27 imac lcd panel quotation

Apple finally made the standalone 27-inch display we’ve all wanted since 2014. In the process, Apple retired the Intel 27-inch iMac without an Apple silicon-powered version planned for this year. Disappointing as that may be for fans of large all-in-one desktops, there’s a chance this could bode well for Apple’s display ambitions – or not.

For the sake of this argument, let’s set aside the 4.5K iMac (it doesn’t come with nano-texture) and 6K Pro Display XDR (it doesn’t come with a stand).

Apple Studio Display offers or includes each of these features, but the point is that Apple used hardware iterations of the iMac to include new enhancements to the screen.

These changes were never more than a couple years apart from being added. Compare that to the pace of Apple’s standalone display updates. In the eight years, Apple has far outpaced its independent display features with display features in the iMac.

So where does that bring us? Here’s the question I’m considering: Will Apple update the Studio Display with iterative display enhancements every two years or so, or was the release of iterative display enhancements driven by iMac hardware updates?

Only time will tell, but I wouldn’t consider a display model priced between the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR as satisfying the appetite for iterative display changes met by the last few years of iMacs.

But what about the next P3 color gamut or True Tone or optional nano-texture glass? Will features of this caliber that arrived in updated iMacs make their way to updated Studio Displays for around the same price in years to come?

Apple first introduced the iMac Pro five years ago at WWDC 2017. It then went on sale in December 2017. But the iMac Pro wasn’t long for this world: In March 2021 Apple announced that it was discontinuing the iMac Pro.

However, the iMac Pro might not be gone for good, there are reports that Apple could soon revive the old brand with a brand new iMac Pro. Read on to find out when it could launch and what features it might offer.

You might be thinking these rumours were laid to rest when Apple discontinued the 27in iMac in March 2022 – introducing the Mac Studio and Studio Display in its place. Is there a need for a new iMac Pro now the Mac Studio has arrived? We think there will always be room for a pro desktop with a large screen built in. Read more about the future of the iMac in 27in iMac discontinued, but not necessarily dead.

For some time there have been rumors that a new iMac model with a mini-LED screen with ProMotion technology is in the pipeline. There have been reports that Apple intends to revive the name iMac Pro for this new iMac.

Dylan wasn’t alone in his predictions about a new iMac Pro. Display analyst Ross Young also made many observations that a new iMac was coming based on sightings of 27-inch displays. Young later admitted that these sightings could have been in relation to the Studio Display, which subsequently launched. But while it’s feasible that the rumors pointing to this new iMac Pro were based on the Studio Display, the abundance of information related to a new iMac can’t be ignored.

Even Mark Gurman of Bloomberg has indicated that a new iMac Pro is still coming. In a January 2022 PowerOn Newsletter, Gurman wrote that: “The company [Apple] has a bevy of new pro Macs in the works based on the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips that are already inside the MacBook Pro. That includes a smaller Mac Pro with up to 40 CPU cores and 128 graphics cores, a new Mac mini, and a large-screened iMac Pro.”

Gurman was unfazed by the release of the Mac Studio and the removal of the 27in iMac from the line up following the March Apple event. He wrote in April 2022: “For those asking, I still think an iMac Pro is coming. It just won’t be anytime soon.”

Display analyst Ross Young tends to be in the loop with regards to Apple monitors could be on to something with this tweet from May 2022 in which he noted that the 27in MiniLED monitor has been delayed due to lockdowns in Shanghai. While it is feasible that this monitor isn’t destined for the new iMac, it could explain the delay:

Apple leak! The 27" MiniLED monitor has been delayed as it was going to be produced at Quanta in Shanghai which has been locked down. Production is in the process of being moved to a different location and has been delayed. It now looks like an October release.— Ross Young (@DSCCRoss) May 20, 2022

In his 31 July 2021 PowerOn newsletter Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggested that the new iMac Pro will have “a similar design to the current M1 iMac.” We think it likely that the iMac Pro will borrow some of its design inspiration from the 24in iMac. Apple offers the 24-inch iMac in several color choices, but there haven’t been reports on what color choices Apple will use for the iMac Pro. To create a differentiation between the consumer and pro levels, Apple may decide on different color choices like the iPhone Pro, or stick with the traditional silver like that on the 27-inch iMac or Space Gray like on the discontinued iMac Pro.

