impressions of 5K trickling out...

[odedia]

It's not necessary to watch 4K material for a 4K set to be impressive. I watch photo slideshows and blu-ray films on my 55" 4K set on a nearly daily basis. Even if I had that 5K iMac in house, I wouldn't use it for those activities. It can't possibly be the "best visual experience ever produced, for any kind of A/V device, period," because it's simply too small to have anywhere near the impact of a large 4K set.

Heck, I watch photo slideshows and videos on my 140" wide 1080p JVC projector and it looks stunning. It's all a matter of distance and quality. Sure, 4k would be better, but it's not SD to HD better.

 

[tillsbury]

Thats not how it works. It could and probably an old OS version or windows it might happen, but luckily Apple have made OS X adaptive so that size stays the same and just uses 4x largers icons. So, in theory it works exactly the same as phones actually - which would be the only sensible way to do it....if everything would become 1/4 of the size on a 5k display it would become impossible to work on.

Exactly. A huge number of people don't understand what "Retina" means. It's not just about having a high resolution. There are (now) plenty of ultra high resolution Windows notebooks around, but they're not the same as OSX on a retina display.

On a retina display, the resolution is chosen by the user, and the entire screen is rendered at twice this resolution in both directions -- images and positions by simple pixel doubling, and vector/fonts in the higher resolution. The final screen image is then downsized (if required) to the physical resolution of the screen. You get the detail of an extremely high resolution, along with the screen real estate of the originally chosen resolution (i.e. at your preference), without the blockiness or weird effects of running a traditional LED display at resolutions other than integer multiples of the screen resolution. Until you've used it you probably won't get it. Windows 8 promised something similar, and is better at it than Windows 7, but is still not even remotely the same thing.

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...if everything would become 1/4 of the size on a 5k display it would become impossible to work on.

...except that this isn't entirely true for all users. In an application where real estate is king and you are fully comfortable with the controls, running a retina display natively is quite possible. I often run FCPX or Logic Pro in native resolution on a rMBP, and sometimes IDEs too. The 5k iMac (at 218ppi) is slightly lower in pixel density than the rMBP15 (at 220ppi), so this will be doable for those not too optically challenged. I am certainly looking forward to this...

 

[boy-better-know]

I have the same iMac as you, probably. Mine is the high-end 2012 iMac (i7 3.4Ghz, GTX 680MX).

I'm still jumping on the new 5K iMac. 4x the number of pixels is hard to say no to. It's ALL about the display, and I can't wait. I'm a total resolution junkie; I'm that guy who said no to an iPhone 6 and had to have the iPhone 6 Plus because of the number of pixels per inch.

If you're *that guy/girl* too, do it, do it, do it. I have a feeling when the impressions of Macrumors users come in, there's going to be an awful lot of gushing..

iMac 2012 - 2560x1440 = 3,686,400 pixels (109 pixels per inch)
iMac 5K 2014 - 5120x2880 = 14,745,600 pixels (218 pixels per inch).

If ever you doubt the decision, refer to the above numbers.

The iPad 3/4/Air/Air 2 have 264 pixels per inch. Now think how close you hold that iPad. Now look at how far away you sit from your iMac. Those iPads have 21% more pixels per inch than a 5K iMac, but... - again, think distance.

Personally? I think the new 5K iMac is going to look better than anything you've ever seen. Better than an iPhone 6 Plus, better than an iPad Air, better than a Galaxy Note 4 or LG G3, better than.. well.. you'll see.

I'm so glad we're finally in the age of 5K screens, and that Apple kept the real estate of the 27" iMac intact. That makes going from our 2560x1440 iMacs to the 5K iMacs a simple, simple change.

Conversely, going from a 15" MacBook Pro with the BTO 1680x1050 display to a 15" Retina display MacBook Pro was much harder, since you lost real estate in HiDPI mode (Apple used the base 1440x900 resolution and quad-pumped it to 2800x1800). That meant those of us who owned 1680x1050 non-Retina MacBook Pros actually lost space in native res when we bought 15" MacBook Pros with Retina displays. Boo!

Anyway, getting sidetracked. Can't wait for 5K iMac. Buy one. That is all.

Haha, sounds like we are alike. I have the high end late 2012 also. I'll be taking my iMac into Apple on Saturday to get the screen repaired, so i will have a look at the riMac then (I get paid on friday so this could be dangerous).

Only problem is that I am moving out from under my parents wings in a few weeks and don't really need an iMac right now. Decisions decisions.