The iMac is Dead. Good.
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- Опубліковано 30 тра 2024
- There's a new M3 iMac, but is there really? All signs point to the iMac being a shadow of its former glory-but maybe that's not such a bad thing?
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0:00 The 24" iMac iS eNorMoUs
0:43 The iMac isn't "just a computer"
1:22 The iMac hasn't changed, but Apple has
3:33 Short-term profits vs long-term efforts
4:28 So then what do?
5:16 The Studio Display is outrageous
6:38 "If it were a bad deal, cheaper options would exist"
7:41 3rd-party monitors hurt the Mac experience
8:28 macOS sucks at scaling
11:06 "Maybe there's a 32" iMac coming"
11:42 So then what should Apple do?
13:19 A word about the ProDisplay XDR
13:57 The iMac's legacy is evolving - Наука та технологія
LMAO at the base RAM staying unchanged for ELEVEN YEARS
It’s shockingly pathetic.
@@snazzyplease do a video on the MacBook Pro 13” from 2020. The baseline knowledge sucks and is barely a MacBook Air Plus model on its best days.
Yea, but it is „unified“!!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The iPhone 15pro and 15pro Max now has 8GB RAM, caught up to their PC. Geez
Would have bought a base mac mini a while ago if the 16gb ram option wouldnt increase the price from a 600€ to a 850€ machine. At this point they are just stupid
I remember being so frustrated before the studio display because there were no good retina monitors. And then they announced the studio display was a 5K iMac without the iMac for the same price and so I’m still frustrated because I’m not buying that.
Perhaps the Studio Display was going to be an iMac, but leadership changed their mind, hence all the extra stuff inside that doesn't need to be there. About the only thing that's missing is an M-series logic board. Instead they built the Mac Studio to pair with it, which can also replace the Apple Silicon Mac Pro. I think Apple expect their M3 Ultra chips to make external GPUs unnecessary. It's a shame they also think that reasonably-priced unified memory and storage are unnecessary, or are some kind of extravagant luxury.
@@freddiefox. It almost certainly was, it's basically a computer without being a standalone computer: it was a CPU, a GPU, and RAM, and an SSD. It gets software updates.
I'll just keep my seventeen year old 30 inch Apple Cinema Display until it dies, and then see what they got.
Exactly. It the 27” iMac in price, but without the built in computer.
Lowering value is costing Apple both market share and profit levels
As someone who is still hanging on to their 2017 maxed out 27” iMac you summed it up perfectly. I don’t want to give up my 5k screen and ram to go with the M3 machine and I don’t want to pay more for a 2 box solution. I’ll just wait a little longer I think, the 2017 still working great for FCP.
This is exactly where I'm at
Same here, but with iMac Pro.
Still got my late 2015 for same reason
ive been holding onto my base model 2014 21.5" imac, still does everything i need it to do and the display looks amazing for a 1080p panel.
2 box solution is expensive initially, but then when you upgrade all you need is a new Mac Mini /MacBook /Mac Studio.
The iPhone: “You’re holding me too close.”
Apple not making a 34” iMac: “Sit closer.”
I love your videos. Attention to details, deep knowledge of the subject you’re talking about. Pure Gold. You are the only one who mentioned production issues of M3 chip. The rest of youtubers completely ignore it. Thanks man, really appreciate it.
Thanks to YOU for your continued support.
Big dog
ok i don’t think the iMac is dead. I think apple just said that statement because they want people to stop holding out and just buy the damn 24” iMac
I think the people waiting for a 27"+ iMac didn't really want the 24" iMac-hence the whole debacle.
@@snazzywhich is why I’m getting a studio instead
What Apple is saying is that 24” is perfect for a more basic user - if you want more, get a Mac mini or Mac Studio and studio display to get not only the screen you want, but a more capable system as well.
The iMac was extremely important to Apple when your options were limited to either the Mac Pro or iMac for higher end computing - the mini wasn’t designed at the time to compete… Now there are more options and the iMac can be what it wants to be - a casual experience for everyday users and offices. I used to edit on iMacs all the time, I had 3 of them, non lasted for more than 3ish years, it’s why I started building my own PC’s, couldn’t afford a Mac Pro.
i might just get a mini + some random hi def display then 🙃
For me, the green argument looses credibility due to the integrated SOC and inability to upgrade or repair the device easily. If the user needs more power, then the only option is to buy a new device.
My daughter still uses my old 2011 iMac. It’s got a couple of SSD’s in it, 16gb of RAM, I’ve upgraded the GPU to a WX7100 8gb and it has Ventura installed. I also have newer wifi and BT modules ready to install. The 27” 1440p display is still perfectly good and the benefit of the iMac having built in webcam, mic, speakers is awesome.
If that iMac wasn’t upgradable it would have ended up in landfill years ago.
I know I’m not the target audience, and far from a regular user, but for these reasons the “green” argument has never been something I could agree with.
yeah I also don't understand how he can claim macbooks are more green than imacs?? they're basically the same thing??
27” is not big enough for me. I’m happy to live with my 43” 4K display, which I love. If Apple still can’t do precise rescaling of their OS for different size displays, they need to be held accountable for their failings.