Another difference we could see on the larger iMac is dark bezels rather than a white border around the screen. Read Why we are disappointed in by the new iMac design. There may also be a notch as there is with the 14in and 16in MacBook Pro. This could allow Apple to extend the height of the screen as it has with these models.

Display analyst Ross Young and others have stated that the iMac Pro will have a 27-inch display, which we have to admit to being disappointed by. However, the observations about a 27-inch display may have referred to the Studio Display. There could still be a iMac with a larger display in the pipeline.

A larger display would certainly make the iMac Pro more attractive to potential buyers. Next to the 24in iMac, with its 4.5K display (4,480 x 2,520 pixels), the 27-inch iMac only looks slightly more impressive with its 5K display (5,120 x 2,880 pixels). But it’s not only the 24-inch iMac that the iMac Pro will be compared to – the 27-inch screen also doesn’t compare particularly favourably with many modern displays that are larger than 30-inch (including the 32-inch Apple Pro Display XDR).

Perhaps new screen technology will allow Apple to squeeze in more pixels into a 27-inch display, but we would like to see a 32-inch display on the new iMac Pro.

A larger display could be possible without increasing the size of the iMac significantly. The 27-inch iMac measures 25.6 inches wide, 20.3 inches tall, and 8 inches deep, and while Apple’s new design helps make the 24-inch iMac smaller than the 21.5-inch iMac it replaced, there isn’t that much of a difference in size (21.5 inches x 18.1 inches x 5.8 inches (with the stand) vs 20.8 inches x 17.7 inches x 6.9 inches).

The new iMac Pro wouldn’t actually need to be as big as the Pro Display XDR to offer a 6K display. A 30in display with smaller bezels could still accommodate the 6,016 x 3,384 pixels for Retina 6K resolution and a 6K iMac.

To get an idea of what we could expect with the display in the larger iMac, let’s look at what’s being used in the current iMac lineup, as well as the Pro Display XDR and Liquid Retina XDR in the MacBook Pro.

The upcoming larger iMac will have smaller bezels than the 27-inch iMac and iMac Pro, which could help the display reach a higher pixel density without having to make the display much bigger. A rumor by Ross Youngin October and a follow-up report in December claims that Apple will bring a Liquid Retina XDR display with “around 1,000 zones and over 4,000 mini-LEDs” to the iMac. That would be fewer than the 10,000 mini-LEDs in the iPad and the 8,000 mini-LEDs in the MacBook Pro, though it would likely be visually indistinguishable due to the size and viewing distance.

The 27-inch iMac used to ship with standard glass on the front of the display, but (for $300) Apple offered a nano-texture glass that provided a matte-like finish and did a good job of cutting down glare. Apple will probably continue to offer this with the new iMac Pro. As you can see above, it dramatically cuts down on the gloss and glare.

The Mac Studio is a great desktop Mac, but it offers only the choice of the M1 Max or M1 Ultra. There are desktop Mac users who would like to see a desktop Mac housing the M1 Pro. While this could be the future of the Mac mini model that currently offers an Intel chip, we’d like to see it in a iMac Pro.

The iMac’s slim profile is similar to the MacBook Pro, which indicates that the M1 Pro or the M1 Max will work well. In benchmarks, the M1 Pro and M1 Max processors have performed well against the discontinued 27in iMac and iMac Pro models. There is some doubt as to whether we will see the M1 Ultra (as seen in the Mac Studio) inside this Mac though due to the thermal management requirements.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in January 2022 that the iMac Pro would have “similar chips to the M1 Pro and M1 Max processors inside of the MacBook Pro.”

