Samsung insanity! *

* Via app + student account

Samsung deal is dead. Was it a price mistake, guess I’ll find out soon enough
Yep I do hate “smart” monitors.
I really underestimated how terrible the OSD for a monitor could be, and I've used some terrible monitors. Samsung you've really outdone yourself!

My review of the S9, ignoring the OSD. Noticeably sharper than a 4k 27", good color, can get really bright, actual thunderbolt connectivity with fast USB downstream ports. Wake from sleep is a bit slow, but not terrible. Camera/speakers are usable, but I wouldn't use the speakers other than for emergencies.

Main display issue is the very aggressive matte coating on this display. I guess good if you have a bad office but I find it distracting and seems to really cut down on the viewing angle.

It's 100% not worth $1600, but neither is the Studio display. I'd say it’s a solid deal for a Mac productivity monitor at $500-$600. At $300 it’s a freaking steal and I'd buy another one if it ever hits that price again.

I've been running the Samsung 5k display consistently for over a week now and have been surprised at how good it has been. Wakes up when it should, goes to sleep when it should, doesn't wake up when it shouldn’t. When it wakes up it's always at the right resolution, refresh & bit rate. No black screen "flashes”. Haven't had to touch the OSD. Basically has just worked.

Doesn't sound like something to be very excited about, but Apple's 3rd party monitor support is not great…

@paul Does the 5k resolution stop the WindowServer process from gobbling up tons of memory?

I run dual 4k’s (scaled resolution because… 4k is tiny) and WindowServer easily eats 1/3 of my mac’s RAM.

@Aaron WindowServer is showing 3.24GB in Activity Monitor.
@paul Not too bad. Mine’s at 5.71GB right now. And i’m not about to sacrifice my uptime just to flush it. I just got these dual 4k’s last year, but maybe I’ll jump on a good 5k deal if one comes around next year. You happened into an awesome price!