Sony's New Monitor is Way Better Than the Studio Display (for me)

Sony’s upcoming InZone monitors look perfect for me:

Made for PC but with specs to take full advantage of the PS5, along with Xbox Series X, the $899 InZone M9 is the flagship product of the bunch. It’s a 27-inch 4K IPS gaming monitor built to match the aesthetic of the PS5 while having basically every imaginable spec that gamers may universally want, sans OLED panel, of course.

What are those specs, you ask?

• 4K at 27" (which is perfect for me)
• 144Hz maximum refresh rate
• Variable refresh rate via Nvidia's G-Sync
• USB-C, DisplayPort, and HDMI 2.1 inputs
• 600 nits peak brightness with 96 local dimming zones
• $899 price point

The Apple Studio Display certainly looks great, and it sure seems like the sort of product I would buy, but a few main things have kept me from making that absurd impulse purchase: it's basically useless with Windows, I'd really like high refresh in a $1,000+ display I'll use for years, a single video input makes it painful for my use case.

I spend most of my day in front of a Mac for work, and then I have a PC mostly for playing games that I use after work, so I need to have a display that can work nicely with both, and let me switch between them easily. I have a 27" 4K LG something or other that cost about $400, and it's quite good, especially considering the price, but I've been looking at an upgrade for a bit now. Sony's new display seems perfect and it hits the right price.

And it's not just a compromise compared to the Studio Display, it's equal to or better in some key ways that matter to me.

1. IO is the big one, as I can have my Macs and PC connected at the same time without physically moving cables like I'd have to with the Studio Display.
2. The 96 local dimming zones beats out the Studio Display's 1 zone.
3. 600 nits peak brightness matches the Studio Display.
4. Variable refresh up to 144Hz is unbelievably better than the Studio Display's locked 60Hz.
5. Adjustable stand for no extra cost!
6. The $899 price is great to see.

I know some people think that 4K at 27" can't be "retina" and that macOS will always have to scale to non-native pixel mapping, but that first part is an opinion, and the second half is plainly wrong, so I may write up something about that in the near future ✌️