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What's the best external monitor for MacBook Pro?

over 3 years ago from Teodor Decu, Product Designer

  • T. F., over 3 years ago

    Had been in that situation a few months ago, finally chose an iMac because of overall what you get for your money. Whatever you get, be aware that little to none besides the offical ultrafines support brightness adjustment via the keyboard or even automatically via sensor.

    2 points
    • Tiny Machine, over 3 years ago

      Lunar is a free and open-source app that, amazingly, seems to let you control the actual brightness of external displays (I use it with an HP Z27 4K) using the keyboard brightness controls.

      I've tried other apps that just place an adjustable-opacity black mask over the external display's content, but Lunar seems to actually be able to control the real brightness. It even lets you sync the external display with the built-in display, for automatic brightness adjustments!

      Regarding O.P.'s question, I ended up doing the same thing as T.F. and just buying a low-spec 2017 iMac 5K on eBay for ~$1,000 instead of buying the LG Ultrafine 5K -- the iMac is cheaper, and comes with a computer attached. :)

      (Nerd note: my iMac has a 1 TB Fusion Drive. My 2015 iMac 5K Fusion Drive was so slow I decided to boot off of an external, portable Samsung T5 SSD. But the 2017 Fusion is fast enough for designing in Figma and my front-end development work that I don't feel the need to do that. Of course YMMV.)

      2 points