21.5-inch iMac (Late 2013) Review: Iris Pro Driving an Accurate Display
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 7, 2013 3:28 AM ESTFinal Words
Apple continues to have the strongest Mac lineup of its history. While I’m expecting something pretty cool with Broadwell next year, Apple’s Haswell Mac lineup continues to be an evolutionary improvement over the systems that were introduced last year.
The iMac’s industrial design is beautiful. I’m not sure I’m happy with the bezel thickness around the display, but otherwise I’m happy with the way Apple’s 2012 redesign turned out. Particularly with the 21.5-inch model, the compactness of the new iMac is pretty awesome. It’s a lot like the benefits of having a lightweight LCD TV - you only appreciate it when you have to move the thing, but it’s nice to have regardless of how rarely you move it.
Although I didn’t talk about this in the review, the in box wireless peripherals both work well. Combined with the fact that you can get 500Mbps file transfers over 802.11ac (over short distances, with Mavericks), you can really use the iMac with only a single cable and be pretty happy. Toss in Apple’s new 802.11ac Airport Extreme and you’ll have great wireless range as well.
The iMac’s out of box display experience is nothing short of incredible. Imaging professionals in dire need of color accuracy can walk into an Apple store, walk out with the entry-level iMac and have a remarkable experience. I’d love to see a higher resolution panel, but 4K panel pricing isn’t quite low enough yet (not to mention the possibility of Apple wanting to go 5K on its 27-inch display).
I wouldn’t touch either of the iMacs in their default configuration. Thankfully the upgrade to Fusion Drive or an SSD starts at $200, and is a must have. Fusion Drive remains the only solid state hybrid solution I’d touch. If you need a single volume, it’s absolutely the way to go.
CPU performance of the entry-level iMac really is very good. Power users can stand to go for one of the higher-end configurations, particularly if you’re running heavily threaded workloads. Lighter users should enjoy really good single threaded performance out of the base configuration however.
The entry-level iMac offers better integrated graphics performance than we’ve ever seen before, but true gamers will want to spring for a discrete GPU. Iris Pro under OS X (non-gaming) works well and I couldn’t really tell that I wasn’t using discrete graphics.
Thermals aren’t a concern with the base 21.5-inch iMac. The Core i5-4570R had no issues turbo-ing up to 3.0/3.1GHz on a regular basis, and the system fan never ramped up beyond 1400RPM during my testing. Overall the new 21.5-inch iMac is a very compact, cool and quiet machine. The 21.5-inch model in particular is an easy recommendation for anyone looking to get into a Mac desktop. Just make sure to order it with a Fusion Drive or SSD.
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elian123 - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Anand, could you perhaps indicate when you would expect higher-res iMac displays (as well as pc displays in general, not only all-in-ones)?solipsism - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Before that happens Apple will likely need to get their stand-alone Apple display "high-res". I don't expect it to go 2x like avery other one of their display; instead I would suspect it to be 4K, which is exactly 1.5x over the current 27" display size. Note that Apple mentioned 4K many times when previewing the Mac Pro.Also, the most common size for quality 4K panels appears to be 31.5" so I would't be surprised to see it move to that size. When the iMacs are to get updated I think each would then most likely use a slightly larger display panel.
mavere - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
~75% of the stock desktop wallpapers in OSX 10.9 are at 5120x2880.It's probably the biggest nudge-nudge-wink-wink Apple has ever given for unannounced products.
name99 - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Why does Apple have to go to exactly 4K? We all understand the point, and the value, of going to 2x resolution. The only value in going to exactly 4K is cheaper screens (but cheaper screens means crappy lousy looking screens, so Apple doesn't care).jasonelmore - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
4k is 16:9 ratio, to do a 16:10 right, they would have to do 5krepoman27 - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
iMacs have been 16:9 since 2009, and 3840x2400 (4K 16:10) panels have been produced in the past and work just fine.repoman27 - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Apple is pretty locked in to the current screen sizes and 16:9 aspect ratio by the ID, and I can only imagine they will stick with the status quo for at least one more generation in order to recoup some of their obviously considerable design costs there.Since Apple sells at best a couple million iMacs of each form factor in a year’s time, they kinda have to source panels for which there are other interested customers—we’re not even close to iPhone or iPad numbers here. Thus I’d reckon we’ll see whatever panels they intend to use in future generations in the wild before those updates happen. As solipsism points out, the speculation that there will be a new ATD with a 31.5”, 3840x2160 panel released alongside the new Mac Pro makes total sense because other vendors are already shipping similar displays.
I actually made a chart to illustrate why a Retina iMac was unlikely anytime soon: http://i.imgur.com/CfYO008.png
I listed the size and resolution of previous LCD iMacs, as well as possible higher resolutions at 21.5” and 27”. Configurations that truly qualify as "Retina" are highlighted in green, and it looks as though pixel doubling will be Apple’s strategy when they make that move. I also highlighted configurations that require two DP 1.1a links or a DP 1.2 link in yellow, and those that demand four DP 1.1a links or two DP 1.2 links in red for both standard CVT and CVT with reduced blanking. Considering Apple has yet to ship any display that requires more than a single DP 1.1a link, and all of the Retina options at 27" are in the red is probably reason alone that such a device doesn't exist yet.
I also included the ASUS PQ321Q 31.5" 3840x2160 display, and the Retina MacBook Pros as points of comparison to illustrate the pricing issues that Retina iMacs would face. While there are affordable GPU options that could drive these displays and still maintain a reasonable degree of UI smoothness, the panels themselves either don't exist or would be prohibitively expensive for an iMac.
name99 - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
OR what you chart tells us is that these devices will be early adopters of the mythical (but on its way) DisplayPort 1.3?Isn't it obvious that part of the slew of technologies to arrive when 4K hits the mainstream (as opposed to its current "we expect you to pay handsomely for something that is painful to use" phase will be an updated DisplayPort spec?
repoman27 - Monday, October 7, 2013 - link
Unlike HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2 can handle 4K just fine. I'd imagine DP 1.3 should take us to 8K.What baffles me is that every Mac Apple has shipped thus far with Thunderbolt and either a discrete GPU or Haswell has been DP 1.2 capable, but the ports are limited to DP 1.1a by the Thunderbolt controller. So even though Intel is supposedly shipping Redwood Ridge which has a DP 1.2 redriver, and Falcon Ridge which fully supports DP 1.2, we seem to be getting three generations of Macs where only the Mac Pros can actually output a DP 1.2 signal.
Furthermore, I don't know of any panels out there that actually support eDP HBR2 signaling (introduced in the eDP 1.2 specification in May 2010, clarified in eDP 1.3 in February 2011, and still going strong in eDP 1.4 as of January this year). The current crop of 4K displays appear to be driven by converting a DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2 signal that uses MST to treat the display as 2 separate regions into a ridiculously wide 8 channel LVDS signal. Basically, for now, driving a display at more than 2880x1800 seems to require multiple outputs from the GPU.
And to answer your question about why 4K, the problem is really more to do with creating a panel that has a pixel pitch somewhere in the no man's land between 150 and 190 PPI. Apple does a lot of work to make scaling decent even with straight up pixel doubling, but the in-between pixel densities would be really tricky, and probably not huge sellers in the Windows market. Apple needs help with volume in this case, they can't go it alone and expect anything short of ludicrously expensive.
name99 - Tuesday, October 8, 2013 - link
My bad. I had in mind the fancier forms of 4K like 10 bits (just possible) and 12 bit (not possible) at 60Hz, or 8bit at 120Hz; not your basic 8 bits at 60Hz. I should have filled in my reasoning.