1440p display works well with macOS because it scales down from half of 5K, but 4K integer downscaling isn't exact, causing rendering issues. Of course Apple leaves those who got a mac mini to find that out themselves...
Their devs are too busy adding nonsensical bloat to iOS and MacOS especially the stupid virtue signaling bullcrap in some of their updates. For some reason my iPhone 13 Pro is no longer sipping battery while playing music (iOS 15.7) and is now draining a percent every few minutes or so with iOS 17 to 17.1.1.
Recently went from 1080p 24” to 4K 32”. For my needs, I would have been better off getting a smaller second screen instead of one big one.
I remember when I got an iMac 27 years ago it felt uncomfortably huge. About a decade later, it feels tiny. Funny how things change.
@@user-nl4ch1pz4x yeah, I can still remember when 17 inch monitors and then 19 inch monitors were a big deal. I used to raid on WoW with 15 inches and I was happy about it.
Fingers REALLY crossed for a Studio Display upgrade wave soon, they really dropped the ball on supporting the Mac Studio crowd by not providing a better display offering by now.
I suspect that will need thunderbolt 5 for the features it will add.
It took them nearly nine hundred days to update the iMac and its a full fledged computer.
18 months is still early
@@josselincol Problem is that the recent “refresh” was barely a refresh at all and was pretty flawed on numerous fronts. It’s not a good product, and merits a replacement quickly.
I'm really surprised you didn't suggest adding target display mode back to the 24 inch iMac! I'd buy one in a heartbeat if that happened. Would also love you to cover the alternatives that exist for trying to do that today - airplay from mac to mac, airplay mac to mac over usb-c (yes that's a thing!) and 3rd party options like Luna display to see what's best. I think that would be an excellent snazzy video that no one else has covered.
How do you AirPlay mac to mac with usbc?
Thunderbolt 3 doesn’t have the bandwidth to do target display anymore on monitors that high res
@@spacecadet2172 that’s just simply not true considering the studio display and Pro Display XDR operate over thunderbolt…
@@Emoryz the way thunderbolt works, with detecting DisplayPort usage and allocating bandwidth/lanes, it only works one way. That aspect of it is not bidirectional. It’s a bit like using ARC on an HDMI cable. The HDMI cable could support 18 Gbps of total bandwidth, but the ARC channel is only a max of 1 Mbps, so you are limited by that going from TV to receiver/soundbar and can’t even do DolbyTrueHD. Yet going the other way from AV receiver to TV with the EXACT same hardware on both ends and cable, you have the full 18 Gbps available. It’s actually not simple at all, really.
As an owner of a 27" Retina iMac since 2015, I'm frustrated by the current options. Just been to an Apple Store this morning, and the current iMac is too small. I know I'd get used to it, but never go backwards in life. That's my motto. However, the Studio Display is stunning in the flesh. You have to see it in person. So damn pricey though. As a sidenote, I was surprised by the big difference in screen size between the 14" and 16" MacBook pro. The 14" looks tiny when next to it. You have to go to a store - all the videos in the world won't give you the perspective you need when choosing.
Why not just get the 16 GB Macbook and a 27" 4K monitor and use non-interger scaling?
Interesting to hear you returned your Pro Display XDR, I didn't know that. I went through 4 units this year because of a variety of quality issues that really shocked me, having been using Apple products for 20 years with almost zero issues. My XDRs had the vignette, but also dirty screen effect, dead pixels, wonky glass, even glue sticking out of the sides of the glass on a couple of them. Really odd for one of their most expensive items. I came from a maxed out 2013 27" iMac which is still in use with OpenCore, but have settled for a stop gap of a 30" ACD (with a Mac Mini M2 Pro) until something that isn't a 2014 iMac screen comes along.
The vignetting drove me nuts, but I didn’t know there were other QC problems like you’ve experienced. That’s concerning on such an expensive display, agreed.
I had a 30" Cinema Display for years but it started to give off so much heat it was noticeable from a good distance and it felt like it was drying my eyes out. Sold it and bought an ok 1440p 27" Asus screen. It works well enough with my 14" MBP and my gaming pc as well.
If you want a great monitor brand try Eizo. They've been some of the best for over ten years in photography.
That’s crazy. I’ve been using an old Apple Thunderbolt Display for a few years now and it still works flawlessly. I’m surprised it wasn’t the same for their top end display.
@@snazzydankpods had a video about how his took a shit right after the warranty, he bought an LG for like 700$ that was better in almost every way
As someone that uses a 23.8 in QHD Display for my MacBook Air, watching this makes me wish competitors would try making more 24 in 4k displays. Some of us aren't fortunate enough to have a workspace large enough to support a 27 in display or larger.
Conversely, there's a bunch of single-monitor guys like me who have no interest in multiple displays but want a little more real estate than a 27" monitor can offer! Haha
I’m guess it has to do with the fact that the difference from 1440p to 4k at a 24 inch display is negligible
There’s a ton of 24 inch 4K displays. What are you on about? 😂
@@ephektz there really isn't
@@maxderdax6117 LG makes a few in all price points, Dell makes at least three of them; and this is like, 20 seconds of Googling. Who do you want to see making a 24 inch 4K monitor?
