Apple Pro Display XDR Review

 Apple's $4,999 Pro Display XDR reference monitor is a welcome addition to a growing niche of panels that serve prosumer and professional content creators alike. This emerging class of "creator" displays provides reference-level color accuracy and extremely powerful HDR capabilities for a price that might 

seem high on the surface, but is fair, comparatively speaking, when you look at traditional alternatives. Apple's macOS doesn't have much of an HDR-ready content library (this is, after all, the first HDR display ever released by Apple), and the panel's Pro Stand is wildly pricey. But outside of those 

 

complaints, the Pro Display XDR stuns in every other metric it competes in, earning our Editors' Choice. Its exceptional design, sturdiness, and "just works" philosophy make it a must-have for pro-level, Mac-bound content creators. Windows- or Linux-based creators will want to go with alternatives like the Asus ProArt PA32UCX instead (which we're also reviewing), since the Pro Display XDR works only with Apple devices.

The 32-inch Pro Display XDR has a 6,016-by-3,384-pixel native resolution, known casually as "6K." The chassis shares much of its design aesthetic with the revamped 2019 Apple Mac Pro, in particular the "cheese grater" metal housing that serves a dual purpose: looking good, and keeping the circuitry and LEDs at work underneath cool.

The Apple Pro Display XDR's LED-backlit display utilizes a feature known as "full-array local dimming," or FALD for short. FALD is a method used to backlight displays that differs significantly from other monitors. In traditional LED-backlit displays, the whole panel is brightened and dimmed 

through "global dimming," in which every LED at the back of the panel is controlled by a single setting. This means that as scenes brighten or darken, the whole panel brightens or darkens with them.Conversely, in FALD displays, each part of the scene can be dimmed or brightened independently, 

allowing for much greater contrast and visual quality. Right now, FALD technology is the closest that (relatively) less-expensive displays can get to matching the contrast ratios of two other key emerging display technologies: OLED and microLED.

The latter is especially one to watch; microLED is a new screen technology that is just getting off the ground in the first half of 2020, spearheaded by TV manufacturers like Samsung and LG. In microLED displays, every pixel is its own individual LED, which can lead to some of the best-looking images seen

 on displays yet. But for now, the cost of manufacturing these panels is almost prohibitively expensive, to the point that a 6K monitor like the Pro Display XDR couldn't realistically use the tech (yet).

Apple doesn't classify the Pro Display XDR as microLED, OLED, or another emerging type, mini LED, but the panel does have 576 full-array local dimming zones, which means it has much in common 

with mini LED. Displays with this kind of discrete-LED array are notorious for running much hotter than standard LED-based displays. The metal grating of the Pro Display XDR both passively cools the display while allowing for airflow to move from the panel to the outside world and back through the rear of the unit. That means no noisy fans are needed to direct the air where it needs to go.

Up until this point, monitor manufacturers have kept their passive-cooling heatsink designs hidden under a shroud of plastic. This is the first time any designer has thought to use the passive-cooling apparatus as the actual housing for the monitor itself, and as a design element.