In the October 2021 tweet (above) Dylan suggested that there would be 16GB RAM as standard in the new iMac Pro. If the M1 Pro and M1 Max are included then that suggests that the new iMac will be able to support 64GB RAM, which is less than the 128GB RAM currently supported.

The current 27-inch iMac has RAM slots that are user-accessible. With Apple silicon, RAM is built into the SoC, and if Apple also insists on maintaining the thinness of the iMac, there’s a good chance that the RAM will not be user upgradable. However, Apple introduced options up to 64GB with the M1 Pro on the MacBook Pro, so we doubt memory will be an issue for pro users.

That would be an improvement on the 256GB offered in the entry-level 27in iMac prior to it being retired. But it would follow the pattern of the 2021 16in MacBook Pro which has 512GB and 1TB options for the standard machines (and 8TB as a build to order option, matching the 27in iMac).

The 24-inch iMac comes with two USB 3 ports, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a headphone jack. After Apple launched the MacBook Pro with HDMI and an SDXC card slot, rumors suggest the iMac will follow suit. The thin enclosure could be an issue, but Apple solved that issue on the 24-inch model by putting the headphone jack on the side. Apple could position the SD slot similarly to avoid making the iMac thicker. We doubt that Apple will keep USB-A ports around, however.

For the $1,499/£1,499 and $1,699/£1,699 24-inch iMac, Apple placed the ethernet port in the power adapter brick. The same power adapter is likely to be used for the larger iMac as well.

The 24-inch iMac and new MacBook Pro have improved FaceTime cameras that use the M1’s ISP to provide better image quality. That same FaceTime camera implementation is expected for the larger iMac Pro as well. A November leak suggested that it is possible that the camera could support Face ID, since True Depth references were spotted in macOS Big Sur, though the MacBook Pro doesn’t support Face ID despite having a wide notch. If it doesn’t have Face ID, it will likely have Touch ID built into the keyboard like the 24-inch iMac.

As for the price, it will likely fall in line with the pricing of the 27-inch iMac, which started at $1,799/£1,749 since Apple kept similar pricing to the 21.5-inch iMac when it launched the 24-inch model. It’s also possible that the price will be a bit higher, perhaps starting at over $2,000/£2,000, which would be more in line with Apple’s price increase for the higher-end MacBook Pro.

The Apple Studio Display is aimed at a very different audience, and with a $1,599 price tag it isn’t exactly pocket change, but it does something really important. Pair it with the freshly launched Mac Studio, and it finally decouples the screen from the computer. For a company that likes to shout about its environmental chops, it’s about damn time… The number of iMacs I’ve sold because the processor is slow as winter molasses while the screen is still in perfect shape has been a source of infinite frustration. Being able to upgrade just the screen or just the brains of the workstation, while staying within the Apple ecosystem, has been a long time coming.

Oh, yeah, and it has a screen, too. It packs in a 27-inch 5K retina display with 600 nits of brightness and an extra-wide color gamut. Its specs look suspiciously similar to those on the current-gen iMacs. The screen includes an all-aluminum enclosure, and Nano glass, which reduces reflections, is available as an option, as are various stands and mounting options, including a VESA mount option.

Enter the new Studio Display. With a design that strongly recalls 2011’s Thunderbolt Display and a name that harks back to its late-"90s namesake, the display is tailor-made for anyone who wanted the 5K screen from the dearly departed 27-inch iMac without the computer that was attached to it.

Apple had a consistent formula when transitioning to Retina displays: every new screen would have exactly four times as many pixels as the non-Retina screen it replaced. So the iPhone 3GS"s 480×320 screen became 960×640 in the iPhone 4, and the iPad 2"s 1024×768 screen was upgraded to 2048×1536 for the first Retina iPad. The first Retina Mac, the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro, used a 2880×1800 display that exactly quadrupled the previous generation"s 1440×900 screen, and when it finally released in 2014, the 5K iMac quadrupled the pixels of the original 27-inch iMac"s 2560×1440 screen. Advertisement

To help offset that downside and take advantage of Retina screens" additional density, Apple also added "scaled" display modes to Retina Macs. These scaling modes increase the apparent resolution of your Mac"s screen; Apple no longer needed to offer both a 1440×900 and a 1680×1050 display option for the MacBook Pro because you could scale its screen to looklike a 1680×1050 screen, with only a minor loss of detail. The GPU would draw your desktop at 3360×2100 and then scale it down to 2880×1800 to match the native resolution of the display panel. Many MacBooks, including the old 12-inch MacBook and some more recent Air and Pro models, actually shipped using a scaled display mode out of the box.

