The Apple Thunderbolt Display Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 23, 2011 2:56 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
- Mac
- Apple
- Thunderbolt
- Thunderbolt Display
The Changing Role of Displays
Thunderbolt carries PCIe and DisplayPort, which enabled Apple to change the role of its display. The Thunderbolt Display is no longer a passive monitor, but it's a full fledged docking station.
Thunderbolt can carry PCIe x4, that's four lanes, which gives Apple the ability to put four PCIe x1 devices in the display itself. Apple chose wisely and included a Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet controller (BCM57761), a FireWire 800 controller and a USB controller. The FaceTime HD and integrated audio codec both use the internal USB controller. Just to be clear, these controllers are present independent of what you connect to the Thunderbolt Display. If you have a Mac with an integrated Gigabit Ethernet controller, hooking it up to the Thunderbolt Display now gives you two GigE ports - and you can use them both in tandem if you'd like. The same goes for FireWire 800 and USB.
Apple doesn't see the Thunderbolt Display as a way to offer more expansion ports, but rather a way to shift those ports to a different location. Chances are you won't need GigE while mobile, but you would like it while at your desk. The same goes for FireWire 800.
What's particularly awesome about the Thunderbolt Display's integrated controller farm is what it does to MacBook Airs. The 2011 MBAs ship with two USB ports and a Thunderbolt port, that's all you get in terms of high-speed IO. With their internal SSDs capable of moving data at up to 200MB/s, you're quickly bottlenecked by the MBA's 802.11n WiFi stack. Had Apple included a Gigabit Ethernet port on the MBA it would ruin the thin form factor. The Thunderbolt Display takes care of all of this. Connect a MacBook Air to a Thunderbolt Display and not only do you get more pixels, but you get more connectivity. Gigabit Ethernet and FireWire 800 are now retrofitted to the MacBook Air. For those notebook-as-a-desktop users who migrated from old MacBook Pros to the 13-inch MacBook Air, the Thunderbolt Display is a must-have. The biggest feature for me is Gigabit Ethernet. For large file transfers 802.11n just doesn't cut it.
While connected you can use the Thunderbolt Display with your MacBook Pro/Air closed or open as a secondary display just like you could with last year's 27-inch LED Cinema Display.
These aren't just ports, they are backed by controllers physically located within the display
The Thunderbolt Display not only adds functionality but it also simplifies cable management as a result. Users who are constantly docking and undocking their notebooks now only have to deal with two cables: power and Thunderbolt. Whereas today I have no less than seven cables plugged into my notebook.
The Limitations
What's missing from the Thunderbolt Display's port repertoire? For starters, there's no analog audio out. While the display does feature a pair of integrated speakers, they don't produce the best sound in the world. Thanks to their diminutive size and unusual enclosure, the speakers don't cover a lot of dynamic range and you can forget about any ultra low frequencies. If you like bass, you still need a sub. Unfortunately there's no way to use the display's integrated audio codec to drive external speakers. You either have to plug a 1/8" stereo cable into your Mac or buy a USB sound card and connect your external speakers to it. In my opinion this is a pretty significant oversight. It either defeats the purpose of the simplified cable setup by requiring you plug in yet another cable into your Mac to use external speakers, or it defeats the purpose of having an integrated audio controller since you need another USB audio controller to get audio out. This is something Apple could've easily solved by just including a 1/8" jack on the back of the display.
Apple has done a great job of including SD card readers on most of its Macs (although I'd love one on the 11-inch MBA, ahem #waystomakeanandhappy). The Thunderbolt Display oddly enough doesn't include an SD card reader. If it weren't for this and the missing 1/8" jack you'd have almost no reason to reach over to your Mac once at your desk.
There's also no USB 3.0 support. While Thunderbolt does enable some very high speed IO, there are still far more USB 3.0 devices than Thunderbolt devices. Not to mention that you likely won't see Thunderbolt enabled flash memory sticks but we already have quite a few portable USB 3.0 drives. USB 2.0 is just ungodly slow today and I'd much rather have Apple introduce USB 3.0 support with its first Thunderbolt Display instead of introducing it with an updated version down the road. The controllers are available on the market today, although it won't be until next year with Ivy Bridge before Apple considers enabling USB 3.0 on Macs.
The final complaint shouldn't come as a surprise, but the Thunderbolt Display just doesn't have enough USB ports in my opinion. The MacBook Pro & Air come with two, while all desktop Macs have at least four. The Thunderbolt Display only gives you three. USB hubs are easy to come by, but I would've preferred to see at least 4 or 5 on the display.
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CharonPDX - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
I had HOPED to buy either a Mac Mini or a MacBook Air this year. Finances aren't allowing that.But, it looks like sometime mid next year, I should be able to upgrade.
At this point, if Anand's wish comes true:
I'll be getting an 11" Ivy Bridge Air and a Thunderbolt Display.
