On October 13, Apple announced a new 21.5-inch 4K iMac, and updated its lineup of 27-inch 5K iMacs. With the new hardware, new reviews are now funneling in.
The new 21.5-inch iMac has been bumped up to a 4K display, which features a resolution of 4096×2304 and boasts 9.4 million pixels. Comparing that to the original 21.5-inch iMac, and that means there’s been an increase of 4.5 times more pixels in the new display. And, as Apple announced, there is a P3-based color gamut, which means the colors have better representation on the display.
The newly updated 5K 27-inch iMacs also got injected with the new P3-based color gamut, which means colors are better on those displays as well.
In the reviews, the new color gamut is practically universally praised, showcasing how much better the displays are in what is being called the “best all-in-one” desktop.
Here are quick looks at the reviews:
“Another addition that comes to both the 4K and 5K iMacs is a wider color gamut—previous iMacs used the sRGB color space, but the new Retina models support “over 99 percent” of the DCI-P3 color space common in digital movie theaters. DCI-P3 encompasses the entire sRGB color space but is capable of displaying more shades of red and green (which also affects secondary and tertiary colors like yellow, orange, magenta, and cyan, though blues in DCI-P3 are roughly the same as in sRGB).
To support this wider color gamut, Apple has switched away from using standard white LEDs for backlighting, which typically combine a blue LED with a yellow phosphor to create white. Apple is now using red-green phosphor LEDs to expand the color gamut…”
“Regardless of the size, both the 4K and 5K screens extend beyond the sRGB color gamut in the previous generation to the wider P3 range. It offers 25 percent more available colors, according to Apple, particularly in the red and green areas of the spectrum. Blues are about the same versus sRGB, but you’ll still theoretically notice a difference in cases where blues are combined with either reds or greens (say, purples and shades like cyan). To make this happen, Apple moved from white LEDs to red-green phosphor LEDs that can capture more red and green light to appear onscreen. Apple says it already covered 100 percent of sRGB in older iMacs, and moved to P3 because many of its customers are already using DSLRs and pro video cameras capable of capturing colors that aren’t always recognized in the sRGB spectrum.”
“But there’s more to the new iMac than just a higher resolution. The new Retina display supports the wider P3 color gamut versus the more common sRGB (standard Red/Green/Blue) version. Translated for the rest of us, that means the display can show more of the green and red color spectrum (blue, the third leg of the color triangle, is already fairly maxed out under RGB). Apple says it adds up to 25 percent more available colors to display.
P3 is the standard for digital cinema projection in theaters, and for certain photo professionals and film and video experts, this is potentially a big deal. For photo hobbyists, you’re unlikely to be able to appreciate the difference, as very little consumer-grade equipment is going to give you files that can take advantage of the wider P3 color gamut (some dSLR cameras, however, can). However, in side-by-side testing using some sample images, the effect was subtle but impressive, with richer reds and greens, and Apple’s photo apps as well as third-party programs such as Photoshop, all support color far beyond standard sRBG.”
“The upside of the new Fusion Drive configuration is that it makes the feature — and its faster response times — affordable for anyone. The downside is you don’t see speed improvements of documents and apps offloaded to the SSD as much because the cache is smaller.
For the average user, your hard disk performance is still going to be really strong — especially once OS X starts to sort of learn your habits. Still, if you’re ponying up the money for a new iMac, I would recommend going ahead and paying for either a larger Fusion Drive configuration or just going with a straight SSD upgrade.”
“Then there’s the power of the Retina display itself. Like last year’s 27-inch 5K model, the main feature of the 4K iMac is its beautiful display, powered by all sorts of amazing technologies that allow Apple to drive those 9.4 million pixels. If you’ve been through the Retina transition on an iPad or iPhone or MacBook, you know how much nicer a screen can be when you can’t see the pixels at all.
When four pixels are doing the work that only one used to do, the El Capitan interface really shines. Everything’s sharper. Photos look startlingly real, almost like they were printed on paper. And then there’s text, which looks razor sharp like it just rolled out of a laser printer. Even toolbars and Dock icons are more pleasant because all the on-screen graphics have added subtle details that were impossible at lower resolutions.”
“The new color capabilities may take more of an experienced eye to appreciate. The human eye and high-end cameras can see a wider range of colors than most LCD screens can reproduce. But in the last year, manufacturers have figured out how to amp up the color range (called gamut) even on consumer-level monitors and TVs.”
The main takeaway at this point is that the new displays in Apple’s updated iMacs are very impressive. Many reviews did note that having an optional, faster Fusion Drive wasn’t that positive, however, while others noted the lack of USB-C was a hefty omission.
Do you plan on picking up either one of the new iMacs?
[image via The Wall Street Journal]
