[Frank777]

Looks like we're getting a 40-inch monitor option from Phillips? It's pricier that the Apple option though. Not sure how that will work out.

[chucker]

140 ppi. Blah.

[Matsu]

I’m intrigued by the ultra wide screen concept as a replacement for dual side-by-side screens. The 32:9 screens seem a little too wide in pics, but a 49” screen is really just the same height as a 27” 16:9. Eye line wouldn’t be different, but maybe viewing angles get weird at extremes, unless curved, which might be weird for designers or people doing any kind of geometric corrections.

Maybe 21:9 is a better bet. A 40” would have the same height as a 16:9 32”. You’d need about 8k3.4K for retina level density.

A 34” 21:9 would have the same height as a 16:9 27”, and about 7k3k for retina level.

[Matsu]

It looks like Samsung has launched the S9 5K display in Korea. Looks like the price falls in at the equivalent of 1300-1400USD ? I wonder when we'll see world-wide release/pricing?

[chucker]

Baffling.

Is the panel that expensive? But that would mean that the 27-inch iMac's computer portions were dirt cheap?

[Matsu]

I seems possible that the Samsung will be $1299 USD, on second look the Korea-US exchange rate puts it almost exactly $1300 USD as of today. I think the margins on this sort of item depend significantly on whether it can be presented to the market as a luxury item. Many Apple and Samsung products certainly can, including this one - it's a high ppi, wide-gamut, production monitor and smart TV with video conferencing, charging, sound and calibration all built-in. It almost doesn't matter how expensive the panel is, price is what the market will bear. It does highlight something though - iMacs make AIO a unique value proposition. Cheap? No. Affordable? Not necessarily. Value? Quite possibly, "Yes!" for those in the market for what it offers (including luxury branding).

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Matsu price is what the market will bear.

Sure.

But on phones, Retina quickly became mass-market; even some $99 Nokia has >200 ppi.

Why can't we have that with external displays?

[Matsu]

I don't know why, but we don't have it, yet. There just aren't affordable large screen ~220ppi options (27" and larger).

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by chucker Sure. But on phones, Retina quickly became mass-market; even some $99 Nokia has >200 ppi. Why can't we have that with external displays?

Geometry, physics, and economics.

Double the width of a display, it's 4x the screen. Make it 4x larger (6" -> 24") and it's 16x the real estate. Sixteen times the price, and you're into some actual money.

But it gets worse. Manufacturing is done in sheets. Large displays require large areas of perfect pixels. If there's a dead pixel, that large area can be carved into many small displays suitable for phones, and as the manufacturer, you lose one small cheap display, instead of one large expensive one.

Unless the manufacturing is amazingly close to perfect, those very large displays are very rare. Ever notice how the price/area for OLED TVs has a sharp bend *up* for the largest size on the market? That's the 'we only get a few of these off the assembly line' level. As the processes improve, those sizes come in line with the others. A couple of years ago I bought an LG OLED, the price/area was a 43% premium for the 83" over the 77", despite the 16% bump in area.

The smallest end of the line (48") was *more* expensive per area than the next level (55"), due to the overhead of the everything-but-the-screen. The 55" -> 65" was nearly linear for the area increase. After that, rarity of panels started to come into play, but the elbow at 77" -> 83" was *steep*, which tells you where the limit of their manufacturing processes is.

Diagonal	Price	ft^2	$/ft^2	% area incr	% price/area48		1100	6.84	$160.89		55		1300	8.98	$144.83	31.29%		-9.99%65		1800	12.54	$143.57	39.67%		-0.86%77		3000	17.59	$170.52	40.33%		18.77%83		5000	20.44	$244.59	16.19%		43.44%

The 65" was the sweet spot in 2020, but it was the 55" in 2018. Every couple of years as processes improved, they've bumped the top size up, and you've seen a redistribution along the line of pricing that smooths out the previous elbow, and adds a new higher one. That may be ending.

And these are not Retina level displays by any means which are even harder to produce, just an example of how pricing doesn't necessarily follow geometry.