One of the most underrated features of the iMac/Studio Display is that they have glossy panels. Pretty much every monitor is matte to diffuse light but most of us have control over our lighting conditions in an office setting. Apple has excellent anti-reflective coatings on their displays that allow them to stay glossy and not super reflective. It is crazy to me that no one else makes a great glossy panel.
Good point
Whilst I prefer matte screens in general, you're not wrong at all.
is glossy vs matte just personal preference? im thinking about it and I don't think i really care? not sure ive ever formed/needed to form an opinion on that. but now youve got me thinking. i had thought matte displays were inherently better??
@@Enzo187 glossy panels have better color, by how much? im not sure, but its something to keep in mind for future shopping as my lg ultragear has a glossy panel as the colors are great with auto hdr on.
Yes, somebody else makes glossy panels: the third-party supplier of Apple screens. Other computer screen manufacturers/brands don’t sell these as they are more expensive, and these manufacturers try to sell on the basis of price points, not features.
10:42 There’s a fifth HiDPI monitor option: the 32” Dell 6K at 223 PPI. It also serves as a thunderbolt dock, is half the price of the Pro Display XDR, and even comes with a stand! I have both the Dell 6K and XDR (and $1000 stand). You can’t beat the value on the Dell.
The longevity is the issue. I have a ten year old Thunderbolt Display, and people are using almost 20 year old Cinema Displays. The lifespan of Dell or any other company for that matter is notoriously lower in comparison. So that’s tough when its the same price as the Studio display at that point.
@@ghost-user559 My 2016 MacBook Pro with a non functional backlight, blown speakers, terrible keyboard, and bloated battery would like to talk to you about “Apple’s longevity”.
@@milk_bath MY 2012 MacBook Pro with 16 Gb Ram and a 1 TB ssd, which is flawless and I can game and do casual computing on 10 years later, would like to apologize to your 2016 butterfly keyboard and crippling thermals, and would suggest that a 2015 or 2012 is still a better computer than many netbooks or Chromebook’s to this day. Especially for Linux. My 6 year old iPhone would also like a word, as would my 8 year old iPad,and my 10 year old Thunderbolt Displays. But you definitely can get a dud like anything else in life. Sometimes I find yellow bananas and sometimes green, and sometimes they come bruised from the store, and Apples are no better. Tech is a fickle thing.
@@ghost-user559the longevity and quality of the studio display is also notoriously shit. I've never had a problem with Dell but I know other people have.
Still, I'd rather buy the dell than the studio display purely based on price-to-perks
@@cherrypepsi2815 I would say by that metric we can agree electronics in general either work or they don’t. I mean that’s what quality control and warranties are for. With the Dell you have a limited warranty, at least with Apple you could buy Apple care year to year indefinitely if you wanted to. If not you still have an actual store to go into locally if things go wrong, and I’ve done that before. I’m never ever playing “ship expensive electronics across the ocean to be gaslit by random Asian mega corps” again. At least with Apple I can have a “genius” gaslight me to my face. It’s the little things in life.
I think two things can be true: Apple would defend the Studio Display by saying that people begged for "the iMac display without the iMac" for years & it is a low volume product necessitating a higher price. HOWEVER, people were asking for that display nearly a decade ago, and display tech has rapidly advanced, plus a large part of the price is Apple's continued insistence on never just doing the simple, easy thing and unnecessarily complicating the thing.
I'm frustrated at how expensive the Studio Display is, but as a daily driver it's such a nice package. I've found myself defending the display in many areas however the soft camera is absolutely inexcusable. I've been using continuity cam with my iPhone and a belkin mount... it MIGHT be able to justify the price if the camera was just that good out of the box
Doesn’t help that continuity camera is so good.
It is way overpriced for what it offers. One can buy 34 QD OLED monitor for under 1k. Or even IPs 38 inch ultra wide much better that Apple display
As a heavy apple user, I could never use the studio display due to only offering 1 display input and only being 60hz. Those, especially the former, are absolute dealbreakers for me at that price point. Even if I were to only use a MacBook and Mac Studio, I couldn’t even connect both if I wanted which is crazy
@@extra4542 The lack of second input port is the biggest issue for me. I would buy one if it had a second HDMI or Display port input option. I live in the PC and Mac world and would love to be able to use it with My PC as well.
I paired my Mac Studio M1 Max with an LG 32" 4k DCI-P3 panel. Thought it would look like shit, but really liked it. I'm using 6k/2 resolution and haven't had a problem with pixel artifacts. Everything looks super sharp and I can fit so many apps on my window.
I'll never do laptops. I tend to spill my wine over keyboards. Was a long time iMac user, but now all in on Mac Mini.
I’ve still got a 2013 iMac in my living room. i5-4570R, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD (the latter two I upgraded myself), with macOS Monterey.
Still going strong to this day. I would like an M3 iMac but going for the same specs is stupidly expensive.
