GoKawiilis a senior reviewer covering TVs and audio. He has over 20 years experience in AV, and has previously been on staff at Digital Trends and Reviewed.
For the better part of 12 years, Apple owned the 5K monitor world — primarily because it made basically the only options. LG’s 5K UltraFine was a solid, if bland choice, but many people bought a 27-inch iMac from 2014 for its 5K screen alone. Then in 2022, Apple finally gave the people what they wanted by releasing the $1,599 Studio Display (which was essentially the iMac’s screen as a separate monitor with a webcam and speakers) and removed the LG from its store.
It wasn’t until late 2024 that companies like BenQ and Asus finally began releasing their own 27-inch 5K monitors. And while the Studio Display was the best built and best looking — its aluminum chassis and stand are solid and sleek — the competitors offered things the Studio Display didn’t, like more adjustable stands, better port variety, and the ability to connect to multiple computers at once. They work with Windows, too. And even though they use the same dated 5K panel as the Studio Display (or a very similar one), they are much cheaper, ranging from $1,100 down to just $550.
That meant Apple was primed to strike back. This year, Apple finally released a Studio Display with a proper panel upgrade. It has a mini-LED backlight instead of edge lighting, with a quantum-dot-based optical stack for up to 2,000 nits of brightness. It supports up to 120Hz refresh rate, has 14 very accurate reference modes, and includes two modes that use Apple’s newly developed CMF (color matching function) for color consistency across display technologies. I’m referring, of course, to the $3,300 Studio Display XDR.
For the regular Studio Display, Apple just slapped a better webcam and faster ports on the same 12-year-old IPS panel and called it a day. And it’s still $1,600.
Unfortunately for Apple, it’s not 2022 anymore, and the Studio Display now has more competition. I spent a few weeks testing the new Studio Display alongside the BenQ PD2730S ($1,100) and MA270S ($1,000), the Asus ProArt PA27JCV ($700), and the KTC H27P3 ($550), swapping them out regularly. Most of them do at least something better than the Studio Display, if not multiple things, and they are hundreds of dollars cheaper.
The Apple Studio Display now has more competition. (Top, L to R: BenQ PD2730S, Apple Studio Display, BenQ MA270S; Bottom, L to R: Asus ProArt PA27JCV, KTC H27P3)
To be fair, the new non-XDR Studio Display is better than the 2022 model. It has a much better camera, thankfully, and instead of one Thunderbolt 3 and three USB-C ports it now has two Thunderbolt 5 ports (one upstream and one downstream with support for daisy-chaining) and two USB-C. The speakers are better, and it has an A19 chip instead of the A13 Bionic (which really doesn’t matter for a monitor). But it’s still built around the same ancient edge-lit 60Hz panel with 600 nits of brightness.
Color accuracy has always been one of the strengths of Apple’s monitors. Much like the 2022 Studio Display, the 2026 version is very color accurate — particularly in sRGB mode, which is excellent. The BenQ PD2730S is visibly as accurate as the Studio Display (and comes with a calibration report). The BenQ MA270S and Asus monitor aren’t quite as close in measurements, but they’re both great for all but the most critical color grading.
The Studio Display has issues with its black level looking more gray than black, particularly in a dark room. The BenQ monitors have far deeper blacks than the Studio Display; the Asus ProArt isn’t quite as strong there, but still better than the Studio Display. The standard glass of the Studio Display handles reflections well (better than the “nano gloss” of the BenQ MA270S), but the $300-extra nano-texture finish option is superior for brightly lit rooms. BenQ’s PD2730S has a matte panel that cuts reflections almost as well as Apple’s nano-texture glass upgrade, but also unfortunately lifts black level slightly when compared to the other BenQ.
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