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First Hands-On Impressions of 27-Inch Retina iMac: Sharp Image Quality, Great Viewing Angles
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I have a question about something that I don't see Mac people talk about very much.
I have a 27" iMac that has served me very well since 2010. I've never had any other desktop for this long.
But here's a problem I'm having. I don't see the text very well most of the time.
If I'm at 2560 x 1440 and looking at something that can be zoomed (like most Web pages with text), I'll zoom in two or three times to be able to read as easily as I want. This also applies to annoying HTML mail in size 10.
If I'm looking at something that cannot be zoomed, then I'll switch to 1920 x 1080 and that usually does the trick, but of course it's not as crisp and clean looking as the native resolution.
So here's my stupid old man question: With this new 27" Retina display, how can I be sure I'll be able to see and read text easily?
When I have the resolution set to be optimized for Retina display, what is the equivalent resolution?
Before I dump three grand or more on one of these magnificent screens, I want to be sure that I can use it for what I do *most* of the time. And I do a *lot* of it...if it works right, I'm sure a Retina display on a 27" iMac would help tremendously.
Thanks very much for any help you can provide.
I know it isnt the same as high resolution but have you tried the built in ZOOM feature, Just hold down the control key and scroll my wheel and the entire display zooms right in. I use it all the time for tiny text, checking graphics that I am producing for nasty corners and correct aliasing etc.. Anyway, you can find it in Accessibility->Zoom then tick the option that says "Use scroll gesture with modifier key to zoom".
YES!!!! Thank you for the reply.
I think the iMac range have always had upgradable ram slots, its just under the display behind one screw on my 7 year old iMac
which is odd, because I though pro's would want to use the Mac Pro instead of this. I think this is kinda a 'show-off' model for now, but is still very impressive.
I think it fills a gap. The mac pro is a multi GPU/CPU core work station whereas the Retina iMac would better suit graphic designers, web designers, photographers and video enthusiasts etc. That extra screen space comes in handy when you need to run a website and an editor side by side or need many palettes open while working on content at it's 100% scale and in the same app which multiple monitors don't help with.
It might also be a great Xcode development machine as you are always turning various panels off in the Xcode IDE to make everything fit on screen, with this resolution you can have all panels open in the one application and reading code all day would certainly be less eye-strain on a 27" retina device.
Although if you want to work and play games, I would think this wouldn't be a great choice due to the refresh rate of the display. Most 4K+ screens have a low refresh rate (Hz) so your FPS in games will be locked to say 24fps. But I don't know the stats yet so could be wrong.
Just my opinion folks
It might also be a great Xcode development machine as you are always turning various panels off in the Xcode IDE to make everything fit on screen, with this resolution you can have all panels open in the one application and reading code all day would certainly be less eye-strain on a 27" retina device.
Although if you want to work and play games, I would think this wouldn't be a great choice due to the refresh rate of the display. Most 4K+ screens have a low refresh rate (Hz) so your FPS in games will be locked to say 24fps. But I don't know the stats yet so could be wrong.
Just my opinion folks
I have a question about something that I don't see Mac people talk about very much.
I have a 27" iMac that has served me very well since 2010. I've never had any other desktop for this long.
But here's a problem I'm having. I don't see the text very well most of the time.
If I'm at 2560 x 1440 and looking at something that can be zoomed (like most Web pages with text), I'll zoom in two or three times to be able to read as easily as I want. This also applies to annoying HTML mail in size 10.
If I'm looking at something that cannot be zoomed, then I'll switch to 1920 x 1080 and that usually does the trick, but of course it's not as crisp and clean looking as the native resolution.
So here's my stupid old man question: With this new 27" Retina display, how can I be sure I'll be able to see and read text easily?
When I have the resolution set to be optimized for Retina display, what is the equivalent resolution?
Before I dump three grand or more on one of these magnificent screens, I want to be sure that I can use it for what I do *most* of the time. And I do a *lot* of it...if it works right, I'm sure a Retina display on a 27" iMac would help tremendously.
Thanks very much for any help you can provide.
We'll first, definitely go to the store to see for yourself.
But to answer your question, whenever Apple introduces Retina, all the graphic elements are the same physical size as before, only sharper. So the optimized desktop will "look like 2560x1440. The fact that things are sharper and more detailed may be enough so that you can read them.
If not, you can switch the resolution as before so that it will "look like 1920x1080. But because it is a Retina display, this may still look better than non-Retina native 2560x1440 -- those Retina pixels are really tiny. And it will definitely look better than scaled non-Retina.
A scaled display may affect performance, so at the store, switch the resolution, load up some web pages with text and images, and scroll around.
Hey, I have the 2011 iMac myself and still quite useful to me. Wonder how Yosemite will run on it. Have not done the upgrade yet and I am a bit nervous to go ahead with it.
I think the iMac range have always had upgradable ram slots, its just under the display behind one screw on my 7 year old iMac
Not anymore with current 21.5" iMac.
And I wouldn't be surprised if couple years from now the 27" iMac RAM will also be locked. For thinness sake of course LOL
I ran the Yosemite Public Beta on my 2011 27" iMac and it ran fine. I had issues but not performace issues. Mail was flakey, WiFi dropped without notice and saving a bookmark in Safari would cause it to hang (which I guess could be construed as a performance issue). But they were taken care of by subsequent updates. I'd say if you can run Mavericks you can run Yosemite.
Fantastic machine built for photographers. It may not be a gaming machine or one good enough for professional video editing (I use final cut pro x on my 2012 iMac and find it a little stressful) but it does suit photographers. If they labelled it as the iMac Photo, they'd probably never keep up with the demand for it.
Runs great so far, been using it for most of the day today since it was available.
My Samsung Galaxy S5 takes 4K pictures and the GoPro Hero 4 makes 4K video recordings. What stone have you been living under?