You make a lot of good points about screen size and resolution, device longevity, and apples green push. Whats interesting to me is how all of the issues that you bring up as to why the iMac is going to die are all controlled by apple. Apple could change the display scaling from integer scaling to something else, that would fix macos on 27inch 4k monitors. Apple could make their devices upgradable or repairable, making a larger iMac last longer and thus greener. Apple could make the experience of using a mac both good and more cost effective and less impactful on the environment while giving people the devices they want. They could... if thats what Apple wanted to do
Apple could also offer extended OS support for older hardware. The 2019 iMac is the oldest iMac model getting Mac OS 14 support. The OCLP project proves such support is a viable option but instead Apple demonstrates that their alleged environmental awareness is chiefly an optics conscious marketing ploy.
@@HighwayRamos are you not convinced by their purchasing of carbon credits, which are universally discredited as a way to greenwash your companies pollution? I thought it was hilarious saying they were recycling aluminium. Umm... yes? It's cheaper, Tim, to recycle it than mine it. So err... rather obvious that Coke and Pepsi and everyone uses recycled aluminium as much as possible.
They don't really care about the environment
I would say exactly the opposite: IMacs are the most environmentally friendly Apple devices because their life cycle is the longest. Macbooks and iPhones are bought new much more often. Apple refuses to offer a larger iMac because they hoped to sell Studio Display and Mac Studio, which bring more profit than a large iMac. But customers are apparently not going along with this, so Apple has now published this almost angry statement about the iMac.
By far the best Mac channel on YT. I love the attention to details and not just reading the Marketing material. So many videos are so surface level like “smaller bezels”, “new color”, “new faster chip”
This is why I built my own 5K monitor with an old iMac and display driver board from Aliexpress :). The panel is almost identical to the Studio Display, and you get that beautiful aluminium Apple design. You can also get the speakers working with some extra work (though it won't be anywhere near as good as the Studio Display). Also you won't have a webcam if that matters to you. Overall it's so nice though! Would be interested to see you take a look at something like this in a future video.
do you have a link?
One note about the DisplayPort 2.1 thing:
What I've read from basically all publications so far is that it’s only Thunderbolt 5 and USB4 v2 which has this capability to reverse one data receiving lane to a transmitting lane for an asymmetrical 3 Tx + 1Rx setup to deliver up to 3x more bandwidth for displays than Thunderbolt 3/4, which was the headline many publications went for for their articles (120Gb/s vs. 40Gb/s). Furthermore what complicates this even further is that Apple also has 3 10Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 ports on the back, and for those ports' speeds to not get throttled when all of them are being used, Apple uses DSC on the Studio Display to limit the bandwidth the display itself uses to only 10Gb/s (the required bandwidth for uncompressed 10-bit 5K60 is 31.85Gb/s and DSC achieves a 3:1 compression ratio). So, Thunderbolt 4 is already used up to its maximum limit by the Studio Display when the 3 ports on the back use 30Gb/s of bidirectional bandwidth and the display itself uses 10Gb/s of unidirectional bandwidth, leaving only half of the capacity of one of its receiving lanes unused (on its symmetrical 2 Tx + 2Rx lane setup with 20Gb/s speed on each lane). And even if Thunderbolt 4 could reverse one of its lanes for transmitting data to displays, Apple wouldn’t want to do that as that would leave them with only 20Gb/s of bidirectional data for the I/O of the Studio Display, meaning only 2 of the 3 10Gb/s ports could get used at full speed at the same time. Assuming all of this is true, they actually DO need Thunderbolt 5 to be able to make a 10-bit 5K 120Hz display if they want to keep the 3 10Gb/s ports on the back.
Yep, Thunderbolt 4 is not supporting asymmetrical setup and even more that it's limited by DisplayPort 1.4, so you can't even use whole 40 Gb/s for one video stream (limitation is 25.92 Gb/s for actual video data) and for 5K@120Hz they definitely need Thunderbolt 5 (DP 2.1).
I used and I'm still using 27" iMacs, even writing this on one now (still works like a charm). 24" is a no go for me - yeah, I was using 24" monitors... 10 years ago, when we me moved to 27" and never looked back. I was waiting not only for 27" but also for target display. I don't care if they care - no 27", nothing to buy. And Apple displays... why would I buy them when I have so many other options, 4k, with things as exotic as DisplayPort, HDR and higher than 60Hz refresh rate?
Exactly. There are tons of users who want a 27 inch iMac, but Apple isn't driven by what users want. It takes them years to admit mistakes.
Studio Display clears all. 600 nits, 5K, great speakers, amazing build quality, impeccable design, TB4 cable included, good webcam included, seamless integration. All those bells and whistles make it worth $1599, pretty objectively as well.
The 90's was a very exciting time for those boring beige macs. I remember the decade like it was yesterday. When my best friend upgraded to the latest Power PC in 96 or 97 with 56k there was nothing else like it. They were very stylish and innovative at the time. Fast forward 25 years and I'm going to milk my 2020 iMac 27 for all its worth. IMO it's the perfect PC for the casual user. Great display, speakers, and timeless design. No chance I'd trade it for a 24" iMac even with an M3.
