Is the thunderbolt display reliable?

Like most of Apple's products you read about the issues on the Forums but never the good. My TBD is about 1 year old and works great, no issues. However, i would get the extended Apple care warranty just in case because repairs can be expensive.

I've had mine for about a year and one-half now (and I did purchase the AppleCare 3 year warranty). I haven't had a problem with it. I use a Spyder4Elite to calibrate it and it has a pretty wide gamut and is easily calibrated.

Everyone is speculating whether or not there will be a new TB display coming out anytime soon - the speculation is useless. Of course a new display will be coming from Apple at some time, but if it's to be a simple upgrade to the current display or a much more expensive 4K display, no one can really say.

Good luck,

Clinton

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS Mavericks 10.9.4, 16GB RAM, 960GB SSD, 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display

Right now, I'm working on the previous version of the display; the LED Display. I had a Thunderbolt Display -- ordered it the first day I could -- which worked flawlessly up until a mother nature issue (ironically, it was damaged by a nearby lightning strike). I bypassed replacing it with the same model -- this was August 2013, and I thought that surely a new Thunderbolt Display was about to be announced. The TB Display was originally released in 2011 and, with the pending release of the Mac Pro, surely Apple would release a new model/version.

Nope.

We're now over 1000 days since the release of the Thunderbolt Display with no update in sight. It's still got USB2. Still got FW800 (good for many, I'm sure; I've had to hook up a legacy device once or twice).

To answer your question; it's reliable. Like I said, I'm working on the version released prior to the Thunderbolt Display, the LED Cinema Display. It's a little dimmer than I like but it still works w/o issue. My previous model (going two Apple Display purchases back), another Cinema Display, is still in use by a friend without problems. And my display before that -- the 30" Apple sold some time back -- is still being used by the friend who bought it.

Their product builds are top-notch, and they insist on the cream of the crop from their suppliers. Apple makes excellent displays. When they feel like making them.

ChristofM wrote:

Therefore I'll only decide for it if I can find any hint that Apple made a change to it to fix the trouble.

You're not going to find any information about whether Apple has altered its production process.

However, if there was a production problem causing faulty batches at some point, you can bet that Apple is not going to sit tight and ignore it.

I've bought a TB Display recently, and I couldn't be happier with it. If it develops a hardware fault at any time in the next few years, I can take it back for a refund.