The Best Monitors for the Apple Mac mini and Mac Studio

Apple’s redesigned M4 Mac mini and powerful Mac Studio are amazing computers for photographers and video editors, delivering excellent performance for the price. However, neither ships with a display, leaving customers to decide, “What’s the best monitor for my Mac mini (or Mac Studio)?” PetaPixel offers three great options.

Before diving into the three contenders, it’s worth addressing the $5,000 elephant in the room, the Apple Pro Display XDR. It’s a fantastic display with excellent performance. However, launched in June 2019, it’s also long in the tooth and so overpriced for its admittedly strong performance in 2025 that PetaPixel does not recommend it. If the Pro Display XDR is the right choice for you, you already know that, and this guide isn’t for you. It’s a niche product for a specific audience at an exorbitant price.

With that out of the way, there are three compelling choices, all great options for photographers who don’t want to spend $5,000 on a single display for their new Mac. Let’s dig in.

The High-End Option: Apple Studio Display

By far the most expensive display featured in this guide, the $1,599 Apple Studio Display is the “Apple standard” option — it’s the monitor that matches the Mac mini and Mac Studio to a T, as seen above. When Apple captures product photos of its desktop computers in action, it is typically paired with this display. This is for a good reason. Beyond the obvious that it’s Apple’s “affordable” display, it’s a great monitor that makes a lot of sense to pair with your new Mac.

The Apple Studio Display offers fantastic build quality and style, a consistent high-resolution 27-inch Retina display (5,180 x 2,880 resolution, specifically), and the brightest panel (600 nits) of the bunch. The display instantly plays nicely and delivers an excellent picture with any Mac straight out of the box without any fuss. It just “fits,” for lack of a better term.

This Apple fit and finish comes at a steep price, though. Starting at $1,599, without the height-adjustable stand which costs an extra $400 for some reason, the display costs more than twice as much as the base model M4 Mac mini and $100 more than the recommended M4 Pro version. The Apple Studio Display is gorgeous and an excellent match for the Mac mini and Studio in style and performance, but it’s expensive. There is undoubtedly an “Apple premium” to be paid.

But if you are considering taking the plunge, what do you get besides a beautiful big-bezeled silver and black display that is only tilt-adjustable by default? The Studio Display has three USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports for various Mac accessories and a Thunderbolt 3 port — no HDMI or DisplayPort here. The monitor has six built-in speakers with woofers, which sound pretty darn good, actually, Spatial Audio support, a three-mic array (with Siri support), and a 12-megapixel Center Stage webcam. This is a broader range of accouterments than the two monitors below feature and could help justify the higher asking price.

It is challenging to look past the Apple Studio Display’s price, and getting better display performance is possible for not much more money. However, as much as it’s hard to see past the price tag, it’s also impossible to find a display that more conveniently works alongside the M4 Pro Mac mini. The Apple Studio Display is undeniably a natural fit, albeit one that undercuts some of the Mac mini and Mac Studio’s “bang for your buck” value proposition.

• Price: Starts at $1,599 for standard glass and tilting stand, up to $2,299 for nano-texture display and height-adjustable stand
• Display Specs: 27-inch (5,180 x 2,880) LCD, 600 nits max brightness, 98% DCI-P3 (derived from testing), 85% AdobeRGB (derived from testing)
• Design Features: Tilting stand only by default, three USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 and one Thunderbolt 3 port, high-quality speakers, 12MP Center Stage camera

The Mid-Range Alternative: Asus ProArt Display 5K

If you’re a photo or video editor working in an SDR space, resolution and color accuracy are much more desirable than peak brightness and fast refresh rate. The Asus PA27JCV is designed especially for those people. With 5,120 x 2,880 resolution, 99% DCI-P3 color space, and 500 nits of peak brightness, the specs look like the much more expensive Apple Studio Display. Unfortunately, the HDR500 maximum brightness means this monitor is not recommended for editing Dolby Vision HDR content. This monitor leaves the factory Calman certified, so your next purchase won’t have to be a monitor calibrator.

