Reviews for Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch)

Initially, the negative reviews posted gave me pause before I purchased Thunderbolt.
Spoke to the Apple sales people several times about the posted complaints plus
they assured me about the return policy.

Purchased the monitor and it performs great. The color is amazing. I use it everyday.
I have so much more real estate to work with.

Fantastic job Apple.

I bought this shortly after discovering its ability to connect to the Thunderbolt port on my Mac and I have not been disappointed. Even though I would say it's a little on the pricy side, I was not sorry about my purchase.

The hardware quality of the screen feels solid and acts as the perfect dock compliment, only requiring me to plug one Thunderbolt plug in after coming back from using my laptop away, to access all my desktop accessories which are connected into the back of the monitor. The integrated webcam is a lovely touch, and the image quality is superb - sharp, crisp and colourful. The MagSafe power adaptor is also a lovely touch, meaning I no longer require a separate power adaptor.

My main gripe is the the lack of USB 3 connectors in the back as they are all USB 2. It would also be nice if there were audio out adaptors (the screen has inbuilt speakers, but no audio out ports). But these are minor, and I would still recommend this product.

Purchased to match my 2012 Mac Mini. Works great but need to get use to the smaller font with this high resolution monitor. Also, the ethernet port on the display was labeled incorrectly when hooked up to my router. Had to delete and rename to "display ethernet port" and all is now correct. I like having the hub on the back of the monitor to hook up my firewire 800 Time Machnine hard drive and another USB hub.

I too have had a thunderbolt 27″ fail, in fact two of them. The first one was less than 60 days old. Smack dab in the middle it had subpixels fail with a line running vertically and horizontally and everything below the horizontal line was flickering really bad. Made an appointment with the gunnies bar and ended up with an exchange for a band new unit. I felt really good about how well they handled it. However, in less than one week the second monitor from the exchange died! This time no video, however, the display sound, ethernet, and other ports still worked. Again, made an appointment with genius bar. This time they didn’t even remove the monitor form the box to look at it. They just took my word and brought back another brand new monitor. I’m now on my second day on the third monitor and continuously have my fingers crossed. Yes, apple support was excellent and kodos to my local genus bar, but the reality is I’d just would like a monitor that works!

I replaced a 30" Cinema Display with the Thunderbolt Display I miss the slightly larger screen.

Other than size I really like the monitor for it's quality and features such as the iSight camera and the multiple ports including ethernet on the back of the monitor. The colour output is excellent and I found it calibrated easily.

Just purchased a second TBD. The look on the salesman's face when I said "I want a Thunderbolt Display" was pretty funny. Transaction took about 12 minutes. He said it was the easiest sale he has had in a while.
Take it out of the box, plug it in, hook up the MBA and it just works. I generally use it for photography work. Resolution is astounding. I just became a better photographer.

Plugged in the 27" Thunderbolt Monitor. Got a very Dimm screen, Searched everywhere to find out how to adjust the brightness. BECAUSE THE DISPLAY PREFERENCE DOES NOT APPEAR ON THE THUNDERBOLT DISPLAY!! So i shut down and tried to setup my powerbook with the new display... It NEVER turned back on AGAIN. Will be returning this 1st thing in the morning. May try swapping for the Cinema Display as thats what i thought i was buying to begin with!!! Maybe it will work.. Just Want to Add that Apple Products are NOT as nearly as stable or solid as they once where before selling out to the INTEL chips. My G4 laptop still works without ever crashing in 9 years. However my 2011 iMac completely Died out after 2 years of use and NOW this Thunderbolt box is absolutely USELESS... A huge Disappointment..

This display looks nice and when it works, it is good. Problem is that it doesn't work very well. Constantly flashes and turns off requiring it to be unplugged from the MacBook and plugged back in. USB ports do not have enough power for much of anything and the Ethernet adapter on mine does not work. Wish I could return...
Out of all the Apple products I own, or have owned, this is the only one I am completely disappointed by.

Comparing this to a typical display is like comparing a car to a building. Two completely different things. Yes, this is a display, but it's more than that. I tried several display options for my 15" MacBook Retina and all of them had horrible color and were unusable for design work no matter how much tweaking I did to the colors or how much calibration I did. They just weren't there. Looking at the Thunderbolt display is no different than looking at my MacBook Pro. Except it's huge. The colors are spot-on and text and graphics are crisp and clean. In my opinion, it's a LITTLE too pricey for what it is, but you do get excellent quality, a large, bright display that matches perfectly and a one-all solution for external hard drives, etc. One cord and a power cable and you're good to go.

Pros:
• One-cord simplicity with integrated charging keeps me from having to mess with a bunch of cords and from having to keep up with my power cord
• Perfectly matched display with my MacBook Pro
• Plenty of inputs
• Excellent build quality (fit and finish is absolutely superb)

Cons:
• A little pricey, but a good long-term investment
• No USB 3.0 support
• No audio out means that you have to run a speaker cable to your computer or use the integrated speakers in the display, which leave a bit to be desired

Now blacking out constantly. Each time, I must unplug the display and plug it back in to get a picture back.