I am giving serious thought to buying a Studio Display (with tilt and height adjustable stand) to connect to my MacBook Pro M1. However, I see that it costs $2000.
Thinking this through, I can buy a whole 2nd computer (iMac M3) for around $500 LESS than just this monitor. Granted the iMac is 24 inches vs 27 on the Studio Display and I won't be able to operate 2 screens at once, but I tend to think that the Studio Display sort of prices itself out based on this.
Anyone here have the Studio Display? Are there any compelling reasons why the Display only is worth $500 more than an entirely separate computer with an almost as big/good display?
Yes. Lots of people have them. Just look through this forum.
Given that there are only a few true 5K monitors on the market, your choice will be limited and prices will be somewhat inflexible if you've determined that a 5K monitor is the right display resolution for you.
The Studio Display, however, is an excellent display. Extremely bright (600+ nits), highly accurate color & grayscale tracking, extremely well built and serves as an all-in-one solution for many Mac owners (webcam with Center Stage, really good speakers, 96w of charging for MacBooks, full software control of display settings, etc), and the text quality is nothing short of incredible at Apple's standard scaling ("looks-like 2560x1440").
No, it does not have HDR capability, but there are no other 5K displays on the market that do. It does not have mini-LED backlighting, but the display is already expensive enough -- adding that would add even more to the price (especially given Apple's self-imposed profit margins). It does not have multiple computer inputs, but the last Apple Display to have multiple inputs was over 20 years ago. Yes, it's over-engineered as are a lot of Apple products, and it's designed basically to be used on one Macintosh at a time (thus no additional inputs), but again, this is as with all things Apple.
If you want a more platform-agnostic 5K display, the Samsung is less expensive and has additional inputs, though I cannot comment on picture quality as I've never used or seen one in person. It is made of plastic, so you'll have to decide if that's something that matters to you or not.
I have more than one Apple Studio Display and I love mine, but I knew what they cost and the pros and cons of them going in to it.