Early Impressions of the Pro display XDR

Late last week, my partner surprised me with a belated and incredibly generous Christmas present: she brought home my white whale in Apple’s Pro Display XDR. It was quite the adventure getting the display (and the Pro Stand) up the three flights of (admittedly short) stairs—one outside, two inside—to our living space and into my “office” area. But we did it, and after leaving the unboxing until the next day out of utter tiredness, I excitedly got to work setting up the Pro Display and accompanying Mac.

I’m writing this piece with the intent of sharing my early impressions of the monitor, but I believe it’s important to address some personal context in so badly wanting the Pro Display XDR in the first place. However exorbitantly expensive and ostensibly overkill for my modest computational needs, the reality is the Pro Display XDR possesses the traits I need for a greater experience, accessibility-wise. Its most obvious attribute is, of course, the size; the Pro Display XDR is a 32” 6K screen with mini-LED backlighting. As someone with extremely low vision, that means not only is the screen literally big, colors are brighter and text is sharper too. What’s more, I can fit more windows on screen at once despite preferring to use Stage Manager on macOS. It’s early days yet, but already I can ecstatically report the Pro Display XDR is paying huge dividends in my daily accessibility and productivity—all thanks to its brawn.

It’s fair to ask what of the Studio Display. It’s no slouch, to be sure, but the truth is (a) it’s smaller than the Pro Display; and (b) is considerably less bright (600 nits peak brightness versus 1600). It’s commensurately considerably less expensive as well, but the salient point is, as a practical matter, the Pro Display XDR is markedly more accessible. In the times I’ve noodled around with both monitors in Apple Stores, my eyes have greatly preferred the Pro Display XDR for all the reasons I just mentioned.

There have been rumblings Apple has refreshed versions of the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR in the proverbial pipeline, as the Studio Display was introduced in 2022 and the Pro Display XDR coming out in 2019. However “old” the Pro Display XDR is in technical terms, I honestly cannot think of ways to improve it beyond maybe upgrading the screen technology to OLED. For my purposes as a journalist working in Safari and my text editor of choice, it does what I need it to do in spades. I even love putting my hand around the back once in a while to feel the “cheese grater” ventilation holes; I couldn’t stop smiling looking at how cool it looks back there as I was plugging everything in. It reminds of when Steve Jobs boasted the back of the original iMac “looked better than the other guys” when introducing the computer in 1998. The computer itself will inevitably change once or twice (more on that in a minute), but I imagine the Pro Display XDR easily taking me into the 2030s given my usage habits.

Now, about my “new” Mac. I use quotation marks there because the machine technically isn’t new at all; it’s a 2023 14” MacBook Pro powered by the M2 Pro chip along with 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD which heretofore sat mostly unused in my office. As you can probably surmise, I leave the laptop permanently attached to my monitor and run it in clamshell mode (lid closed). Like the Pro Display itself, the MacBook is computationally excessive for my spartan needs, but I love the experience of using an Apple silicon Mac full-time. As I suspected, features like iPhone Mirroring have been delightful—and accessible—to use, and I love having access to ChatGPT on the desktop, which is Apple Silicon-only. More broadly, another thing I appreciate about this setup is its modularity. To wit, whenever the time comes to upgrade my machine—or check out a review unit, for that matter—it will be far more accessible (and expedient) for me to simply swap one component for another. This stands in contrast to my old Intel iMac, an all-in-one with accessibility merit in its own right, for which I had to physically remove the entire system from my desk in order to set up these new pieces of kit. It’s technically doable for me, but not exactly easy. The Pro Display and its Pro Stand are damn heavy and relatively unwieldy if you’re someone who, like me, has limited strength and range of motion. What I’m saying is, it’s comforting to know next time I can leave the monitor and just switch out the laptop for whatever replaces it.

Finally, a cursory note on my aforementioned, beloved Retina 4K iMac. This July will mark 7 years since I got it, and it served me incredibly well over those years. While it may seem weird to wax romantic about an inanimate object, that iMac—which currently sits on the floor next to my desk, waiting to see its as yet undetermined new journey—saw me through so many highs and lows of my journalistic career. I wrote my 2018 interview with Tim Cook on that machine, arguably my interviewer’s zenith. I’d love to know how many tens of millions of words I cranked out on that thing from 2019 until 2025. It seems apropos that I migrated the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad to my new setup, because both accessories work as perfectly today as they did when I first got them years ago alongside the iMac. (I’m planning to eventually upgrade to the Touch ID-equipped Magic Keyboard, but this is serviceable for now.) What bugs me about my decommissioned iMac is the fact its perfectly good 4K display is going to waste. Although the computer itself is usable if frozen in technological amber given its Intel chipset and macOS Sequoia software, the screen alone remains exquisite. It’s unfortunate Apple no longer supports Target Display Mode in macOS; if the company did so, it would mean my old iMac could have a new lease on life, effectively functioning far into the future as a really nice external monitor to a MacBook or Mac mini like my Pro Display XDR does now. As it stands today, though, that’s not possible… so my iMac sits dormant, relegated (for now) to the annals of my personal tech history.

Anyway, I don’t mean to be a braggadocio in saying I now own a $6000 computer monitor. I’m genuinely humbled by my partner’s generosity and am grateful for the privilege of using the Pro Display XDR. The reason I’m so enthusiastic is precisely because it absolutely makes doing my job (and other things) on my computer a richer, more accessible experience—and that, you can’t put a price tag on when in my shoes.