Apple reportedly making a cheaper monitor for MacBook Pro, and I'd buy one in a second

(Image credit: Apple)

published 16 February 2022

Apple's Pro Display XDR isn't the best MacBook Pro monitor unless you've got a really big budget: while it's an incredible display it's also incredibly expensive, coming in at £4,599 for the standard model or £5,499 for the one with Nano-texture glass. So it's good to hear that Apple is working on something much cheaper – and we don't mean cheaper compared to five thousand quid. And that means I might actually be able to afford one.

Two sizes for considerably less cash

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, as reported by MacRumors, Apple is making a successor to its much-missed Thunderbolt Display. Unlike the Pro Display XDR, which is strictly for the highest of high-end users, it's going to be a consumer model.

The new display may come in two iMac-sized versions, 24 inches and 27 inches, and there may also be a 32-inch version. That's the same size as the Pro Display, but we don't know if this is a direct replacement or a cheaper, less well-specced alternative. It and the 27-inch are expected to be mini-LED displays with variable 120Hz refresh rates.

As for the price, that's reported to be around $999 for the entry level model – which is fairly pricey by display standards but not by Apple standards. The 27-inch may come in at around $2,500.

There's no sign of a release schedule just yet so here's hoping Apple uses some of its time to fix the annoying display bug that currently plagues non-Apple USB-C displays: there seems to be a bug in the M1 MacBook Pro's USB-C display support and it's really rather annoying, waking my external display any time it feels lonely. That's irritating enough on a third party display but it'd be much worse on an Apple one costing twice the price.

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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).