This was an excellent video. It was very informative. Yes, larger iMac Pros will be the farthest "Green" product in the company's lineup. Just one bad component and the entire assembly will no longer be optimal, even though each of those separate components are still in pristine conditions. Times have changed. Great insight Snazzy!
just like...laptops??? I'm not really following this "green" reasoning
Yes, but those are portable machines. Tightly integrated systems make more sense to facilitate mobility and efficiency. But for desktop computers, it's way more wasteful to have everything tied up. @@DavidFregoli
After doing months of research on what to replace my ageing 27 inch iMac with, I eventually went for a Mac Studio, with an LG Ultrafine 27inch 5K display. Works really well. I replaced that awful stand with an Ergotron vesa arm. The display housing feels a bit cheap and plasticky, but the panel itself is excellent, and that is what really matters, right?
External arm is the saviour. Saves so much desk space
It's crazy that from 2017 to 2023 they went from a 27" 5k diagonal Retina 5k display to a 24" diagnol Regina 4.5k display
I remember when 256MB of ram was respectable, 1GB was for serious gamers or professionals, anything above 2GB was a lot, and 4GB or more was ENORMOUS. This was in the 2000s.
then windows vista / 7 released and started using 512mb at idle
then later google invented the concept of "webapps" so each website individually took an additional 512-1gb
and now were just stuck here
Wow the title is a bit of a shocker (“good”? I disagree!) but so happy to see you back Quinn! I’ve been clicking on your channel every day for the past week hoping you posted even though I didn’t get any notifications 😂
I hope you post more often because I really enjoy your content!
We're aiming to soon! Thanks for checking in. :D
@@snazzyGlad to hear!!
Also just have to say: I was initially shocked by the title but I shouldn’t have underestimated you. Sure enough by the time I finished the video, I’m in the same boat as you and agree that a 27” iMac wouldn’t probably be the best idea for the reasons you listed. You really do have a way of presenting your thoughts in a way that can change people’s minds!
@@Epicgamer_Mac Thanks so much for the kind words!
Just replaced my 14 year old 27 inch iMac with a cheap 2020 Mac Mini M1 and a used Thunderbolt Display. It is even better than the old iMac. I don't need a 4k monitor. And now if anything goes wrong, it won't cost a fortune to replace the components.
I have a 21" mid 2011 iMac that's been my daily driver since it was new. The mechanical disk hasn't failed once and until very recently, OS X Mountain Lion was enough for me. I've since upgraded it to High Sierra, and I still use it. It's pretty timeless, when people see it they can't tell its 12 years old. High Sierra also is nowhere near being obsolete, having many modern day capabilities. I plan on using this (yes, I'm writing this comment on it) until it can't suffice anymore.
I still love using my iMac Pro, the speaker are super nice and better than the Studio Display, but now Apple put me in a difficult situation and force me to consider a new Display + Mac combo, which create a lot of cluster to my desk :(
Great video. I think there is room for a Mac-friendly brand (maybe BenQ PD line?) to create reasonably priced 218 PPI monitors. At least LG has a 27" 5K 1560-zone mini LED FALD panel in the works for 2024.
I’ve now gutted one 5k iMac and 2 2011 27” iMacs, added a suitable driver board to each. 3 Apple “monitors” on my desk. No especially pragmatic, but I’ll be stuffed if I’m paying Apple’s increasingly obnoxious pricing. I’m also sticking to Hackintoshing as I cannot bring myself to pay the obscene markup for RAM and storage.
I’ve been “Mac first”since 1990, but I’m so close to switching my primary machine over to Windows now. Sad state of affairs, but it just feels like they’re taking the piss…
so wait, what displays (other than the expensive 5k displays you showed) do you recommend for a mac mini (or macbook for that matter)? 4k 27" seems no good or did I misunderstand?
I think at some point they will lower the price of the current studio display to 1000 to 1200 and then replace it with a higher end model with mini led 120 hz hdr for 1700 to 2000
Got the M3 from the 2015 5K 27in and my biggest concern was getting used to it... I got used to it within a few hours honestly, and I love this machine ( I do music and video editing ) and it works so damn smoothly.
The days of the iMac being the machine are gone because, we have so many more options within the mac lineup that are good but, I think it will still be the center of it all, this or the mac mini.
The studio display has 2x more storage than my iPad from a couple years ago😭😭😭😭😭😭
Agree with a lot of your points, but disagree about the scaling on 4k displays. At 27", the 4k looks just fine. I daily the 5k Studio Display, and it's just a bit sharper than a 4k at the same size. Hardly unusable, even for designers.
Apple basically punish their customers 8 gb ram in base model. Why don’t they increase price to for base 16GB ram. Many times custom built laptops is weeks to month wait time and guarantee full over priced $200 over charge for 8 GB extra.
That’s the main issue. That they don’t start to offer a 16GB base config in stores until you enter the “pro” lineup. It sucks for anyone that’s not in the U.S. and only has to wait days for custom builds.
