Studio Display Teardown: Is this secretly an iMac?

Last week, we got a little ahead of ourselves and popped the Studio Display open during our Mac Studio teardown (we've got the link in the description if you missed it!), but we're back for a deeper dive into this dense display.

Check out our Mac Studio Teardown!

You'll need a little more torque than normal to take apart your Studio Display. Check out our Manta Driver kit!

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:03 Opening the Studio Display
01:36 Removing the Studio Display's Camera
02:12 A closer look at the Studio Display's Display
02:27 Removing the Studio Display's Power Cable
02:35 Removing the Studio Display's Power Supplies
02:51 Removing the Studio Display's Massive Fans
03:11 Removing the Studio Display's Logic Board
03:24 Removing the Studio Display's Speakers
03:50 Removing the Studio Display's Ports

#Apple, #StudioDisplayTeardown, #iFixit
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[JeffGeerling]

I have to wonder if they just couldn't get certain features out the door before the display's launch. Having an A13 and 64GB of memory means this display has the horsepower to become at least a decent standalone 'Apple TV' display.

But some of the engineering aspects—from the non-user-serviceable power cord and mounting bracket/VESA mount—to the thickness of the display in general—are baffling. If they just took the iMac, swapped the guts for a display controller, and used an external magsafe power supply like the iMac, I think people would've been happier.

[NanoMine]

Overengineered the heck out of that power supply but fogot to design a power cord that can be removed easily. Apple just likes to do one good thing at a time.

[hardikminocha]

As an electronics engineer myself, I think the power supply is INSANE amount of over engineering for a chassis that thick, BUT that said, I LOVE IT. I've seen all sorts of low profile components but I've never seen anyone CUT INTO the board, to make them even lower in profile. I mean, the Capacitors? They're LONG AF! but they knew, if these weren't this long, they would've been fat and a design hazard. The Common mode Chokes are another highlight of the low profile design. But in some places, since the thickness allowed it, they chose to go with Through hole Diodes, which is weird, but I get that makes the work easy. Also, Current ratings might've been an issue. I know this post doesn't belong here, but maybe someone finds it as interesting as I do. :)

[emperorarasaka]

Apple's galaxy brain engineering team.
They made a Laptop _without_ Fans & a Display _with_ Fans.

[TheMilanMovies]

Gotta say, the internals look as great as the external.
That power supply looks stunning!

[slicey]

I wonder if someone will make an open source bootloader or some sort of jailbreak that will allow an OS to run, would be interesting to see if people can hack the hardware to make proper use of that a12 chip

[PhilfreezeCH]

To me it just looks like this display and the iMac were developed by two completely different teams that didn‘t talk to each other (maybe because of secrecy shenanigans inside Apple). Otherwise I really can‘t explain the two baffling dissimilar approaches for a very similar thing.

[Joe_Brig]

Did you miss one of the most discussed components, the stand ? How is that removed ?

[reddcube]

I wonder why apple spent so much time to reinvent the power supply, instead of just copying the iMac magsafe connector.

[blackcoffeegarage]

I don't believe this is the exact same display panel as the 5K iMac (stated at 2:10), they simply have the same size and resolution. It has a wider color range, better contrast, better brightness. I would be very surprised if the LCD panel had the same manufacturer model number as the iMac.

[DarthRaider]

The display is what the imac should've been

[biaachmonkie]

After seeing this I'm convinced that this design was originally going to be the new 27" iMac but then at some point, likely within the last year, they decided to go forward with the Mac Studio as the only pro-summer desktop, so as to not have them compete against each other. They then converted this into the separate Studio Display and hastily converted it to use the A13 instead of a M1 Pro or M1 Max.
There is just way too much tight integration and effort here for what is really ancient display panel, this it way over engineered for what it delivers.

[jasonbecker]

Seems like it would have been much, much easier to just sell us a 27" iMac like we have used for a decade. Now we have to spend twice as much money to get basically the same thing as we had before. Such a love-hate relationship with this company.

[nimoy]

2:23 Linus Tech Tips be like:
"Use the force, Luke!"
Honestly, Apple, it shouldn't be this hard to design a user-friendly power cord.

[awhite]

Big lol at the “extra vibration in the speaker system being a major problem” 😂

[Jushwa]

That power supply is a thing of beauty. Crazy.

[marsgizmo]

Wonderful teardown and impressive engineering inside the display! 👏😎

[Batmancontingencyplans]

We should all focus on the fact you could've easily swapped dead power supply if it was external.

[andreas_karam]

If they make a bigger imac that looks like the studio display it will be just perfect. I think they can easily fit the board of m1 max chip if the put the PSU externally like the m1 imac

[wiryantirta]

My tinfoil hat theory is that the Studio Display is actually supposed to be an 27in iMac, but Apple decided nah and yoinked its M1/M1Pro chip and stuff like bluetooth / peripheral controllers and plopped back in a gimped A13 in its place.