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iMac Retina 5K Display Hands-on: Jaw-Dropping Screen

By - Source: Tom's Guide US | B 65 comments
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iMac with Retina Display Hands-On


It should probably come with a drool cup. Whether I viewed it head-on or from the side (extreme sides), the new iMac with 5K Retina Display ($2,499) wowed with its highly detailed and colorful visuals.

Packing 5120 x 2880 pixels, the new iMac has the sharpest screen I've seen on any PC. But it's not just about the resolution. Apple shifted to oxide TFT from amorphous TFT in order to charge the pixels faster and let them hold longer for your viewing pleasure. The company also employs organic passivation technology, which takes the data lines and pixels and puts them on different planes, inserting an organic layer in-between to make the video signals clearer.

MORE: Best All-in-One PCs 2014

Add in a new backlighting system, a new dedicated timer controller chip with 4X the bandwidth and photo alignment for better on-axis contrast ratio, and you have a wonderful canvas for editing photos and videos. The Retina iMac also uses a compensation film for better off-axis viewing. Even from the sides, the various desktop wallpapers looked incredibly life-like.

When an Apple rep fired up Final Cut Pro, the main window fit a full 4K video clip, with plenty of room left over for the timeline and other assets off to the left. Even up very close, all of the icons and menu items looked tack sharp.

Apple stressed that the 5K display makes other everyday activities more immersive. The Mail app offered crystal-clear photos, and websites in Safari had text that looked like I was reading paper.

The Retina iMac has some fairly beefy hardware under the hood, including a 3.5-GHz quad-core Core i5 processor (configurable up to 4-GHz Core i7), 8GB of memory (I'd expect more standard) and a 1TB Fusion Drive. AMD Radeon R9 M290X graphics come standard, but you can also get a higher-end R295X GPU. We're talking up to up to 3.5 teraflops of graphics power.

Other specs include a Thunderbolt 2 port, which promises up to 20 Gbps of transfer speed. That's nearly double the original Thunderbolt, although I'd like to see more peripherals offered.

No, this is not a desktop PC for the masses. It’s for creative pros, power users and others who can take full advantage of the 14.7 million pixels this screen can push. But if you can afford it, this could be the ultimate all-in-one PC.

Mark Spoonauer is editor in chief of Tom's Guide. Follow him at @mspoonauer. Follow Tom's Guide at @tomsguide, on Facebook and onGoogle+.

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Top Comments
  • 19 Hide
    HardyHarHar , October 16, 2014 2:40 PM
    Mark Spoonauer is not a tech writer. He is basically an employee of Apple spreading Apple PR. There is nothing special about this screen let alone jaw dropping.
  • 14 Hide
    itsnotmeitsyou , October 16, 2014 3:41 PM
    there should be no doubt that this is a quality panel as Apple has been known for years for their monitor quality by industry pros (not gamers).

    the additional screen real-estate is equivalent to adding 3 1280x720 monitors to the side of a 4K monitor, and 4 1280x720 screens across the top of a 4K monitor.

    for the ITpro/ thats a lot of extra terminal windows ro browser tabs etc. More importantly, *for people editing 4K films*, thats enough to work in your adobe premeir interface and controls while being able to view the native resolution of your content.

    if you think this is retarded, you are not the target market. who cares.
  • 11 Hide
    HardyHarHar , October 16, 2014 3:26 PM
    snakeV45a is Otacon72. He has been banned over 30 times for highly abusive behavior! He was recently banned many times under a name very similar to his current one. He should be removed.
Other Comments
    Add your comment Display all 65 comments.
  • 0 Hide
    icemunk , October 16, 2014 2:32 PM
    lol! "Jaw dropping" really? It's a tiny bit more than the 4K standard, which is dirt cheap these days. Here we go with the Apple marketeering for something that is really nothing special.
  • 19 Hide
    HardyHarHar , October 16, 2014 2:40 PM
    Mark Spoonauer is not a tech writer. He is basically an employee of Apple spreading Apple PR. There is nothing special about this screen let alone jaw dropping.
  • 3 Hide
    husker , October 16, 2014 2:47 PM
    Quote:
    lol! "Jaw dropping" really? It's a tiny bit more than the 4K standard, which is dirt cheap these days. Here we go with the Apple marketeering for something that is really nothing special.

    It's not just about the resolution. There were several other features and technologies that were listed that also impact the monitor.
  • -4 Hide
    snakeV45a , October 16, 2014 2:58 PM
    Quote:
    lol! "Jaw dropping" really? It's a tiny bit more than the 4K standard, which is dirt cheap these days. Here we go with the Apple marketeering for something that is really nothing special.


