Review: 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina Display

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Using the 5K iMac spoils you. Your eyes are simply treated to so much added information and depth, that going back to anything non Retina feels like you suddenly need reading glasses. It isn’t a good feeling. 

It’s really quite a shame that Apple no longer partakes of the International Consumer Electronics show  (CES) because the newest 5K Retina iMac would have undoubtedly taken the Best of Show awards.

That’s quite remarkable for a product that’s been in the market for over three months and which really stands alone in the entire industry as an all-in-one computer that also features a 27-inch Retina Display with a 5K (5120 x 2880 pixel resolution).

While everyone is touting 4K HDTVs and standalone PC monitors (often at a higher price than what Apple is offering for an entire computer), the folks at Cupertino have pushed every envelope (and pixel) to product a 5K device for authoring 4K content with one million pixels left over for menus and tabs.

Dell makes a 27-inch Ultra HD 5K display, that one costs CAD $2,500.00 for just the display. The iMac 5K Retina Display costs CAD $ 2,749.00 with a 3.5 Ghz Intel i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 1 Terabyte of Fusion Drive Storage.

Form

In terms of design, look, feel and dimensions. You’d be hard-pressed to tell the new 5K iMac apart from last year’s 27-inch iMac. They share the same design and even with that 27-inch 5K display in tow, the new iMac isn’t any thicker thanks to a new way of compressing and reducing layers for a super vivid, accurate and exceedingly sharp image.

Even without the new display, the iMac remains one of the most refined and actually, portable, prosumer-all-in-ones in the market. 

This all-aluminum enclosure may look dated because it’s been around for so long but we need to take a closer look at how Apple’s engineers and designers have applied an almost maniacal obsession with making the profile thinner.

Like ancient Japanese swordsmiths, they’ve folded and compressed the edges of the iMac to an almost razor-sharp edge while cramming it choc-full of technology. 

While the Mac Pro is, in itself, a feat of engineering and Industrial design, there’s little doubt that the new 5K Retina iMac might be the sweet spot for content creators and specially anyone who works with graphics, video, animation and layouts. iMac is cheaper, comes with a monitor and has wire-free simplicity as part of its DNA.

This wireless focus extends to the Bluetooth mouse and keyboard that come in the box and really present the simplest PC setups available today. The new iMac took over where my venerable 2006 17-inch iMac used to sit in my office and I couldn’t help but marvel at how far we’ve gone in nine years.

Set Up

Once you extricate the iMac 5K from its supremely efficient packaging, all you need to do is plug it in and turn on the Bluetooth mouse and keyboard that come with it. Nothing could be easier. Three minutes and you’re done with the requisite sign-in process and you’re downloading your applications via the App Store.

This degree of simplicity in setting up an entirely new computer is still unparalleled in the industry where one usually spends at least an hour updating firmware, uninstalling bloatware and cutting out various resource robbing processes that bog down your computing experience. 

With OS X Yosemite, everything is tied in to your iCloud account and as a longtime Mac user, it takes very little time to get up and running. What’s even more convenient is that the iMac automatically sees the network of devices and even prods you to install printer firmware so that it is good to go. 

Function

So the 5K iMac does everything the previous 27-inch iMac could do but with more than four times the pixel count.  

This gives users a wide range in the types of resolutions they can access on the iMac. What about non 4K content, which most of the video and photos in our world are currently made of? The iMac will upscale the content as efficiently as possible to avoid jaggies and artifacts. It does this quite well but there’s really nothing like viewing a full-resolution image that’s compatible with 4K and 5K displays. 

Viewing images and 4K video on the 5K iMac is just simply outstanding. There’s nothing gimmicky about being able to visually feast on massive amounts of visual detail on a display that manages to show each nuance with precision.  

Using the 5K iMac spoils you. Your eyes are simply treated to so much added information and depth that going back to anything non Retina is like feeling like you suddenly need reading glasses. It isn’t a good feeling. 

This realization isn’t just for images or video, either. Reading text and looking at gorgeous layouts is as good as, or even better than, reading on paper. It’s quite simply game changing.

Even watching 720P HD video looks surprisingly good on the 5K iMac as it upscales the video to fill up the pixels. Like I always say about most 4K or higher displays, you really won’t notice much difference until you’re up close to the screen. I’m near sighted and notice that I have to be at around one foot away to notice the detail and subtlety offered by the 5K display. 

And that’s just the content consumption end of it. I use my Macs to create video, to edit thousands of photos and even design projects on Photoshop or Pixelmator, and while I have two older Mac Pros with perfectly usable Cinema Displays, I’m finding more and more excuses to get my work done on the 5K iMac. Thankfully, with OS X Yosemite and iOS 8’s Handoff and Continuity features, many of the tasks I usually complete on my iPad Air, I now transfer to the iMac.

Ports include:

• SDXC card slot
• Four USB 3 ports (compatible with USB 2)
• Two Thunderbolt 2 ports
• Mini DisplayPort output with support for DVI, VGA, and dual-link DVI (adapters sold separately)
• 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet (RJ-45 connector)
• Kensington lock slot

Pretty standard for an Apple desktop but easily expandable via USB 3 or Thunderbolt. I plugged in an external SuperDrive as well as external storage for video editing.

Who is it for?

The non-retina 27-inch iMacs start at CAD $2,000.00 and will be powerful and versatile enough for most users. For $600 more, you're investing in the future as well as the ability to create and enjoy carious forms of 4K content or large format graphics or photo editing.

If your work requires video or image production or editing then this is the sort of hardware that will pay for itself. Many pros work with two displays or more, one for the video and other for the menus and controls. I can see the iMac eliminating this type of set up. With the 5K resolution of the iMac, you can get everything on one 27-inch screen while working with 4K video in full resolution it is such a space saver. 

For something with so much technology, what surprised me most about the 5K iMac was that it was whisper quiet and completely cool even after rendering several videos. I was worried that non-optimized apps or even webpages wouldn't look good on the display but everything looked crisp and detailed.

The 5K iMac even transcends what a desktop PC can be. That super detailed and sharp display merits multiple use cases. For anyone living in a confined space like a dorm or a small apartment, the iMac will do a sufficient job doing as a work PC and also an entertainment hub. 

While no iMacs ship with optical drive, adding a Blu-Ray player is relatively inexpensive and there are a variety of video card dongles in the market today that can be used to grab HD Cable or over-the-air HD TV signals. 

I wasted no time putting the 5K iMac to use watching all my favourite Blu-Ray film collections. Everything from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy to various concert Blu-Rays and DVDs. Combined with the right external speakers for added oomph, it was easy to forget that this was a desktop computer and not a high-end HDTV.

The 4 GHz dual-core Intel i7 processor had lots of power to spare. While outfitted with 8GB of RAM, it can be upgraded via a rear-slot to up to 16GB of RAM which should please professional users or anyone who expects to be running various apps or windows concurrently. 

Using a mouse to navigate the expanse of pixels sometimes feels like a drag. I’m hoping to switch to a trackpad to see if that would feel more natural and less tedious. Aside from this minor detail, I found the 5K iMac to be just as enjoyable to use as any modern Mac.

Conclusion

Surpassed, leapfrogged, overtaken. That’s what the entire all-in-one PC Industry looks like now in comparison to this 5K iMac, even after the smoke has cleared in Las Vegas post-CES, there’s really nothing quite like the 5K iMac.

While 5K caters to a somewhat niche market of prosumers and users who create digital video and images, its quite a feat that we have all of this technology available today at a price that's a few hundred dollars above what one would pay for just a 4K or 5K monitor.