The LG ultra fine series is a pretty great substitute for the studio display and you can get a 27 inch 4k unit for $599. I realize you're missing some resolution, but it does have hdr and runs at the the same refresh cycle. You can pay some more to get the additional pixels but with hdr and a higher refresh rate for a bit less than a studio display
Quality control is the biggest issue with the LG. You can find a whole lot of them “refurbished” because the power supply can randomly pop and then its gone. And if you’re already spending 600$ for an old monitor that’s on its way out, it makes a used Studio Display for 1300$ seem reasonable, especially when 17 year old Cinema Display and decade old Thunderbolt Displays are still going strong. So if you are buying for the long term, the Studio Display starts to make sense.
LG Ultrafine series is purpose-made for Mac-s.
@@tyaty They are beautiful monitors. But they don’t always last long. I’ve heard people have them with no problem and others that had to return multiple because of backlight issues or pixel issues. So it’s risky unless you have a real warranty.
As someone who's on their 2nd 27" iMac since 2013 (current one being the 2020 5K model), I lack a cost effective upgrade path and will miss it. I use it with two external 27" monitors to do remote support for a number of clients and with 64GB of RAM I can load multiple VMware VMs at once to do this, with the host OS (Sonoma) being rock solid. A Mac Mini or Studio similarly configured plus Studio display will cost a *lot* more.
Still rocking my two Thunderbolt and Cinema Displays. Since good 5k is so expensive, and 4k so taxing on the mac, these 2k monitors with beautiful colors seems to be the best option for me today. And they have thunderbolt docking built in. It's also frustrating that there is barely any glossy alternatives on the market these days.
I think the iMac needs to adopt the iPhone colors. People obviously like the iPhone colors, and it's even cooler when everything matches. I know the pastel colors were easier to sell to homebodies, rather than the mobile colors of the iPhone/iPads/MacBooks. But that's such a narrow audience.
The current iMac colors are in reference to the colors for the g3. iPhone colors also change annually to an extent so they’d have to make annual iMacs or not make new colors. They can’t adopt the iPhone colors because they’d have to limit iPhone colors or overproduce iMacs.
Mac Mini all the way for me, I have had the MacMini M1 8GB 512GB connected to a LG 49 Inch 5K Ultrawide connected with a 8K Thunderbolt to DP to get the full 5K resolution and for the last 3 years it has been amazing still runs like the first day I purchased it for everything from general office work to basic video editing, for its cost and size it’s an impressive piece of equipment.👌
Bruh a 5k ultrawide is not high res, it’s just wide
Bruh, where in that comment did I say "High Res"? @@kekchanbiggestfan
There are two apple products that I couldn’t afford when they were new (well I couldn’t afford any apple product back then 😅) and I feel I missed out. One of them was the 5K iMac and the second the 12” MacBook. I briefly considered getting a 5K iMac last year, but it’s time has passed, and I thought about using it as a monitor for my M2 MacBook Pro, but turns out you can’t do that. These machines looked so cool! I liked their styling a lot more than the current iMac.
Love this Video and many Videos you put out. Well done and thanks
What an excellent video. Some of the simply highest and most engaging content on UA-cam. Easily superior to LTT. I would love you to present documentary style videos like this with old apple products with interesting stories and the like. Like a UA-cam premium series. You are seriously the best presenter on UA-cam.
I especially love your take on the narrative dissonance behind including these ludicrous, and insulting base configurations. The retina macbook pro presented over a decade ago introduced the 8/256 base model configuration. The environmental impact from these face slapping 8gb machines will be substantial. No amount of recyclable unibody mac mini enclosure is going to circumvent the fact that these machines will become unusable far earlier just because of corporate greed. An absolute stain on apples "green" efforts.
Aww you're too kind-thanks so much for your support.
So it would be better to get a 1440p monitor than a 4k display if you need a display for your Mini?
Yea. Plug that into a calculator and you got 108ppi. Or you know, since macos renders at 1440p... You get it you answered your own question xd.
It depends on screen size. At 21.5”, you can get a 4K monitor or 1080p for non retina. At 27”, 5K is ideal and 1440p is right for non retina. That said, I’d rather have a 27” 4K with a scaled resolution than a 1440p monitor at native resolution.
@@kekchanbiggestfan Right now I'm using an iMac 2013 21.5" that is 1080p, So if I get a 27" 1440p display for my M1 MBP it will look similar to this iMac?
@@lenn55 Yes
They were selling iMacs with 5400 rpm spinning drives just a few years ago. If you wanted an SSD you’d have to special order and wait. Non of the in store stock had an ssd.
Your script writing skills are superb. I was engaged the whole time even when I didn’t understand some technical terms. Good job! I have an M1 Pro laptop that still performs better in some ways than the new iMac M3 which have been eyeing. After watching this video I guess my best bet is to upgrade my monitor and wait for an M3 Mac mini.