[chucker]

Yes, but. The 27-inch Retina 5K iMac arrived in 2014. Nine years ago. It was $2499 then; a significant part of that is the computer.

You're telling me economies of scale haven't brought the price down to less than half?

[Kickaha]

Depends on the process quality, more than economies of scale. If you're cranking 10x the area of screens, but haven't improved your process (or, because of scale of demand, have opted for fast over good), then the large displays aren't going to be *that* much more available compared to before, and are likely to be even less available compared to the smaller screens in the current market.

[Matsu]

Over at AI, they've run a couple of stories from an Apple leaker with some supposed credibility, says they're exploring 30" iMacs for 2024/25 timeframe...

I suppose the industry will mainstream desktop Retina displays at some point over the next few years. It's gone from phones, to tablets, to laptops, so... just one more leap to get into the 27"+ space? I think there are some 20-23" 4K displays that are damn near 220ppi already, but not really mainstream.

Maybe the appearance of 8K displays will accelerate a broader jump to "Retina" like densities across the industry.

Strictly speaking it's not needed for much, even the theatrical/Home theatre/TV viewing where it'll be pushed first doesn't really benefit for most viewing environments. To me the greatest strength of higher densities is in being able to edit/view photographs closer to what they'll look like in print.

[Kickaha]

For me, it's the ability to have ridiculous amounts of legible text on screen at once at 8pt when coding. I can go down to 6pt to see the structure better, and yet still read it when I focus in.

Retina quality really is useful.

[Frank777]

So it's at least $300. cheaper than the Apple Studio Display, but I won't be able to control volume or brightness from the Mac keyboard. Over 5-8 years, that could get really annoying.

On the other hand, much better webcam and it can pivot to vertical orientation, like a premium monitor should.

[709]

$1599 (same as Studio Display) and launching 28th of August, according to MacRumors and Amazon.

[Kickaha]

I'd wait for the articles regarding the "ridiculous Samsung tax" and how Samsung is overpriced for the features... but the heat death of the universe will occur first.

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by Kickaha I'd wait for the articles regarding the "ridiculous Samsung tax" and how Samsung is overpriced for the features... but the heat death of the universe will occur first.

1. Equating the base Apple Studio Display to the Samsung, which is height-adjustable, is disingenuous. Really, the Samsung is $400 cheaper.

2. The Samsung display can also rotate, which you can't get in the ASD at any price.

3. It's got a higher-resolution, removable camera.

4. The Samsung will likely see its price discounted over time, unlike the ASD.

I'm wary because I've heard the volume and brightness controls on the keyboard don't pair. But let's at least be honest about the pricing.

[709]

Very much not a fan of the soul patch, but I do like the adjustability. That and the screen is matte and not glossy. Though I wish the bezel was the same width all around. If I was in the market for such a thing right now it'd be a tough decision between this and the Studio Display.

[psmith2.0]

That's not a bad-looking display. It's funny how Apple and Samsung go at it in the smartphone arena, but are chums elsewhere, with Samsung deliberately making stuff they know will look nice sitting next to Macs and other Apple gear.

Kinda the 21st century tech equivalent of pulling the hair of the girl in second grade you supposedly hated because she had "cooties". No, you were madly in love with her, but your little 7-year-old brain just couldn't process/cop to such a thing.

"Let's do the heated rivalry thing for show/effect, and then kiss behind the monkey bars?"

[chucker]

I don't think Cook and Jae-yong kiss behind the monkey bars. (If they do, good for them…)

Sometimes you have a good complementary business deal in one unit, and a competitive nature in another. Microsoft competes with Apple on the OS, but also wants their software to sell on the Mac and iOS platforms, and want to sell Azure subscriptions to iOS developers. They want companies like Acer and HP to make laptops that run Windows — but they also make laptops of their own, directly competing with them. (I'm sure there were quite a few heated phone calls when Microsoft introduced the Surface line. But then… what can you do? Those hardware vendors had long since given up not being dependent on Windows…)

I think the Apple-Samsung rivalry is a bit overplayed by tech pundits.