But one person"s "minor loss of detail" is another person"s "unacceptable loss of detail," and that"s why some people (particularly those doing graphics and publishing work) don"t like using 27-inch 4K monitors with their Macs. Compared to a 5K iMac, you either lose usable desktop space by running the monitor at its native, non-scaled 3840×2160 resolution, or you give up some detail by using a scaled 5K display mode.

Apple’s release of the Mac Studio—the company’s first completely new Mac line since the MacBook Air debuted in 2008—and Studio Display also seems to have triggered the end of what was likely the company’s most popular desktop Mac: the 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display (see “New Mac Studio and Studio Display Change Mac Buying Calculus,” 8 March 2022). At the close of Apple’s Peek Performance presentation, John Ternus summed up with:

If the Mac Pro is all that’s left, there’s no room for the 27-inch iMac. That immediately raised the question: If you have been waiting to purchase an Apple silicon 27-inch iMac, what are your options in a world that doesn’t include it? Some hold out hope that Apple will bring back a high-end all-in-one desktop Mac, perhaps with a 30- or 32-inch screen. However, sources tell 9to5Mac that Apple currently has no plans to release a large-screen iMac.

If you have to decide based on the Macs you can buy today, there are numerous good options. Pricing out comparable systems revealed that while the 27-inch iMac was in a sweet spot where price meets performance, other combinations of Apple gear come close. When the new options’ prices are higher, the associated performance and capabilities are also greater—a classic Apple technique for encouraging users to pay more. Plus, when you expand your thinking beyond a single purchase, the 27-inch iMac isn’t nearly as compelling.

Don’t assume I’m here to speak ill of the 27-inch iMac. Nothing could be further from the truth. But if Apple has no plans to update it with Apple silicon, we have to move on.

I’ve been a huge fan and promoter of the 27-inch iMac since it appeared in late 2014—I still remember visiting an Apple Store in Santa Monica with Michael Cohen and Tonya while en route to the MacTech Conference so I could see that screen in person. I ordered one immediately, spending $3150 for a 4.0 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD, plus another $900 for a 27-inch Thunderbolt Display. With tax, the package came to $4550, but that combination served me well (with a bump to 40 GB of RAM at some point) until early 2020. Then its internal SSD died, forcing me to boot with an external SSD and deal with increased flakiness (see “Six Lessons Learned from Dealing with an iMac’s Dead SSD,” 27 April 2020), so I was happy to replace it once Apple released what would turn out to be the final update. In August 2020, I bought a 2020 27-inch iMac with a 3.8 GHz eight-core Intel Core i7, 8 GB of RAM (again upgraded to 40 GB via OWC), and 1 TB of storage, for just under $3000.

I wasn’t alone. By mid-2015, Tonya had replaced her 2011 27-inch iMac (also paired with a 27-inch Thunderbolt Display) with an identical 2014 27-inch iMac, and when Josh Centers needed a new Mac, TidBITS bought him a 2014 27-inch iMac as well. Similarly, when my parents wanted to upgrade from an older iMac, they looked at my 27-inch iMac and bought one too. Tonya continues to use her 27-inch iMac to this day (and a 2019 model in her office at Cornell), and Josh used his until it became unbearably flaky in 2019, after which he sent it to me and replaced it with a 2019 model. Unable to stomach those lovely machines being unusable, I performed major surgery on both mine and Josh’s to replace the problematic SSDs—both are now fully functional again. In short, I adore the 27-inch iMac—when Tonya was working from home entirely during the pandemic, we had five of them in the house. (Know anyone who’d like to buy a nice 2014 27-inch iMac or two?)

