“Confirming the rumors, in October Apple launched a 27-inch iMac with a 5K display. That’s one step above 4K, which is the sharper definition format that’s now available on a TV,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “What this means in practice is 14.7 million pixels that have to be generated by graphics hardware with a reasonable degree of snappiness and fluidity, and that’s a tall order.”
“When I asked Apple if they had a loaded iMac 5K for me to review, they said that the custom or CTO versions weren’t available — the demand has been incredible — but they could let me have the bottom-line model for a few weeks. I accepted… Apple also sent along a Thunderbolt to FireWire 800 adapter, so I could attach my backup drives and get up and running in short order. Well, not that short. After a swift startup routine, I had to wait over four hours for nearly 500GB of files to be moved over from the backup drive via Apple’s Migration Assistant.,” Steinberg writes. “Most everything seemed fast and fluid, even the Finder, and the 5K display was just awesome. I was even able to read text with only slight difficulty without my reading glasses, and that’s one huge achievement. With reading glasses in place, the text seemed to pop. Well, at least with apps optimized for a Retina display.”
“The iMac 5K is mighty tempting. It’s not cheap, but neither was my late 2009 iMac once it was optioned with a faster processor and beefier graphics,” Steinberg writes. “Even if you have a standard 27-inch iMac in your sights, the extra $700 that you pay above the entry model to go 5K is not so costly when you consider the marvelous display all by itself. If the current backlogs at Apple indicates demand more than the difficulty building these beasts, it would seem that Apple has yet another hit on its hands.”
Much more in the full article here.