    4k is not the standard and is not dirt cheap. He we go again with ignorant fan boys looking like idiots.
  • 11 Hide
    HardyHarHar , October 16, 2014 3:26 PM
    snakeV45a is Otacon72. He has been banned over 30 times for highly abusive behavior! He was recently banned many times under a name very similar to his current one. He should be removed.
  • -7 Hide
    ocilfa , October 16, 2014 3:29 PM
    Seeing 5120x2880 makes me thing this is two WQHD(2560x1440) displays fused together. Doesn't really seem all that special.
  • 14 Hide
    itsnotmeitsyou , October 16, 2014 3:41 PM
    there should be no doubt that this is a quality panel as Apple has been known for years for their monitor quality by industry pros (not gamers).

    the additional screen real-estate is equivalent to adding 3 1280x720 monitors to the side of a 4K monitor, and 4 1280x720 screens across the top of a 4K monitor.

    for the ITpro/ thats a lot of extra terminal windows ro browser tabs etc. More importantly, *for people editing 4K films*, thats enough to work in your adobe premeir interface and controls while being able to view the native resolution of your content.

    if you think this is retarded, you are not the target market. who cares.
  • -3 Hide
    TEAMSWITCHER , October 16, 2014 3:45 PM
    I simply can't believe the price they hit. I was thinking it would be $3000 with a screen of such ground-breaking resolution. I'm guessing the Thunderbolt 5K Display will be introduced at the next event along with a Mac Pro Update and new MacBook Air with Retina display. Wished they would use nvidia graphics though....
  • 4 Hide
    Darth415 , October 16, 2014 3:46 PM
    Why does this supposed technological beast not pack Nvidia's latest Maxwell based mobile chips, especially at that price point? A single GTX 980m approaches the speed of TWO R9 M290x's in crossfire, and the GTX 970m follows in its bigger brother's footsteps, offering nearly as much performance, at a presumably much lower cost. Not to mention how laughable GCN's efficiency is when compared to Maxwell... This is just another underpowered Mac IMO. I laughed as my 13' 1200$ magnesium alloy/carbon fiber laptop had faster graphics (and twice the vram despite having much lower resolution) than the Retina Macbook Pro back in 2012 (and is still faster than the most recent model), while easily lasting more than 8 hours on a single charge (no thanks to Windows or it would be even better) with the sheet battery attached, and still managing to have a much smaller footprint and half the weight. I'll admit that the keyboard is better, and there is the screen of course but that cannot justify the price STILL. The fact that people continue to overpay for their things hurts me a little inside. If you are going to do serious enough work to require a 5k display, why pussy out on the footprint of your workstation? A mini tower could decimate this over-sized tablet all day every day. I realize there are no other 5k options available on the market today (probably because Apple pulled a fast one and bought up all the tech), but tomorrow (figuratively) Dell will release an Ultrasharp with the same panel and that will be that, though in the mean time a decent 4k monitor can be had for 500$.
  • 0 Hide
    TechyInAZ , October 16, 2014 4:01 PM
    Sheesh, that's amazing that they are able to push 5k displays with only 5mm of depth on the monitor.

    I just wonder what the price tag is.
  • 0 Hide
    SpecialMente , October 16, 2014 4:03 PM
    much misleading judgments.

    Someone complaining about the author ( wonder why if they are so much better technicians they don't work as reporter yet )
    Someone complaining about the cheap panel (as if they yet own not only a better 5k but even just a 5k, other technologies included )
    Someone complaining about the graphics ( and then dissenting about battery performance of their notebook, good luck with that carbon fiber incomparable technology... by the way carbon phobia to the touch is just plastic, metal is way more sweet )
    Someone there will be a better dell in 2016 ( and what about 2020?)

    The only ones i can agree with is the guy ( and the ban threatened guy as well ) noting if you don't want it don't buy it.
    But probably you just want it but buying it goes against your window pc religion, in which case i agree the machine is pretty upsetting, right?
    I wonder what would be the comments without an apple logo on it...
  • 3 Hide
    StarBound , October 16, 2014 4:11 PM
    My GTX980 can't even game properly at 4k and then Ubisoft can't even properly code past 900p. So what's the point of having 5k on a mac?
  • 6 Hide
    everlast66 , October 16, 2014 4:23 PM
    At first I thought why 5K, but then realised that its actually very well strategically positioned for those that need to edit 4K video content, which is getting more and more common. This machine will allow you to play 4K at full res and still have the timeline and other tools on the sides.
    4K cameras are pretty expensive as well, so such clients wouldn't have a problem to fork $2.5k for this Mac as well.
  • 0 Hide
    jimgreene , October 16, 2014 5:12 PM
    Mah jaw will "fall off" if some corporation would just release 5.01k. O.o
  • -1 Hide
    agmsd , October 16, 2014 5:21 PM
    It's cheaper than buying a 4k stand alone monitor from other manufacturers. Damn you Samsung, Dell, LG and the rest of the monitors' manufacturing companies for forcing us to choose between price and TN panels.
  • 3 Hide
    alidan , October 16, 2014 5:33 PM
    @everlast66

    4k is common, when you talk about professional movies and such... consumer wise... i would rather have an amazing 1080p than an ok 4k camera. the only real place you see macs commonly are in professional environments because of history (macs use to pack more ram than pc's did by a mile many MANY years ago) and people who don't know they can get better for cheaper.
  • 5 Hide
    kazzhul , October 16, 2014 5:51 PM
    Does it have G-Sync?
  • 1 Hide
    kunthakenthe , October 16, 2014 5:54 PM

    @Starbound My GTX980 can't even game properly at 4k and then Ubisoft can't even properly code past 900p. So what's the point of having 5k on a mac?

    well a sli/cfx is needed for a really good 4k experience, but here were talking about editing not gaming, so thats why 5k. 1080p is good but for photos the higher quality the more detailed you can make it look and spot out. Cant reply for some reason.
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