The only real design problem with the 27-inch iMac has been the unbreakable connection of the actual Mac with that gorgeous screen. The 2014 27-inch iMac can’t upgrade to macOS 12 Monterey, and its ports are dated, but there’s no official way to use the screen with any other Mac. Target Display Mode never supported the 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display, and until a few months ago, no secondary-display technology supported the 27-inch iMac’s Retina resolution, rendering it no better than the old 27-inch Thunderbolt Display or any cheap 27-inch screen.

There is one possibility now. Astropad released an update to its Luna Display solution that supports 4K and 5K Retina screens, and I’m testing it now (see “Luna Display Turns a 27-inch iMac into a 5K Display,” 16 March 2022). In short, it works, but there are tradeoffs.

Let’s assume for the moment that you have to replace your existing computing setup right away—a fire, flood, or burglary has left you with an insurance check and license to shop. (You do have online or offsite backups, right?) As a fan of the 27-inch iMac, you probably want to replicate its 5K Retina display with the new Studio Display.

What makes the decision of how to replace a 27-inch iMac hard is that any current Apple silicon Mac could fit the bill, depending on your needs and budget. That’s because even the least-expensive M1-based Macs outperform all 27-inch iMacs in single-core benchmarks. While M1-based Macs aren’t as fast as the top two 27-inch iMac models in multi-core benchmarks, they still best the low-end model. Move up to a Mac with an M1 Pro or M1 Max (or an M1 Ultra, though we don’t have benchmarks there yet), and the Apple silicon Macs handily dust every Intel-based Mac except a Mac Pro or iMac Pro with 16 or more cores. In other words, if keeping the cost down is more important to you than performance, any M1-based Mac will suffice. When performance matters, the decision depends on how much you want to spend and your portability desires.

The table includes both models of the 24-inch iMac because its 7-core GPU option is notably cheaper. It doesn’t include the 7-core GPU model of the MacBook Air because it is only $50 less.

All Macs in the table are configured with 512 GB of SSD storage. That requirement eliminates the low-end 3.1 GHz 27-inch iMac, which was available only with 256 GB of internal SSD storage. It would have been $300 less than the 3.3 GHz model.

Since the M1 family’s unified memory is more efficient than separate RAM for Intel-based Macs, I configured the 27-inch iMac with 32 GB of RAM to estimate a comparable configuration. Previously, I would have recommended buying 8 GB and supplementing with less expensive third-party RAM—probably 24 GB total—but that’s no longer an option for any Mac and thus not a fair comparison.

With the chart in hand, I can now make some recommendations for different people and situations. Apart from the 24-inch iMac, I’m assuming that all of these include a Studio Display.

You’re on a very limited budget. The 24-inch iMac with the 7-core GPU option is by far the best option if you want to stay entirely within the Apple world. It’s cheaper than a 27-inch iMac would ever have been, with great performance. Its screen—actually 23.5 inches diagonal—isn’t as large, but in terms of resolution, it’s close: 4480-by-2520 compared to the 27-inch iMac’s 5120-by-2880. A consultant I know recently reported that he replaced all the 27-inch iMacs in a medium-sized law firm with 24-inch iMacs, and the pre-swap disappointment disappeared within a week. You might be able to save some money by buying an $1100 Mac mini paired with a larger 4K display, but the Studio Display’s screen quality and resolution will almost certainly be better.

You want an inexpensive desktop Mac. The obvious answer here is the Mac mini paired with a Studio Display. The performance won’t be any different from the 24-inch iMac, but the Studio Display is bigger, better, and more flexible. Many people have speculated that a future Mac mini will come with an option for an M1 Pro for more desktop performance that doesn’t edge into the Mac Studio’s price range.

