The Apple iMac with Retina display looks brilliant. I mean, of course it does: There are just too many freaking pixels here (and too much of Apple’s reputation for excellence) for it to be anything but stellar.
If you ask me, it’s pretty jaw-dropping. I stared slack-jawed at the owl in the picture above for a good 10 seconds before I remembered there was work to be done.
And to let you appreciate as much of it the 5K display from a distance as you possibly can: find some hastily-shot 5K pictures straight from my camera below! You’ll probably need to hit that little “Expand” button at the corner of the picture and download them to your computer to get the full impact.
Take particular note of the gorgeous blue Paris scene… how bright and beautiful it still looks from an angle far off center, and how much detail you can still get when you bring your eye right up close to the screen. See that zoomed-in picture of the famous Arc de Triomphe? It’s not exactly zoomed! I didn’t zoom in with the computer or take a crop of one of my photos: that’s me extending my camera lens to its full zoom in front of the screen. In other words, it’s what you’d see with your eyeball when you get close to this crazy 5K panel.
I didn’t get a chance to edit any photos or video on the new iMac, but I can see how it could make a difference for those professionals: you can see so much detail, so much colour without spending any time scrolling a mouse wheel to zoom and pan. You can simply move your head to get a better look.
Barring any hidden flaws, it’s pretty crazy that Apple can offer a computer with this display this incredible for $US2,499. Dell charges that same price for a 5K monitor all by its lonesome.
No, it’s not a touchscreen.