iMac 5K Retina: Do You Need It? #Helpful Post

hey guys johnathan here with TLD hope

you guys are doing well now I do have a

retina 5k iMac on the way but before I

get my hands on it unbox it test and

bench market I wanted to talk about why

you would possibly want a screen

resolution of this density the good the

bad and overall why I'm excited for it

so for starters 5k means it has a fifty

one twenty by twenty eight eighty

resolution so that is two times a

resolution vertically and two times

resolution horizontally of a non retina

27-inch iMac and that results in four

times the total pixels was a total

amount of fourteen point seven million

pixels now the word I want you to focus

on right now is perspective just

recently Dell announced its own 27-inch

5k monitor with a price tag of twenty

five hundred dollars the retina 5k iMac

is also twenty five hundred dollars but

it has an entire computer inside that'll

get you an Intel Core i5 3.5 gigahertz

quad-core CPU eight gigs of ram a one

terabyte fusion drive and an AMD r9 290x

GPU with two gigs of VRAM you can bump

that up to a core i7 4 gigahertz CPU

which is really going to scream for

single threaded applications the RAM

however unlike most Apple products these

days is user upgradeable up to 32

gigabytes so if you're interested in

doing it yourself and saving a little

bit of cash I'll post a link to some

kits down below now the stock one

terabyte fusion drive can be bumped up

to three terabytes or if you're all

about that speed you can configure it

with up to one terabyte of pure flash

storage

lastly the GPU can be bumped up to an

AMD r9 M 295 X with 4 gigs of VRAM now

one of the questions that I've seen

asked over and over again is what is the

big deal with this display why not go

for a cheaper 4k option Samsung and a

soos both have 4k displays that are

under $700 but the reason it's so much

cheaper is those use TN panels as

opposed to the IPS panel in this iMac

now IPS displays generally have a much

better viewing angle and color accuracy

and this is important if you're going to

use this for any video or photo work now

if you stepped up to the ac30 1.5 inch

4k display that features an eye zgo

panel which is beautiful that alone is

currently around $2,000 and that's with

a price drop so one of the other

questions that I see all the time is why

do you need that man

pixel's I am perfectly fine with my 720p

content or 1080p but you got to think

about it if you're doing photo or video

just a simple 12 megapixel photo has a

resolution of four thousand by three

thousand UHD video on the other hand has

a resolution of 3840 by 2160 so with a

5k display you could see the entire

viewer 100% and still have screen real

estate left over so for me working with

4k video that is a big deal

lastly one of the questions and comments

that I see all the time is why would you

want a screen resolution that high isn't

text going to look super tiny and pretty

much unreadable well without scaling yes

but with scaling it's a beautiful thing

and scaling is one of the main reasons

why the new iMac is 5k as opposed to 4k

the non retina 27-inch iMac again has a

resolution of 2560 by 1440 5120 by 2880

is exactly double that both ways so the

screen real estate visually it looks the

same but here's how it works for text UI

elements menus and so forth for every

one pixel of screen real estate

there are four pixels crammed into there

which results in a super crisp super

vibrant image conversely it recognizes

where a photo or video window might be

so instead of a four to one pixel ratio

it is now one to one and that's what

allows you to view that entire 4k video

window but still have text and menu

scale properly and not be the size of

ants

now as exciting as all that is I can

definitely be critical of Apple because

there was some disappointment for me one

being they completely ignored the

Thunderbolt Display I would have loved

to have a standalone version of this to

go alongside by Mac Pro but it looks

like once again Apple kind of put the

professionals or the professional market

on the back burner again and I think

they were worried that maybe that would

cannibalize some of the iMac sales so

for now that is the only option we get

the other disappointment was the fact

that this cannot be used as an external

display now we talked about some of the

prices so really the thought of using

this as a monitor and having a computer

on the side as a bonus really isn't that

crazy of a thought but as of now it is

not supported and if you were looking to

use this with your Mac Pro you are out

of luck at the end of the day though

there's a lot of good that is coming out

of this retina 5k iMac and I am super

excited to check it out there's just a

lot of really cool technology that is

happening right now one of those things

that stood out to me was the fact that

Apple said they design their own

I'm in controller or t-con so they're

driving all these pixels off a single

controller whereas some 4k displays are

actually using two just to power those

pixels so some pretty impressive

technology going on and speaking of

technology I want to give a huge thank

you to little bits for supporting the

channel and help making this video

possible

little bits is the easiest and most

extensive way to learn and prototype

with electronics by using magnetic

modules that require no wiring soldering

or coding modules range from the very

simple power sensors and LEDs so you

could do something basic like enhance an

arts and crafts project all the way to

the very complex something like wireless

modules where you could do something

crazier like a cloud-based real-time

weather dashboard in a matter of minutes

I was able to whip up this little

rotating stand for my Android guy which

could be a pretty cool little video back

piece if you want to have some fun like

this or just learn a little more about

electronics and prototyping little bits

is offering TLD fans 20 bucks off your

first kit all you got to do is go to

little bits comm and into the promo code

today when you place your order and

you'll receive 20 bucks off your first

kit plus free shipping in the US once

again the offer code is today and this

is a cool way to not only support the

channel but also getting to learn and

appreciate technology just a little bit

more aside from that thank you guys very

much for watching hopefully you enjoyed

it hopefully you have a better idea of

what the retina 5k iMac is all about if

you found it helpful

or educational definitely feel free to

hit that like button it is much

appreciated and of course in return you

get a virtual high five Acho face now as

usual if you guys have any questions

definitely drop a line down below I do

try my best to reply to as many as I can

it does get a little bit messy so the

absolute best way to get a hold of me is

on twitter at TLD today again if you

guys missed anything it'll be recapped

down in the description along with the

gear that I used to make these videos

this is Jonathan with TLD and I will see

you guys later