Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Rumored to Launch 27-Inch Mini-LED iMac With ProMotion in Early 2022 [Updated]
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Ross is very accurate. Hoping to see the new bigger iMac soon. Would be really nice if it came in colours similar to the 24” iMac. Also wishing the price would not be far off from the starting price of the current 27” iMac. I think Apple will price it starting at $1999.
Apple don’t seem to be committed to using standard panel sizes and resolutions these days - if you look at the 24” iMac and the new MBPs they’re quite happy to go for odd resolutions in order to hit the required PPI. So we could see a ~5.5k screen somewhere between 27 and 32“.
Yes, there will be a notch. This has become similar to the “thin” craze that Apple went through with iPhones, where every year the next iteration had to be thinner even if only by a few tenths of a millimeter. And battery life and phone bending problems, including screen failures be dammed. Now the phones have gotten a little thicker and battery life and phone rigidity have both improved. Not just because of phones being thicker but that didn’t hurt.
Phones are physically small, and putting a bezel to mount cameras and security sensors increased the phone size when phones were already getting very large. Saving 10 mm ( a little bit more than 3/8ths of an inch) when you are trying to keep the controls usable with one hand meant something. A laptop or desktop isn’t in the same category. Your keyboard/mouse/trackpad’s reach isn’t affected by your screen size. The only reason to notch is esthetics, you don’t want a bezel on the sides or the top. Not because of functionality but because of looks. In all likelihood there won’t be a chin on the bottom unless they are forced to have one.
My phone notch has never bothered me. Looking at it, a computer screen notch, especially one not counted as part of the screen dimensions doesn’t visually bother me either. But we’ve already had a couple of threads and lots of comments in all the new laptop comments raging about the notch, instead of talking about what’s right or wrong or exciting or expensive about the M1X architecture itself. The notch doesn’t serve a purpose on the laptops other than removing the necessity of a top bezel. Until there is a reason to not have a border it’s the computer equivalent of making an iPhone thinner every year.
If they keep the same relative proportions as the 24” iMac then the case could be thicker, in absolute terms, than the 24” and maybe accommodate the electronics behind the display rather than needing a chin. Imagine the new 16” MBP, closed, with the screen back-to-front, stretched out to 28” or so diagonally, on a stick... that’s still going to look fairly slim, contain all the electronics (plus, it can lose the battery and keyboard) and not need a chin.
The question is, thermals, but the M1 Pro is still peanuts compared to the old i9 space heater, and there’s a huge expanse of aluminium back panel to spread the heat.
Counterpoint: 27 inches is too big for me, because 2 displays > 1, even if the one is 32 inches.
An iMac with the same display size but shrunk bezels so it takes up less desk space is far more attractive a machine for me.
The MacBook Pros have exactly a 0.1 mm dot pitch. That means exactly 100 pixels per cm. If anything, that's the most standardized metric screen density they've ever had!
For my 27" I'm not too impressed with its 5120x2880 resolution. I find that at 2X Retina, the default fonts are a bit small, and if you scale it, the sizes are odd and fonts are fuzzy, the latter because its pixel density is not high enough. Its ppi is 218, which means it's the equivalent of 109 ppi on a non-Retina display. Presumably the 32" XDR has the same issue although I haven't seen one in person. The other problem with my 27" is the huge chin.
I like the default font sizing of my 30" 2560x1600 Cinema HD Display better. It's 101 ppi, which means its default fonts are larger, and it seems just about perfect for macOS. I'd love to see either a lower ppi iMac at 200 ppi (which definitely won't happen), or else a higher ppi iMac which makes fonts less fuzzy when scaled with additional standard scaling options (but that won't happen either). The other benefit with the Cinema Display is that it has no chin, so the screen sits lower closer to the table, making it more ergonomic.
At this point I'm guessing the next iMac will be 27" 5120x2880 at 218 ppi, just now with mini-LED, etc. It will retain the chin, perhaps less pronounced, but a chin nonetheless. If I'm right, I'm definitely not buying. I'd strongly consider an updated Mac mini though. (The M1 Mac mini has too few ports, and the design is kinda stale now after over a decade.)
