mantra for any monitor I would buy, including the ones I have now, is: if it doesn’t have a VESA mount and optionally the ability to purchase without a stand… then I don’t buy it.

I suggest people start doing the same. Proper monitor arms are usually around $100 (AUD) and better than almost all stands that come with almost all monitors on the market.

However egregious Apples or anyone else’s pricing for a stand becomes it literally doesn’t matter because you don’t buy it and use the VESA mount instead.

Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#142

Post by technofiend »

AmericanBlarney wrote: post #117
pcmoney wrote: post #18

Apple can do this because nobody else makes a high quality monitor that doesn’t look terrible. In nice offices, each chair is a couple thousand each. Full designs easily $50k+. Theyre not going to mess up a such a thoughtfully designed aesthetic with some slab of black plastic and an Amazon Basics stand (which is what I use) to save $1-2k.

The chairs are probably more like $1000 after bulk discount for buying hundreds of them,and they'll last 20 years. Having worked in many corporate environments, including FAANGs that seemingly spare no expense, none of them have used these monitors. It's always a $300ish monitor for developers and I've seen some senior executives with $1000 wide screen curved monitors. Maybe a few designers somewhere get a fancy Appl…

>$1000 wide screen curved monitors.

You can pay well more than $1k for a curved wide screen, but as a counterpoint Dell 34" widescreen curved monitors are less than half that on their website. Most likely because you're not getting gaming features, HDR, speakers, etc, etc. They're pretty stripped. Even so I purchased one for every employee and myself on my old team, the experience was so good we all bought them at Microcenter for home use too, and still they weren't $1,000.

I'm just pointing this out in case anyone is thinking about getting a curved widescreen. The experience is amazing and it doesn't have to cost $1k.

Not that I'm disputing managers make status purchases and spend stupid money on useless things. That much is as true as it ever was.

Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#143

Post by pcmoney »

goosedragons wrote: post #140
pcmoney wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please link to an alternative thin bezel, brushed metal or even just non-plastic, 4k or higher monitor with built in 12mp camera. If it is decently reviewed and a significant savings compared to Apple I know a firm that will buy 200 of them.

With the 12MP camera requirement you may as well just specify it has an Apple logo on it. I find the requirement for non-plastic so bizarre as though it can't POSSIBLY look good. I still think the 17" Studio Display from 2000 looks better than the new one (which still has chunkier bezels than my random Dell business monitor).

Sure whatever, nobody wants a $100 logitech zit on the top of their monitor while they are trying to sell themselves as having infinitely superior design/law/whatever skills than the client they are charging $1k/hour to.

Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#144

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

theonemind wrote: post #63

I think this works like the opposite of a loss-leader, a product sold at a loss to draw people into a store, and/or like minor upsells at restaurants, like guacamole on the side. I got this theory from the Apple Explained youtube channel when he talked about the $600 wheels for Mac Pros Apple needs some high end items to keep its luxury appeal, but they really want the middle market without losing some perceived luxu…

> Apple needs some high end items to keep its luxury appeal, but they really want the middle market without losing some perceived luxury appeal.

i.e. An aspirational brand. Judging from the way people are willing to sell their kidney to buy an iPhone in developing countries, Where Apple doesn't follow differentiated pricing like everyone else, even if they manufacture the phone there[1] I guess this has worked great for Apple & its shareholders.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30610454#30611568

Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#145

Post by thefz »

pcmoney wrote: post #18

Apple can do this because nobody else makes a high quality monitor that doesn’t look terrible. In nice offices, each chair is a couple thousand each. Full designs easily $50k+. Theyre not going to mess up a such a thoughtfully designed aesthetic with some slab of black plastic and an Amazon Basics stand (which is what I use) to save $1-2k.

> Apple can do this because nobody else makes a high quality monitor that doesn’t look terrible.

People prioritizing looks over function is why this enormously expensive display is a 60Hz refresh rate panel. Users buy apple just to show the logo.

Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#146

Post by kristjansson »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #133
kristjansson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll happily pay a lot of premium for a long “just works” TB3/4 cable so I can pretend I live in a world where cables aren’t themselves computers and don’t have complicated sets of features they do or don’t support

Linus Tech Tips has done some good breakdowns of specific cables so far (with a multi thousand dollar testing rig). They're ramping up to do full testing of all types of cables. You're right, lots of cables don't do what they say. And it isn't just Thunderbolt. It's HDMI, DisplayPort, USB3, etc. Lots of the HDMI 2.1 cables they tested can only do HDMI 2.0, for instance. Not an issue with Macs, but an issue for lots o…

Exactly. A ~2x premium to make all of that Someone Else's Problem is worth it.

Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#147

Post by TAKEMYMONEY »

pcmoney wrote: post #123
TAKEMYMONEY wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a $400 premium? I work in a "nice" office (with a chair and motorized standing desk that each cost several thousand) and we use nearly bezel-less 4k monitors with brushed aluminum tilt-and-raise stands that aren't made by Apple. There's a huge range between Apple and AmazonBasics industrial-design-wise now, especially when you're bidding for enterprise-level equipment contracts.

$400 is literally less than one hour of billable work in most places, negligible.

I'm aware of the hourly rates for the industry I work in, thank you. We're discussing value.

Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#148

Post by llampx »

AJRF wrote: post #87
pcmoney wrote: post #18

Apple can do this because nobody else makes a high quality monitor that doesn’t look terrible. In nice offices, each chair is a couple thousand each. Full designs easily $50k+. Theyre not going to mess up a such a thoughtfully designed aesthetic with some slab of black plastic and an Amazon Basics stand (which is what I use) to save $1-2k.

https://consumer.huawei.com/en/monitors/mateview/

Wow, I want one.

Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#149

Post by JohnTHaller »

kristjansson wrote: post #146
JohnTHaller wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus Tech Tips has done some good breakdowns of specific cables so far (with a multi thousand dollar testing rig). They're ramping up to do full testing of all types of cables. You're right, lots of cables don't do what they say. And it isn't just Thunderbolt. It's HDMI, DisplayPort, USB3, etc. Lots of the HDMI 2.1 cables they tested can only do HDMI 2.0, for instance. Not an issue with Macs, but an issue for lots o…

Exactly. A ~2x premium to make all of that Someone Else's Problem is worth it.

It's a 3x premium over the cables you'd possibly need to be concerned about. The $60 cables just work.

Re: Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell

#150

Post by dangus »

nebula8804 wrote: post #129
dangus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a list: https://www.displayninja.com/mini-led-monitor-list/ ASUS ProArt is a good start: https://www.asus.com/Displays-Desktops/Monitors/ProArt/ProAr... - 4K HDR, 576 zones of local dimming - 90W power - Dolby Vision, HDR-10 - Works with Mac or PC so you aren't screwed if you have a multi-platform environment, includes DisplayPort, HDMI, USB-A (4x), USB-C, headphone jack For the same price as the Studio Displa…

>ASUS ProArt As someone who got suckered into buying two of these pieces of junk let me warn you that while the panel is decent, everything around it royally sucks. 1. The stand is horrible and tends to be very wobbly. This has been the case with three ASUS monitors I have owned over the years (two of them being ProArt) 2. Lack of supports around the screen makes it extremely fragile. Example: I carefully placed the…

IMO, ASUS is taking the right path here. Everything besides the panel doesn't matter.

This particular model or lineup might not be the best, and maybe the QA sucks, but it's not like the 69% of people on Amazon giving it 4+ stars have gone crazy.

I see this another way: these ASUS displays are a firmware update away from being a better buy, and ASUS is just one competitor.

My prediction is that the Studio Display pretty quickly becomes a questionable purchase as more competitors enter the space and mini-LED displays become more prevalent. It's going to be a great webcam and speaker and a mediocre monitor at that price.

Also, if webcams and speakers are so important I wonder why the Pro Display XDR doesn't have either?

Honestly, that question lines up with my original claim: that the Studio Display is an aspirational purchase for non-creatives who have a lot of money and want a nice home office monitor for fiddling with spreadsheets and taking Zoom calls. The actual professionals (Pro Display XDR) don't have any need for some impressive for their size but not studio monitor built in monitor speakers and webcam.

Someone producing semi-professional video content is going to go with a display that supports HDR, especially considering that our consumer-level phones already record HDR footage.

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