Apple's new Studio Display is on my desk. Here's what I think

I've already got my hands on the new MacBook Air M5 as well as the MacBook Pro M5 Max, but had yet to get the new Studio Display out of its box.

But when I did, I was rewarded. The first thing I noticed is the sheer size of the thing. In its box, it was almost too heavy for me to carry up the stairs, and once I'd released it from its packaging (which seemed to fold out in quite a pleasing way. I was left wondering how I would ever get it back in its box), it was still pretty heavy and unwieldy.

Setup wasn't as easy as I'd anticipated. The Studio Display doesn't have an on/off button – you're supposed to be able to plug it in and go. Unfortunately, I found the on-screen instructions confusing. I thought the Studio Display was instructing me to plug in the included Thunderbolt cable in the fourth slot on the right when looking at the screen, but it actually turned out to be the fourth slot on the right when looking at the ports.

With that out of the way, I was set up. At 27 inches, the Studio Display is bigger than my normal monitor, which is a fairly old Dell model. It's also way fancier, and is sure to be deserving of a spot in our best monitors for MacBook Pro and best monitors for graphic artists guides.

It boasts 14.7 million pixels, 600 nits of brightness and one billion colours, as well as P3 wide colour. What does that mean in real terms? Well, everything just looks incredibly good on it. Photos, videos, games, you name it, it looks brilliant. I worked on it for a day and now I don't want to go back. It's also so big I could've got away with using just that rather than the second screen of my MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.

There's a 12MP Centre Stage camera (where the camera follows you around the room), with improved image quality compared to the previous iteration, as well as Desk View (where you can show your face as well as a top-down view of your desk). The webcam was crystal clear when I tried it – almost too clear in fact, I could see every strand of my greasy hair.

It also boasts a six-speaker sound system with Spatial Audio, which sounds absolutely fantastic, and is way better than my older MacBook Air (M1, 2020). I found it to be more bass-y than the new MacBook Pro M5 Max (in a good way). Compared to the previous generation of the Studio Display, there's also 30 per cent deeper bass.

The Studio Display also now includes Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, with two Thunderbolt ports, so you can connect high-speed accessories or even connect up to four Studio Display models if you happen to have a lot of room in your setup (and a lot of dough to spend on it). The Thunderbolt cable can also charge your MacBook, with up to 96W of charging power. This was enough to fast charge my MacBook Air within a short period.

You can buy the Studio Display with either standard glass or nano-texture glass if you're working in "challenging" lighting conditions (I have the latter).

It comes with a tilt-adjustable stand that I found very easy to manoeuvre or you can get an adapter to support portrait and landscape orientation if you need to.

Overall, once I got it set up properly, the Studio Display was a pleasure to use. With its beautiful colours, brilliant camera and quality sound, I won't be wanting to go back to my old monitor.

I have used the previous Studio Display before, and I can't say I noticed much of a difference between them. I'd be interested to try Apple's new monitor, the Studio Display XDR, to find out more about what the differences are between that and the model I tested.

The Studio Display is available to pre-order now.