Last edited:
Typical response from the ‘never satisfied, always disappointed’ mindset.
I don’t get the preoccupation, the OCD about the ‘notch’. Sounds like a red herring or straw man the haters like to drag around with them.
I still dislike the notch on my iPhone. I'm used to it now, but I don't like it. However, that's mainly because of two reasons that don't apply to the iMac. 1) No battery life percentage display. 2) Video is notched when watching in landscape mode. Even after a year, I still find it annoying.
But like I said, neither of these two complaints apply to the Mac.
If you're right I'm definitely buying! 😃 30" with also ~218 ppi would be nice, but 27" is fine for me.
Yeah! I would love a space gray iMac with a deep red back. But I believe they will come in silver and space gray just like the MacBook Pros.
I think with the price you will be right.
Don’t forget, there’s still the down firing speakers which will likely need to be at the bottom.
But frankly, I think the chin is a given even if they were able to put the electronics behind the display.
It’s all branding at this point. A visual cue making it recognizable from afar.
How about an Apple mesh wireless system with massive storage like the old time capsules? Network storage on a wireless system "that just works?"
Currently I pair my 5K iMac with a Dell 32" 4k 'curved' monitor. Whether curved or flat; with the narrow bezels the total space taken is insignificantly larger on a desk. Hence, as a 24" iMac exists now, a 27" is insufficiently larger to distinguish it. I suspect Apple knows this, and thus despite the 'expert' rumor of 27"; let's hope the iMac is 32".. not just because it will match the size of my 2nd monitor; but it's entirely logical for times we're in; including remote working as well as creative professional users.
Agree...However, as soon as one slaps the Apple logo on it, starting price increases by a MINIMUM of $1000 !...LOL
8K uptake will be slower than 4K. We’re running into diminishing returns. The visual difference between 8K and 4K is less than the difference between 4K and 1080p, which is less than the difference between 1080p and 480. The real advantage of 8K is that it will allow editors to pan and scan within a frame. To some extent, that’s true right now for 4K.
Eh, back in the day it was 1/72" and we was happy... (So one pixel was one printer's point - but only because Adobe and Apple standardised the point as 1/72")
I think that falls under "you can please some people some of the time" although I'm trying to reconcile thinking that the default font is too small with being able to spot the fuzziness in scaled mode. I find both the larger-text and smaller-text scaled modes pretty good depending on how new my glasses are at the time... plus, honestly, the 5k iMac is still comfortably ahead of the game in a world where most of the PC world hasn't bothered with 5k displays and is using 4k at most. My feeling is that 5k would stretch to at least 28" (given that I have a 28" 4k display next to my iMac and although the colour is rubbish c.f. the iMac, it's not bad in terms of sharpness).
The real problem is the lack of choice of default font sizes in MacOS when outline font managers can render crisp text at any size. Windows, for example, has, since forever, let you specify the desired PPI and properly-written software that calls the proper size/coordinate transformation routines will respect it. Yeah, the "properly written" bit is the fly in that ointment... but in some ways, Windows deals with high-PPI screens better (in other ways, not so much).
I was hoping that the mini wouldn't come out as it would have been hard not to buy one and I want to play with the MacBook Pro for a while to see how it fits into my setup. The iMac coming out would provide another option. I would consider the large iMac in M1 if the screen presents an irresistible value. I have enough monitors as it is but two of them are getting old and are relatively low-res and it would be interesting to replace a QHD + WSXGA set with a 5k iMac.
The issue with the monitor is that prices for monitors are crazy high. If those go down by 50% or more, then it would make more sense to go with a mini for me. I don't need more than 4k.
A mini would provide more configuration flexibility overall though.
The issue with the monitor is that prices for monitors are crazy high. If those go down by 50% or more, then it would make more sense to go with a mini for me. I don't need more than 4k.
A mini would provide more configuration flexibility overall though.
It could be, without a doubt. But it won't be. It is no accident that Apple doesn't sell an affordable monitor that has all the technology of the built-in displays on Macs.
I would love that as a standalone monitor for the MBP I just ordered. Would be a dream come true.