Just over a month ago, Apple introduced its new Studio Display . An impressive display aimed at the professional audience and the perfect monitor for your new Apple Studio. Its features include 5K resolution, 600 nit brightness, DCI P3 calibration, camera, sound, and its ability to further enhance the macOS experience. Unfortunately, it is a fairly expensive product and not suitable for all pockets. However, there are some who have given their imagination a bit and managed to make their own Studio Display for much less money .
How to make your own Studio Display for much less money
No one is going to deny that the Studio Display is a great product. But its 1,779 euros can convince anyone to choose a somewhat more affordable option. Youtuber Luke Miani has been testing this Apple display for a few days and has been surprised, but he has also concluded that you can make a similar product at home for much less money.
The Studio Display features a 27-inch panel with 5K resolution. As you may already know, part of the magic of the screens that Apple includes in its equipment is that they are perfectly measured. Hence, they remind us so much of the Retina Display concept, which is still a trade name for Hi-DPI technology .
Replicating the features of the Studio Display
Therefore, making your own Studio Display is not as easy as buying any screen. Luke thought about it and came to the conclusion that the iMac 5K ticked both of those boxes. So he got to work and searched for a screen of this model on eBay. In principle, the spare part was very expensive, so he sifted through second-hand models. His idea was to get a unit that had the motherboard fried, but he finally got a complete computer for around $620 . The 5K iMac he bought was from 2014, a fairly powerful machine, but today it no longer supports the latest versions of macOS.
Next, Luke armed himself with a few iFixit guides and a lot of courage. He disassembled the iMac screen and removed all the components inside it. After cleaning, he was able to see the exact model of his screen, essential information to get a compatible inverter . There are a lot of compatible plates for iMac screens and at very affordable prices. However, Miani got a fairly expensive model, as it is not so easy to find one of these for the iMac 5K. For about $180 , Luke bought a very complete board that even had multiple HDMI and DisplayPort ports.
You don’t have to be MacGyver to make your own Studio Display
Once he had the components, making it functional was very simple. He just had to plug in and go . However, Luke wanted the experience to be as similar as possible to the Studio Display. For the same reason, he also wanted to add a webcam . The iMac’s built-in drive wasn’t going to be functional, so he managed to install an Arduino one under the display and control it via the same controller board.
The result has cost Luke Miani a total of 875 dollars . The youtuber assures that this price can be lowered if we later sell the motherboard, the power supply and the various components of the iMac 5K, with which he estimates that it would be around $400 . At the performance level, the iMac panel has less contrast than that of the Studio Display, but its performance is still impeccable, and it is a great idea that users who have a 5K iMac collecting dust in a storage room can carry out.