For the most part, a current Mac combined with a Studio Display costs more than a 27-inch iMac. However, keep in mind that the Studio Display has a significantly better webcam, mic, and speakers than a 27-inch iMac, so you are getting more for your money in that regard.

Of course, if you were buying 27-inch iMacs on those schedules, you would be replacing the screen each time, even though it’s unlikely to have degraded in any way. Basing your setup around a Studio Display, however, enables you to swap Macs multiple times. How long will the Studio Display remain useful? It’s impossible to know, but since Apple stuck with the same panel as in the 27-inch iMac, which has been around for over 7 years, I would suggest that 10–12 years might be a reasonable lifespan for a high-quality display.

The table is sorted by the price of purchasing two Macs with a Studio Display, but as you can see, the more Macs you end up using with it, the more cost-effective it is. The 24-inch iMac and 27-inch iMac aren’t as much of a bargain as they are in a standalone purchase because you keep paying for the screen. I’m assuming that prices won’t change, but even if they do, they’ll likely change in concert throughout the Mac line. One number that I’m not considering above is how much you’d make from selling your used Mac; there are just too many variables to include in a sensible way.

Perhaps I’m unusual in this regard, but I have always paired my 27-inch iMac with a 27-inch Thunderbolt Display because the dual-display approach is essential for my productivity. So if I were to replace my 27-inch iMac and Thunderbolt Display with a comparable setup, I’d need to buy a pair of Studio Displays. The choice of Mac remains open, but let’s look at how adding $1600 to the cost of each current Mac changes the table.

Although the relative positions stay the same, you’ll notice that the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro disappear from the table. That’s because they support only a single external display. The 24-inch iMac can drive both its built-in screen and a Studio Display—and it can even run them at the same resolution to avoid a stair-stepped Desktop—so it sticks around, even if the pairing might not be that elegant. The Mac mini sticks around as well, but with an asterisk, because it can run only one Studio Display at its full 5K resolution; the second one would have to be connected via HDMI and would be limited to 4K.

This table shows that achieving a dual-display setup with current Apple gear will cost quite a bit more than it would have with a 27-inch iMac. The same caveats about the Studio Display being a better, more flexible monitor still apply, but I think there’s one more scenario to play out. With the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro options, you’re getting both a third screen—more pixels, if you can find room for everything on your desk—and the capability of using that Mac away from your home or office.

Apart from that 24-inch iMac, which continues to be a stunning deal, bringing the need for a laptop into the equation biases the decision toward laptop-only options. The MacBook Air suddenly looks really good, and even the 14-inch M1 Pro-based MacBook Pro is cheaper than the low-end 27-inch iMac plus a MacBook Air, while the 16-inch M1 Pro-based MacBook Pro is just $50 more.

It’s easy to look at the prices in the various tables above and think, “Wow, that’s a lot of money to spend all at once!” But remember, you don’t have to upgrade everything simultaneously. Since I bought both my latest 27-inch iMac and MacBook Air in 2020, they’re likely to meet my needs for quite some time. However, I could upgrade my secondary display from a 2014 Thunderbolt Display to a snazzy new Studio Display. (The Studio Display isn’t compatible with all Macs, but most Macs released in 2016 or later will work as long as they’re running the soon-to-be-released macOS 12.3 Monterey.)

Then, in a year or three, perhaps after Apple has beefed up the Mac mini with an M1 Pro, or when the entire line has been refreshed with M2 versions of the chips, I’ll revisit the decision and see if it makes sense to trade in my 27-inch iMac for a Mac mini or Mac Studio with a second Studio Display. Or maybe I’d swap both my Macs for a 14-inch MacBook Pro and see if I even needed a second Studio Display.

I’m sure you’re in a different situation, but as much as it’s sad to say goodbye to the 27-inch iMac, Apple’s current Mac lineup has something for nearly everyone who’s not waiting for an Apple silicon Mac Pro. The main hole right now is between the current M1-based Mac mini and the M1 Max-based Mac Studio. If rumors are to be believed, Apple may release an upgraded Mac mini to fill the gap later this year.