Excellent, thoughtful take as always. The iMac is beautiful and I *want* to want one... but honestly have no use for it personally (though we do like them at work for their simplicity and clean look). In some ways, I feel like the laptops have become what the iMac, and even to some extent the original Mac, have always dreamed of being: a perfect all-in-one with essentially no compromises. Except for screen size... but, as I think we're seeing with the death of speakers with headphones and ear buds (outside of audiophiles like Quinn, perhaps), I wonder if we will see the death of screens coming. Long ago, I dreamed that projectors would take over: super compact, easy to move, can post a gigantic image. But they basically failed. Now we await the dawn of augmented reality and I wonder if this will realize that dream...
Quinn always dropping fire videos, dude should be more popular
Aw, well thanks!
I’ve been waiting for years for a new 27” replacement for my 2012 iMac. It’s been an excellent computer and such a shame they are not replacing that size model
I was an iMac user for about 20 years starting with my first Mac in 2003, a desk lamp iMac G3 and finishing with a 27” 2010 model that I used and abused for over ten years. I know have a 2020 M1 MBP and a 2018 intel Mac mini with an LG 5K2K ultrawide and I definitely miss the “it just works” factor.
yeah they absolutely need to make the "every man's studio display" but for the time being other companies can take the reign. there are so many good displays, but none as good as apple's knowledge and software trickers.
exactly. that is apple's next play. Make an entry-level studio display to pair with the Mac mini or any of the MacBooks.
Apple’s history with displays is to make high quality long lasting displays, and have only been affordable to true pro monitors (even their 30” compared to pro displays which run $4-6k)
Why would they bother with low end when there is already so much choice for you to choose from.
@@ed61730 there are people who want the apple experience but without paying top dollar
@@ed61730 Apple doesn’t do Everyman unless there is decent profit margin. They position between upper and mid-market for that reason.
FYI: Apple literally does not care about the environment.
You always have great videos, man! This one is no exception.
I still use target display mode on a 27“ iMac from 2009 with my M2 MacBook pro (which works perfectly despite Apple stating everywhere it does not). The design of that iMac is perfect and the screen held up great as well.
Well they said "27 inch", not anything else. They did not say "another iMac-like product of another size absolutely is not coming in the medium-term".
There could be a 32 inch iMac as a new "product category" of sorts, like an "iMac Pro" with proMotion display, HDR, microLED and a variety of other niceties. And this would not go against what they said in the slightest.
You gotta read corporate-speak carefully. Also, it may not be in the interest of Apple to say _"Oh and there's such and such coming"_ given that having people avoid buying products from the current lineup would not play in their favor.
I’m still using my 27 inch iMac 2017 most of the times, despite having a M1 Macbook Pro. The screen will never stop to mesmerise me, and as a designer I will be willing to sacrifice performance for the size, sharpness and colour accuracy of the 5K iMac display.
In terms of visual balance, two 24” side-by-side monitors look more aesthetically pleasing than one 27” or 32” screen.
interesting...I got an old 2012 imac to pair with my 2013 imac for this reason.. symmetry
I bought a refurbished 2017 iMac Pro from Amazon in May of 2023 for a little over $1,600 and I love it!
I’d love to see a rebirth of the iMac Pro.
Question: Could the display scaling issue be resolved with a change to the OS?
You know, I am still rocking a pair of the old Thunderbolt Displays. Even with an adapter the simplicity is just hard to beat. The 1440 is a bit small but they are attractive and single cable function is really hard to be unhappy with.
Quin, thank you. As always a great take on the latest, so in lue of an all new 27 inch model that isn't coming what year iMac pro would you recommend or buy a mini and a monitor?
The iMac Pro is such a steal right now, The base model sells for 1K USD, and the maxed-out one sells for 4K. That is insane, considering these computers used to be 5-14K USD. And the power is still great, the display too. The 2019 16-inch MPBs are also selling for great prices too. The maxed-out model is selling for 3K, and the base model is selling for 500. Apple Silicon Macs are just too expensive for their own good.
The current iMac doesn't appeal to me because of the colors. If they were to release a black or space grey version of the current 24" I would surely buy it.
I sometimes use a M1 iMac at work and just this week I took a look at the display settings and was surprised to see that the default resolution is not 2.25K, it's a slightly lower resolution.
So what is a good replacement that is cheaper than the 5K Studio Display? I am still on a 27 inch intel iMac but want to buy a new Mac but i want (at least) 27 inch screen to go with it. I love to hear some suggestions
Sucks. 27" is the perfect size! I've got 3x 27" mid-2010 iMacs which have been gutted to repurpose as monitors. The 1440p LG LCD is a fantastic display. First one I did is display port with a 19v HP Laptop PSU. Other two are HDMI using the built-in iMac 12v PSU with working audio *and* DCC for brightness control. Also moved from a 32" back down to a 27" on my gaming PC.
Thank you for this nuanced critique! It's kind of funny that you mentioned 32" monitors since I'm using one right now! I have a feeling that 8K monitors will be the next... widely adopted screen format once the price to benefit ratio is more realistic to more people, just like 4K has become. And I have every reason to believe that Apple will eventually come out with an 8K monitor with their usual marketing, but whether will it have it where it counts is another question.
8K currently has 1% market share.
