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Buying advice: Old 2009-2013 iMac as a secondary screen for photo editing with Macbook Pro 2020

H

hunk143

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 30, 2012
17
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Hi,

I have a Macbook Pro 2020 13 inch and i use it mainly for photo editing. I used to edit photos on my 17 inch 2019 Asus ROG but the colour accuracy of Macbook pro is great.
But 13 inch screen isn’t that helpful tbh.
So i was thinking of buying a budget monitor and i thought why not grab a 100$ iMac 2009-2013.
Is an old iMac’s color calibration and screen quality good enough for photo editing? Mainly Photoshop and Lightroom.
‘Cos my 17 inch ASUS ROG is sRGB but it’s not good enough.
Any advice would be helpful. Thank you.
 
Not going to work, without taking it apart, spending more money and hacking it with a display input board.

Apple's official Target Display Mode would have worked, as long as you keep the iMac on High Sierra or earlier, but the source Mac has to be from 2019 (and run Catalina) and earlier.

Although target display mode is interesting, it's really inefficient. You're basically running the iMac as a full computer, drawing 100+ watts, even though you're just really using the screen. So heat and extra energy used could be a concern.
 
BeatCrazy said:
Not going to work, without taking it apart, spending more money and hacking it with a display input board.

Apple's official Target Display Mode would have worked, as long as you keep the iMac on High Sierra or earlier, but the source Mac has to be from 2019 (and run Catalina) and earlier.
Click to expand...

Wouldn’t this method work?
 
I had a couple of iMacs from the years you're asking about......screen quality was crap compared to newer displays.
 
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hunk143 said:
So i was thinking of buying a budget monitor and i thought why not grab a 100$ iMac 2009-2013.
Click to expand...
Even if Target Display Mode would work with your MacBook Pro, it doesn't turn the iMac into a monitor. The whole computer needs to run all the time to pass the video signal from Mini DisplayPort through to the 27" display. So you always have the heat, fan noise and power consumption of a 45 or 32 nm Intel "Lynnfield", "Clarkdale" or "Sandy Bridge" processor.

If you're willing to buy a used iMac, why not pick up a cheap 24" M1 iMac? Its 11 million pixels and P3 colors are ideal for photo editing and it would be way more than just a monitor. A very capable and silent desktop computer that can serve you the next decade.
 
BeatCrazy said:
Apple's official Target Display Mode would have worked, as long as you keep the iMac on High Sierra or earlier, but the source Mac has to be from 2019 (and run Catalina) and earlier.
Click to expand...
DisplayPort Target Display Mode — which is used by 2009/2010 27” iMacs — isn’t subject to that restriction. I’ve tested it.
 
If you want the panel those iMacs used, a 27” Cinema Display or a 27” Thunderbolt Display is an excellent option. The latter is still fully supported by macOS…
 
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Gudi said:
Even if Target Display Mode would work with your MacBook Pro, it doesn't turn the iMac into a monitor. The whole computer needs to run all the time to pass the video signal from Mini DisplayPort through to the 27" display. So you always have the heat, fan noise and power consumption of a 45 or 32 nm Intel "Lynnfield", "Clarkdale" or "Sandy Bridge" processor.

If you're willing to buy a used iMac, why not pick up a cheap 24" M1 iMac? Its 11 million pixels and P3 colors are ideal for photo editing and it would be way more than just a monitor. A very capable and silent desktop computer that can serve you the next decade.
Click to expand...
I’ve already invested in Macbook Pro and Asus ROG.
I was only looking for a bigger screen to connect to my macbook pro. The iMac from 2013 are selling for 200$
 
Amethyst1 said:
DisplayPort Target Display Mode — which is used by 2009/2010 27” iMacs — isn’t subject to that restriction. I’ve tested it.
Click to expand...
So will it connect to my Macbook Pro 2020?
But the other question is whether their screen is worth the investment for the photo editing
FNH15 said:
If you want the panel those iMacs used, a 27” Cinema Display or a 27” Thunderbolt Display is an excellent option. The latter is still fully supported by macOS…
Click to expand...

No, i want to connect it to my macbook pro. I don’t own a iMac.
I was just looking for a cheaper secondary screen for my Macbook Pro
 
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Amethyst1 said:
DisplayPort Target Display Mode — which is used by 2009/2010 27” iMacs — isn’t subject to that restriction. I’ve tested it.
Click to expand...
I've tested it too, didn't work. I have a 2009 iMac 27" and tried with High Sierra on the iMac, and 2018 MBP Monterey as a source.
 
The Late 2009 to Mid 2010 27" iMacs will workwith Target Dusplay Mode. You need a USB-C to Mini DisplayPort cable.

The Late 2012 to Late 2013 (2014 for the 21") TB iMacs will only do Target Display Mode with other Intel Macs with Thunderbolt.

Actually, the Late 2009 to Mid 2010 27" iMacs can be used as displays for non-Apple devices, I think anything with DisplayPort output can use those iMacs as a display.


