Apple’s newest iMac has a Retina 5K display, which Apple says is the highest resolution display on the planet. The new screen is, as you might expect, gorgeous at first sight, and prolonged exposure only heightens the experience. And even as someone who’s used to using a Retina MacBook Pro as his main machine, it’s a big step up.
The screen shows full resolution photos with zoomed crops that look better than most originals coming out of the camera, and the iMac still features that tapered design that narrows to 5 mm at its thinnest point. Apple’s existing industrial design on the iMac has aged well, but the screen is the real star here, and it’s honestly a little hard to pay attention to the rest as a result.
As someone who works with images and video on a daily basis, I can immediately see the advantages of owning a Retina 5K Mac, even over and above the arguably more powerful Mac Pro. Apple has beefed up the internals with faster processor and graphics card options here, however, and it should have enough juice to handle 4K video editing, which it can also do at full resolution while also offering you a fully featured app window with controls and settings in Final Cut Pro.
Apple’s clearly not positioning this for the average computer user – $2,499 is a lot less expensive than high-end 4K TVs at comparable sizes, and this is a full computer, so that’s definitely a good deal. But it’s still a big investment, and one that most people in the market for an all-in-one will probably balk at.
Just like with the Retina MacBook Pro, Apple’s looking to start this tech out as something aimed at pros and serious enthusiasts first, but make no mistake – eventually, Retina will bleed to lower cost lines, and it’s definitely the future of desktop computing.