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Apple’s new 27-inch iMac also designed to work as an external display

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 · 4:04 pm · 38 Comments

“Apple has designed its new 27″ iMac model to serve as an external display for DisplayPort devices such as recent MacBook and MacBook Pros,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider.

“The high end iMac now supplies a screen larger and with significantly more pixels than [Apple's] standalone 24″ LED Cinema Display model (which for $899 sports a 1920×1200 resolution), providing a 2560×1440 native resolution nearly as large as the company’s 30″ Cinema Display HD (which delivers 2560×1600 but costs $1799),” McLean reports. “With all those pixels on the new 27″ iMac, Apple couldn’t resist giving users the option to use the screen for more than just the iMac (note that the 21.5″ iMacs do not support video input).”

McLean reports, “Being able to support DisplayPort input also opens the possibility for users to connect a Blu-Ray player, TV tuner, or other device to their iMac for non-computing display purposes. The wide screen display is now a cinematic 16:9 aspect ratio, the same as HDTVs.”

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Comment Feed

38 Comments

« Previous 1 2

ecrabb

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 5:45 pm · Reply

Man, what are you guys doing that you even need a MacPro anymore? An iMac, mini, or MacBook are great for everything but perhaps professionally (meaning all day) editing HD or 3D modeling/rendering. (Some even get by perfectly for those things). Is that what you guys are doing?

It’s crazy… You used to have to buy at the higher-end ($3500-4000, PLUS RAM and display) to do design or photo work efficiently. The $5000 for all that stuff was a lot more money back then, too!

But now, even the most basic computers are great if they’re decked out with RAM and drive space. A $2000 iMac is more than adequate for most people doing most things now, and even an $800 mini is an incredibly capable computer. Amazing.
AjaxBruno

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 6:00 pm · Reply

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displayport

DisplayPort is a royalty-free VESA standard that carries video, clock, and optional audio signals.

It can pass DVI and HDMI signals.

I have a buddy with a mini using a mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adapter to then connect to a LCD television. The aforementioned article suggests that it should work the other way, too.
G4Lives

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 6:15 pm · Reply

@John, hey I’m still using my 6 year old 15” Powerbook G4 as my main computer. I’m not sure what to upgrade to. I love my Firewire 400 & 800 ports too!
spyinthesky

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 6:58 pm · Reply

Sounds like this is designed to rather more than just a computer. Signs of things to come perhaps especially with that revolution.
mossman

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 7:10 pm · Reply

@Predrag,

You missed the part in my comment where the iMac’s computing components themselves were dead.

At $800 for out-of-warranty replacement service, about all it would be good for is a second screen.
Mike

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 7:35 pm · Reply

@ ecrabb

RAID storage, for one. also gotta have PCI cards for everything from multi-track audio editing to DVR capability. And no, external drive interfaces are not fast enough. great for photographers, bad for HD A/V content creators.

Your needs may vary, but there’s a reason that serious computer users choose the “overpriced” Mac Pro (or PowerMac, the prior workhorse).

that’s one difference between creators and fanboy consumers: creators actually need and will pay for horsepower, but they don’t flaunt the model year or clock speed or GPU part number for bragging purposes alone. Fanboys buy a large tin can and rear wing, then rev their engine at every stoplight, trying to tell everyone how impressive they think they are.
Jeff

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 8:01 pm · Reply

Could it be possible that we are moving towards the day when a person could have a MacBook Pro for home and travel and an iMac at work and use not only the iMac’s large, beautiful screen but also its 2 (or 4) processors in addition to the MacBook Pro’s? Seems a shame to use that screen from your MacBook Pro but have the processors sitting there doing nothing. Just a thought.
bkire

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 8:09 pm · Reply

I’ll wait until the iMac 27″ can come with SSD.
Trevor

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 11:03 pm · Reply

@bkire: “I’ll wait until the iMac 27″ can come with SSD.”

Why do that, when you can simply replace the original drive with a 10krpm drive in your iMac? I’ve done that with my past three iMacs. Works like a charm and is very much faster than the stock 7.2krpm drives. Besides, the 10krpm drives require less current and run 5˚C cooler than the Apple-supplied drives.
Darrell

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 12:35 am · Reply

Does this mean Apple may release a 30″ inch LED for desktops soon because the 27″inch iMac at 2560×1440 is pretty close to Apple 30 inch Cinema Display at 2560×1600 or do you guys think Apple may discontinued the 30 inch and replace it with either a 27 inch LED or go bigger 32″ LED for desktops?
DougC

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 3:39 am · Reply

Looks to me like Apple just launched their first TV.
Emil

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 5:11 am · Reply

Why wait for it to get SSD? Just replace the drive with an SSD. has anyone any experience in running os x on SSD? Does OS X support the trim() command on ssds?
I’ll be replacing my 30″ cinema display with a 27″ imac when the time comes but it’s working fine now so I can’t justify it
maybe...

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 9:18 am · Reply

iPhone/Touch + cables + iMac + remote = portable HD media server
Grrrilla

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 9:55 am · Reply

@Emil

Bad news for you – you will probably be waiting a decade or so for that 30″ display to crap out. I’m still using the original 22″ cinema display from almost 10 years ago.

But I, too, am hoping for a new 27-30 inch display for my next computer upgrade. It might be the iMac, although I was planning on the next Pro revision. The iMac would save me tons of bucks, obviously.

I’m looking forward to seeing some performance data. From what I’ve seen so far in the Pro line, the quad core chips tend to work faster than the octocores for most routine tasks because of the difference in processor speed. But that was before Snow Leopard. I haven’t yet seen anywhere that SL has improved that situation with Grand Central.
LiM

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 10:51 am · Reply

> Bad news for you – you will probably be waiting a decade or so for that 30″ display to crap out. I’m still using the original 22″ cinema display from almost 10 years ago.

You’re telling me… I have a barely used spare too! But I’ve been waiting for the follow up to the 30″. And waiting. And waiting. The one thing I don’t need is an iMac as a screen.
alansky

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 12:41 pm · Reply

@ecrabb:

I know dozens of people who own Mac Pro towers. To be perfectly honest, not one of them has a real need for such a monster. Most of those folks have never installed extra drives, PCI cards, or anything else. I guess they just feel powerful with all that muscle sitting next to their desks. Whatever rings your bell…
Grrrilla

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 2:24 pm · Reply

@LiM

Don’t think of it as an iMac as a screen. Think of it as a screen that’s an iMac. When you price it that way (compared, say, to the 24 inch cinema display plus a hard drive, plus a new Magic Mouse, plus a USB/FW hub) it actually comes close to making a lot of sense. Especially if you also happen to need to run Windows occasionally (but not necessarily on your main system) and don’t want to mess with rebooting in BootCamp, or with virtual machines in Parallels or VMWare. And the new Home Sharing feature of iTunes 9 makes this even more attractive.
coolbutnotenough

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 4:43 pm · Reply

This is AWESOME. But in typical Apple fashion they are going to really limit this feature that should have been on every single iMac since the beginning.

I have a 24inch and WISH I could do this with mine.