Reviews for Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch)

Likes:
- great size, was a bit concerned it would be too large compared to my previous Apple Cinema 20" display, but I quickly appreciated the extra space
- Clean simple design
- No fan, no noise - sometimes get fan noise from my MBA when using video chat 9heavy processing i guess)
- Love the Docking simplicity - I plug 2 FW 800 drives, keyboard, Ethernet (Thunderbolt HD prices are crazy, even by this monitors standards...)
- no concerns about reflection, I'm in sunny office by a window, no issues with reflection at all
- Built in FaceTime camera is great - was tired of looking sideways at my laptop during video calls
- Colors bright and even
Dislike:
- undocking - no clear documentation on how to undock when you have multiple drives attached. Found an applescript called "undock" to eject all drives prior to undocking
- Apple needs to improve communication on how to "undock", sleep computer first ? eject disks, etc...
- Smell - yes smell, for first few days, like some past macbook pros i've owned, this monitor has a "smell" for few days from the 'electronics" heating up, not too techie, but there's obviously some sort of coating etc. that emits a annoying smell, it eventually goes away, but reminded me of my past macbook pros
- no USB 3, this is a bit ridiculous, again, considering the price of thunderbolt external HDs
- would like to have audio out to plug speakers

Summary:
would i buy again and recommend - yes.
hope this was helpful to shoppers

Pros:

• This display provides real dual display functionality for laptops for the first time in Apple history. This has allowed me to ditch my Mac Pro and consolidate to a single machine. I cannot say how amazing that has been.
• The Thunderbolt ports do not appear to be a bottleneck for connected devices. I have seen no slowdowns from chaining the displays.
• The screen has fairly accurate color representation, an even backlight and good brightness variation for different environments.

Cons:

• A dual display setup is very buggy. Dual display support under Lion is abysmal, but I have tried to not reflect that in my judgement of this product. When reconnecting the laptop, the displays often "forget" arrangement, desktop backgrounds and which one is the primary. This is a major annoyance and actually makes me not want to disconnect the laptop because I'll have to spend 2 min resetting things when I get back. It doesn't "just work" and it needs to be fixed quickly.
• It's not just glossy, it's practically a mirror finish. I have used several 30" displays from other vendors and while the matte finish wasn't as attractive while off, they worked a lot better while on. Any amount of sunlight causes severe issues with reflections. You must be very careful where you place the displays. I understand the aesthetic, but not at the expense of usability. I would very much like to see a matte option.

I personally wouldn't buy these displays if they weren't the only ones that allowed for chaining. That being said, they do (generally) perform as promised.

Fixing reconnection bugs would bump my review to a solid 4 stars. A matte option would make it 5 (and cause me to upgrade).

As a display, this monitor is magnificent. Great colors, clarity, viewing angles, etc.

Where it fails miserably is in the ethernet integration. This display is supposed to act like a docking station where you can plug your usb and ethernet into the display, then your laptop uses the ethernet and usb interfaces in the display when the thunderbolt cable is plugged into the laptop.

Unfortunately once you disconnect from the display, when you return and plug the thunderbolt cable back in, you may find that the ethernet port is no longer available. The only way to restore functionality is to reboot your laptop.

You can read a very long thread discussing this problem on the apple forums. You will see this isn't just an isolated problem. Unfortunately this site doesn't allow me to publish the URL, so just google for: thunderbolt ethernet not available

I keep hoping every OS X Lion update will fix this but after at least 6 months, the problem still persists.

Worked well for a year, then had major audio problems (static, quite loud). Finally, it was powered off to try and fix the audio and then the display went black. Not working at all now. VERY disappointed in Apple, there doesn't seem to be any quality control any more for their products. I will never buy another Apple monitor again.

I bought this monitor at great expense for my Mac Book Pro.
Out of the box it does not seem to plug in and work- like I was sold it would. In fact it is as though this device was never tested with other Apple products. It fails to open after the computer goes to sleep. Huge compatibility issues, badly tested waste of money.- And, when you do get it working, for that brief period of time, the image quality I would say is average to disappointing- I see blurring when scrolling. I wish I could give this thing no stars- As that is what it clearly deserves. Apple don't seem to test their devices with any care anymore.

I'm having similar issues as other users have reported. I bought this display and a new macbook pro retina. Everything was working fine for a couple of weeks and then I started having issues with the USB ports and network not working after coming out of standby.

I also think there should have been a audio line out on this display. I am very disappointed with this monitor.

I purchased 2 of these displays on the date of release for my work and its been nothing but a nightmare since that day. between the light bleed on the bottom left of the screen. the amount of heat these things put out. the severe issue with image persistence, and the fogging under the glass. for a $1000 a pop you would not expect to have these issues. to top everything off the apple stores in my area are an hour away and have done absolutely nothing to repair them besides replace the glass and feed me lip service about this being normal. here i am 9 months later with 7 trips to apple stores and separate apple techs, now running out of warranty and i'm screwed.

USB ports on the back of the Thunderbolt display usually do not work. I have a brand new 2012 macbook pro that I am trying to use with it but I can't get the connected devices that I leave on my desk at work to operate when I connect the display to my macbook pro. I have an apple usb keyboard and a usb flash drive and neither will work routinely. Apple support doesn't have a solution. Actually, the automated system doesn't even understand the item "thunderbolt display." It just says "I don't understand."

I recommend a simple google search on "thunderbolt display usb issues" before you throw away $1000.00

Apple can't fix this issue and they will not give me a refund.

I've wasted my money and my time trying to use this display the way it should work.

My workaround as is: every morning I have to come into my office, attach the thunderbolt cable to my macbook, open my macbook to wake it up, shut it down, restart holding down the command+option+p+r to reset the pram, then wait for it to start up fully, close the lid, and then and only then can I use the keyboard or any usb peripherals.

NOT COOL.

It's difficult to decide how many stars to give because some things about the monitor are impressive, while there are also some very annoying glitches.

If you use the monitor with a laptop, the system becomes very temperamental if you put the laptop to sleep and wake it up. I've had the following issues after waking up the computer:
-the screens blink and never recover; forced to reboot
-lose ethernet connection and can't get it back unless you reboot.

Also, you have to remember that closing the laptop puts everything to sleep. To continue working you have to wake the system back up.

The Thunderbolt port is also very delicate. If the wire gets wiggled, I lose the connection to the monitor and anything docked to the monitor. So any external hard drives are disconnected and you will get "please eject disk before disconnecting errors". This can cause major headaches if you're in the process of video editing.

Despite these glitches, I find the image quality to be impressive and the docking ability to be convenient. It's very easy to configure your screens, choosing the main screen and secondary screen, etc. I hope the sensitive port doesn't prove to be a problem. The other issues will probably get worked out with firmware.