I’m so glad I went with the M2 MAC Studio and converted an old 2015 27” iMac that was dead into a monitor using a board I bought off eBay for around 175.00. It is even identified as a 5K iMac and looks identical to the old working iMac. I can’t recommend it enough!
And here I’m. Really happy and not changing at all my iMac 27 2020
If the LG 5K ultrafine was still readily available that would be the nearest equivalent for $1k. I know the reviews were mixed but I have 2 of them and they’re great
I use a PC for work, and a late 2013, 27'' iMac for all personal stuff. 11 years old and still going strong, though not as fast as before thanks to the endless OS updates Apple keeps pushing. I'll probably hang on to this machine another 3 years or so before I sell it and pick up whatever is new at that time. What is still incredible is that it WILL SELL, as opposed to having $0 value as with a Windows machine. In the past 25 years that I've owned Macs, I have never had to dump one in the garbage. I have sold every single one of them, including for parts.
Brilliant video and great summary!
I think there’s an error around the 2:33 mark. There was no 24” iMac in 2017. It was either 21.5” or 27”.
Your channel is finally showing up in my recommended sidebar again! Not sure what happened but had to search for you manually for a few months
Awesome video! Nailed so many key points! 💪🏾
The tough pill to swallow with the imac, or AIOs in general these days is the lack of ability to just use it as a monitor after the components are long out of date. It's the reason I didn't pick up an m1 imac despite being in the perfect position to use one.
I agree. I think their time has passed. It was amazing in 1999. It made sense for a while. I don't think it makes sense now. You can get a mini and a nice display that will fit nicely in a modern home style.
I'll even go one step further and say the iPad line should probably be streamlined as well.
(iPad mini becomes iPad SE; base iPad and last Gen iPad disappear; iPad air becomes the base iPad and the iPad pro models are offered in two levels, give the larger model the most internal storage.
Desktop lineup should look like this:
- iMac 24" 4.5K
- Mac Mini/Studio + Studio Display 27" 5K
- iMac Pro 30" 5.5K
- Mac Studio + XDR 32" 6K
“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
Who would've thought that Voltaire spoke about the origins of the Apple Studio Display? It's absurd to believe killing off the large iMac serves some environmental reason!
I've honestly considered just getting the new M3 iMac and doing a dual desktop/laptop setup. I want the full retina scaling for my M1 Pro MBP and I think the Studio Display is a tremendous ripoff. Might as well just get an M3 iMac with similar specs and use my laptop for work and iMac for recreation/music/video production. Sync with iCloud, get the bonus of redundancy in case one computer poops itself. Only a few hundred more to do it this way than pay for that stupid monitor. M3 iMac with 16GB Ram and 1TB SSD isn't TOO bad of a deal and is super fast
I'm also one who's clinging on to my 2017 5k iMac, even used OCLP to update to Sonoma. Sadly, I think Quinn is right if there's going to be a 32" iMac, it will be super expensive and high end and will make the combined price of a mac mini plus studio display look like a bargain.
I agree if we get a bigger iMac it’s going to be a replacement for the iMac Pro not the regular 27”.
As someone who transitioned to iMac from pc in the early 2010s, the last thing I want is this life is to replace individual components, study their compatibility, follow the updates of videocards, etc. Apple should improve their trade-in system spreading it outside of the US to gather those outdated machines when the user is ready for replacement.
Expert analysis and explanation as always sir!
When looking at the Studio to replace the 27 inch iMac, I want to also get a nice monitor setup. I am surprised the XDR display is still so expensive and the Studio Display doesn't have higher refresh rates for that price. Still waiting that killer display that combines the 32 inch XDR display with high refresh rates for the price of the current Studio Display.
great video. I really liked your analysis
Great video guys.. Well researched and well written script 👍👍
You’re simply the best in this space.
Rarely have I watched a video and 14 minutes seemed like a minute.
I was in college for 3 years and used 2017 or 2019 27 inch iMacs in my lab every day. Though they are old machines they still can compete with lower production designs and even do some big boy stuff! For an IMac from this year to be able to run Unreal Engine along with stable diffusion is truly impressive and Apple is wise in not continuing this line of less wanted computers. They should also be very proud with how far this line went and what they where able to do with it. I think in the future if they found a way to make this thing WAY easier to fix and upgrade it has promise. Your claims with their display prices and prices in general are totally justified and it was overpriced when it launched too lol. Great vid!
As much as I don't like Apple, I have to respect them for making a 27 inch panel that still looks good 11 years on. So much so that my 2nd monitor in my setup is a 2012 iMac which I gutted and replaced the internals with an LCD driver board hooked up to the panel. It works fab and looks amazing
I'm still confused as to what to do now if I was waiting for the now never-to-arrive 27" upgraded iMac.
The biggest issue for me with the 24" is, that it just doesnt look nice paired with any second screen because of its white borders..
with the old imac you could easily put a studio display right next to it or any other 27", even 30 or 31 because of the chin on the imac work side by side.
but the 24" only works alone and that is not enough for my needs :(
Can iPhone and iPad output 4K@60Hz natively? Depending on iPad model it supports up to 4K, 5K or 6K but is there any scaling issue?