Death666Angel - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
"capable of at least 350 nits at full brightness"Just wanted to say that Apple actually advertises 375 cd/m² on their website. :-)
tzhu07 - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
I wish Anand would've addressed the issue of the glossy-only screen option in the video review. Why did Apple and some others continue to seemingly promote this type of screen? There are many people that consider it a deal-breaker, including myself. How much of a hassle is it for Apple to have two variations of the same product?repoman27 - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
"While the display does feature a pair of integrated speakers, they don't produce the best sound in the world. Thanks to their diminutive size and unusual enclosure, the speakers don't cover a lot of dynamic range and you can forget about any ultra low frequencies. If you like bass, you still need a sub."According to Apple's specs, the ATD has a 2.1 speaker system, so it already has a sub of sorts. Also the claimed power for the audio system is 49 watts, which is pretty staggering for something built into a display. Actually it's good compared to most compact PC desktop speaker systems. It's too bad that it impresses more on paper than it would seem to in real life.
dunce - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
Can I use that Thunderbolt port on the back to plug in a second computer (MacMini/PC)? I am looking at this and the Dell 27in but would like multi computers inputs.Constructor - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
No, as far as I'm aware there can only be one master (CPU) on a Thunderbolt chain.kalistan919 - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
Will Thunderbolt connections be available for the new 28nm gpus that are coming from AMD and Nvidia? Or will Ivy Bridge channel your discrete gpu from the gpu to motherboard to display through a thunderbolt connection on the motherboard? Does anyone know if Apple will come out with a 30" Thunderbolt Display like they did just recently with the 27" display?These are three questions I tried to find but couldn't. Here's another one...would a minidiplayport on the GPU card work with an apple thunderbolt monitor? Anyone have the lowdown on this? Thanks in advance.
ggathagan - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
The GPU's themselves do not dictate what type of connection is used; that's up to the video card manufacturer.Remember, however, that Thunderbolt is not a GPU-specific interface, so a discrete video card with a TB connection would require the manufacturer to add the TB controller and its associated circuitry to their video card.
I doubt that'll happen.
Ivy Bridge will not have integrated TB, so the answer to your 2nd question is also "no". The motherboard would have to take the video output, whether from the CPU or from a discrete GPU, and route it through an on-board TB controller.
30" displays are going away in most market sectors, so I doubt you'll see a 30" with Thunderbolt.
More specifically, I doubt you'll see *any* 30" display from Apple in the future.
As to your last question; from the article:
"A Thunderbolt cable can only transmit a Thunderbolt signal. Although DisplayPort is muxed in, if the display on the other end is expecting Thunderbolt and it receives DisplayPort it won't know what to do with it. It's possible Apple could have built in logic to autosense and switch between Thunderbolt and DisplayPort as inputs, but Apple traditionally employs clean breaks rather than long technology transitions. If Apple wants to ensure Thunderbolt gets adopted (at least by its users), this is the way to do it. "
According to this discussion at Apple's site, someone tried using a non-TB MBP and MBA and were not successful.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3199231?start...
What I would expect to see is someone marketing a Thunderbolt adaptor that converts a DP input to TB output.
In fact, I would expect to see Apple create this eventually, but it'll be atrociously expensive from them.
Since the whole point of TB is the ability to bundle multiple types of data traffic through a single interface, the only scenario where using a TB-equipped monitor currently make sense is one like this article describes; as an alternative to a docking station for a laptop.
It *would* make sense for a display manufacturer to make a TB-equipped monitor that could auto-sense with the input is DP or TB, but only if you're taking the same approach as Apple and include LAN, USB, audio and FireWire connectivity in the monitor.
If, for instance, Dell were to create a line of TB-equipped monitors with all the connectivity I described above, they could market those monitors in conjunction with a TB-equipped desktop and/or laptop series.
The desktops would only require the TB cable and a power cable; the monitor would handle all the peripheral connections.
Essentially, however, you end up having to decide if you want all your connections at the monitor or at the computer itself.
Historically, people prefer to limit the number of cables hanging off of their monitors and leave the rats nest at the computer.
Where I think TB hold the most promise in relation to desktop systems is in the area of external storage, like the Promise Pegasus Anand mentioned.
Impulses - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
Usually I skip video reviews entirely unless it's something that's just not communicable easily in text (factory tours and game trailer for instance)... They just tend to ramble on and/or provide very little info.However, the video on the first page of this review was excellent! You should've started doing these long ago, I actually read the entire review first even tho I'm not even remotely interested in the display (I am curious about Thinderbolt's future tho), and I started front to back as I often do (by reading the conclusion first and then skipping to other interesting parts). Having read the whole thing previous to watching the video I feel like the clip actually did a better job at summing it all up than the conclusion or Final Words, which is very impressive, great job!
ppayne - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
I'd love to see mods for this appear. Imagine 2 2.5 inch hard drives wired inside somehow and accessible through Thunderbold?