As for if it is worth the investment, the display will look really good compared to even some mid-range modern displays, but the iMac will also use a lot more energy.
 
BeatCrazy said:
I've tested it too, didn't work. I have a 2009 iMac 27" and tried with High Sierra on the iMac, and 2018 MBP Monterey as a source.
Click to expand...
How do you enable Target Displat Mode on the Mini DispkayPort iMacs?

If it is anything like the Thunderbolt iMacs, I have tried and failed pressing the hey combo, can't remember it at the moment, only to find out that the Keyboard was the issue. I was using an Apple Keyboard, but not the OEM for that year of the iMac. I got out the original Keyboard for theiMac and tested Target Display Mode with that, and it worked right away.
 
So basically it will work but it will take a lot of power and not worth the effort as the screen is horrible.
Thank you all.
 
Juicy Box said:
How do you enable Target Displat Mode on the Mini DispkayPort iMacs?

If it is anything like the Thunderbolt iMacs, I have tried and failed pressing the hey combo, can't remember it at the moment, only to find out that the Keyboard was the issue. I was using an Apple Keyboard, but not the OEM for that year of the iMac. I got out the original Keyboard for theiMac and tested Target Display Mode with that, and it worked right away.
Click to expand...
Same way as the Thunderbolt iMacs. Yes an OEM keyboard helps.
 
hunk143 said:
not worth the effort as the screen is horrible.
Click to expand...
“Horrible” is relative, but I don’t think there are many people that think the iMacs’ displays are bad.

I personally think the display looks gorgeous compared to even new mid-range displays.
 
I used a 2010 iMac in target display mode for a while. It is inefficient, but it wasn't horrible. It didn't heat up the room or anything, like the CRTs used to do. However, I wouldn't recommend it. I found it to be marginally unreliable. Not so much as to whether it lit up and you could work, but stupid edge case problems like occasionally it would not wake after the "host" computer had been asleep, or every once in a while the color profile would get reset to default, stuff like that. The color profile thing I never tracked down why, and once it was known it was a pretty simple matter to reset it, but it wasn't off by a whole lot, so it was easy to miss - until some print didn't come out quite right. More embarrassing one of my editors returned one image and asked if I had a color calibration problem...

Photography is hard enough when your tools aren't adding extra obstacles. These days, a good monitor (for photographers) doesn't need to cost a terribly large amount, I wouldn't recommend going off on a snipe hunt just to save $100-$200 on a monitor. You'll probably use a good monitor for longer than a good computer.
 
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When the internal 1TB HDD in my 2013 21" iMac started to fail, I cloned the drive to an external 1TB SSD and booted from that and continued using it (amazingly faster than original). But since I didn't know how well or how long that would work, I bought a 2017 21" iMac to replace it as my daily desktop.

I repurposed that 2013 iMac to be a Plex server and use it in target display mode as a 2nd display for my 2017 iMac. This works extremely well and the CPU on the 2013 gets used for background rendering tasks.

Everyone's experiences are different, but I'm quite pleased with using target display mode.

But having said that, I don't recommend going out and buying an iMac for that purpose. This really shines, and makes financial sense, when you already have the hardware and want to extend the usefulness of it by repurposing it.
 
hunk143 said:
I’ve already invested in MacBook Pro and Asus ROG. I was only looking for a bigger screen to connect to my macbook pro. The iMac from 2013 are selling for 200$
Click to expand...
An entry level M1 iMac can be bought new for $1000, used for $800 and sold for $450+ in a couple of years. You won't get a cheaper 4.5K monitor anywhere else. A vintage pre-retina iMac won't have cheaper total lifetime costs, the hard drive in it is probably already failing. And there is dust accumulating behind the display glass. You'll have to open, clean and maintain it like a 10 year old car.
 
hunk143 said:
Hi,

I have a Macbook Pro 2020 13 inch and i use it mainly for photo editing. I used to edit photos on my 17 inch 2019 Asus ROG but the colour accuracy of Macbook pro is great.
But 13 inch screen isn’t that helpful tbh.
So i was thinking of buying a budget monitor and i thought why not grab a 100$ iMac 2009-2013.
Is an old iMac’s color calibration and screen quality good enough for photo editing? Mainly Photoshop and Lightroom.
‘Cos my 17 inch ASUS ROG is sRGB but it’s not good enough.
Any advice would be helpful. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Buy a stand alone monitor with Thunderbolt. It’sa pricier option but you get to choose the screen size that works for you.
Then when you plug-in your 13” pro to the monitor everything just transfers like magic.
I will never buy another iMac again.
 
BeatCrazy said:
I've tested it too, didn't work. I have a 2009 iMac 27" and tried with High Sierra on the iMac, and 2018 MBP Monterey as a source.
Click to expand...
I tested with a 2015 MB running Big Sur and it worked. So the source doesn’t need to be running Catalina or an older version of macOS. I was running Snow Leopard on the iMac FWIW.
 
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