The increased resolution will be particularly desirable for editors looking to maintain the high pixel pitch found in high-end laptops but in a substantially larger display. For example, the Asus’ 218 pixels per inch (PPI) resolution is quite similar to the 250 PPI displays found in current MacBook Pros. This means perceived sharpness is nearly the same when looking at photos and video in a dual-screen setup. Color out of the box has been pleasing and accurate, perfect for grading videos that will be played back on a wide variety of screen types.

In terms of connectivity, this monitor includes a Display Port 1.4, HDMI 2.1, 3x USB-A 3.2, a single USB-C 3.2 port and a headphone jack. The monitor will output 96W of power through the USB-C port, more than enough to power one of those aforementioned MacBook Pros. This monitor does have built in speakers though the audio quality is best described as ‘gross’.

The included stand is solid, allowing cable pass-through and height adjustment. The menu is simple for commonly used adjustments, but the menus are difficult to navigate due to a very small and fiddly joystick.

For many visual artists, the Asus PA27JCV prioritizes the most valuable capabilities and specs, while eschewing features demanded more by gamers. For photographers and video professionals who don’t require the ability to edit HDR content, the Asus is an easy recommendation in this class.

• Price: $799
• Display Specs: 27-inch (5,180 x 2,880) IPS LCD, 500 nits max brightness, 100% sRGB / 99% DCI-P3 / 95% AdobeRGB
• Design Features: Height-adjustable stand, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4, three USB-A 3.2 ports, one USB-C 3.2 port, headphone jack

The Affordable Larger Option: Samsung ViewFinity S8

Samsung’s ViewFinity S8 is one of several Samsung options that will appeal to the budget conscious Mac mini or Mac Studio owner. The 32-inch version is regularly available for $350, a significant savings over Apple’s first-party options. Those savings don’t come without a tradeoff, however.

Firstly, the ViewFinity S8 has a very tight viewing angle for seeing the best picture quality. Even at just slight off-angles, the contrast falls off precipitously, meaning the S8 isn’t my favorite if it is going to be used in a multi-display setup since it’s sometimes tricky to get monitors to face you directly when they’re not right in front of you.

It is, however, larger than the Studio Display and the black bezels might appeal to you more than Apple’s silver ones. It has separate controls, too, unlike the Studio Display but you an only access those by using the mediocre joystick located on the backside of the monitor right behind the Samsung logo. Once you juice the brightness to 100 and also kick on the contrast assist, the picture quality looks very nice.

It has plenty of inputs, which is nice. You can connect your computer to it with USB-C, HDMI, or DisplayPort. It even has a headphone jack.

While Samsung advertises the ViewFinity S8 as an HDR display, Apple doesn’t recognize it as such when connected via USB-C and probably for good reason: the S8 just doesn’t get bright enough to provide actual HDR. Even at maximum output, the S8 caps out at 350 nits, less than half what PetaPixel recommends for an actual HDR experience. That is, notably, not as bright as the Studio Display gets, and you’ll see the difference side by side. It’s especially noticeable if you plan to use this display with a MacBook Pro, which also gets much brighter. It is also challenging to get the S8 to display colors the same way Apple’s displays do, so it doesn’t pair well with a MacBook Pro or Studio Display.

That said, if this is your only monitor, you won’t have anything to compare it to so these differences don’t matter. It’s also worth noting that it caps out at 60Hz refresh rate, but this probably won’t matter if you’re planning on comparing it to the Studio Display which has the same limitation.

By itself and as long as it’s not trying to fight direct sunlight or extreme glare, the ViewFinity S8 is a good budget choice for the Mac Studio or Mac mini.

• Price: $350 for either the 27-inch or 32-inch display
• Display Specs: 27-inch and 32-inch (3,840 x 2,160) IPS LCD, 350 nits max brightness, 99% sRGB
• Design Features: Height-adjustable stand, HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4, three USB-A 3.2 ports, one USB-C 3.2 port, headphone jack, Ethernet port