Apple earlier in March released the Studio Display, its first standalone display since the Pro Display XDR. iFixit today disassembled the Studio Display in a video teardown to give us a look at the internals.
The inside of the Studio Display may be confusing at first because it has an internal setup that's not too dissimilar from a computer like the Intel iMac, thanks to the inclusion of an A13 chip, speakers, and fans. Several iFixit staff members were shown an opened up iMac and a Studio Display and asked to determine which was which, and many of them got it wrong.
The Studio Display opens up with an iMac opening tool, so it's easy to get to the components inside. iFixit last week gave a quick look at the Studio Display in its Mac Studio teardown, and confirmed at that time that the Studio Display Camera is essentially identical to the iPhone 11 camera.
There's no internal indicator of why the Studio Display camera has been experiencing quality issues, and Apple has promised a software fix that's coming in the future.
The Studio Display is using the exact same display as the 5K iMac, and there's an internal power supply, which iFixit says is an impressive feat of engineering. The internal power supply makes the Studio Display different from the iMac because it requires massive fans for heat dissipation, plus it requires a ~50 percent thicker chassis.
The speakers are "impressive for a display," and are glued down, which will make the speaker hardware difficult to remove. According to iFixit, the Studio Display's build in general is an "impressive testament to Apple's ability to solve problems."
iFixit has not yet shared a full written teardown of the Mac Studio or the Studio Display, so there could still be a few additional tidbits to discover when the complete teardowns are available in the future.
Top Rated Comments
My old 2013 21' iMac had its internal hard drive fail (1TB spinner) but I was able to repurpose it as my Plex server by adding an external SSD. (the thing runs an order of magnitude faster than when it was new) And I bought a 2nd iMac in 2017 to replace it as my desktop system... but I use that older iMac as a 2nd monitor via "target display mode".
I love how that older iMac is serving two functions simultaneously (Plex server AND 2nd display).
This is such overkill on the guts and the chassis for what the released product is.
Apple doesn't do overkill like this.