5K iMac Amazing 14MP screen + More

Image via BH Photo : Note the wire free desktop ! Clean 

The first 5K all in one computer in iMac fit & finish, with solid performance & lots of upgrade options, its 27in of P3 gamut color space 25% that is notably better then the already good IPS action from the previous generation iMac's. The professional color calibrated screen makes the user experience beautiful! 

I got one expressly to process photos and video for my blog, Facebook page, and hobby video and photography action! I aim to produce a documentary film in 2017 using this machine and Final Cut Pro video editing software. Covering our first trip as a couple to Europe! Woot Woo Meg I get to travel with You!

Starting at $1799, not cheap, but there is nothing else like it........Not the fastest machine for that price, but it is the most elegant overall executing of a personal desktop computer, using laptop like components, boards, drives, etc in a sleek enclosure that is well designed. The ram is super easy to access for upgrades or replacement. The CPU is socketed so you can upgrade that part too. The hard drive system can use an SSD and HDD at the same time as a fusion drive virtual volume.

For maximum performance, you can option them up to $4200.......

Some of the cool upgrades available!

1TB SDD with 1800mbps as your main drive for example.......$700 options
The 3Tb fusion drive makes more sense for $300!
I got one with a 2TB fusion drive!

Up to 32GB of Ram and a 4GB GDDR5 R9 M395x AMD graphics solution that can swiss cake your Counter Strike matches on Steam just fine! Buy it with 8GB then swing to Other World Computing and Get the RAM upgrade kit! You can $ave Hundreds by doing it yourself. The RAM on the 27 inch is user replaceable via a small door on the back and is super easy to swap out!

The Goods

The iMacs case is friction stir welded beautiful aluminum that mates the main board to a P3 monitor with gamut color space 25% better than Apples own 4K retina technology from last year using special red and green phosphor led's in place of the white LED's of the previous generation displays. The screen uses special green and red LED phosphors to expand the color space beyond what a white LED backlit monitor can present, giving vivid colors that pop with lifelike color balance that is natural and more real looking! One of the nicest computer screens you can operate period! Dell has a 4K monitor that is similarly wonderful, but similarly expensive and without the computer inside! The iMac is one of the best overall deals you can get on this kind of hardware. Expect $2400 out the door for a moderately well equipped model!

Hardware

New Intel I5 quad core Skylake CPU at 4GHZ and turbo boost up to 4.2 + upcoming 400 series graphics from AMD, and the next 27inch 5K iMac in late 2016 will have better performance, enough to run Steam with Oculus Rift? Probably not, or barely, but a wiz bang for photography and iMovie or Final Cut movie editing action. The current 3.2ghz quad core i5 skylake 6th gen intel CPU is a 14nm beast on its own! In the 27in, you can upgrade the socketed CPU in the future as well, and I bet that Other World Computing OWC will have a kit with installation instructions ^^

Sealed Lithium Ion Sucks

The new magic mouse and keyboard have sealed lithium ion batteries :that I dislike. I like being able to pop in AA NiMH or Alkaline, better long term solution then sealed proprietary lithium ion technology. On the cool side, the magic mouse can pick up a ton of recharge % in just minutes now using a fast charge technology! Thats awesome! You can get an optional magic trackpad instead of the mouse for ~$130 : Its a big piece of beautiful brushed glass that looks like aluminum, that is superbly responsive to touch and pressure, like the trackpad on a MacBook Pro! The hardware shipping with the new iMac is solid. I like the keyboard and mouse! Very elegant !

Eco vs Our Ethics

Energy efficient, they sip less than 2 watts in active standby, one click to launch on any key, or move the mouse! I was going to wait for some newfangled stuff to come out, but decided to pull the trigger on the 5K iMac once they updated it in late 2016! This will be my video editing powerhouse to process the Europe trip files! There is the X point technology that I was going to invest in, but opted to hold off until 2021 for that action. By then self driving electric cars will be common, 8K video will stream on Netflix and shooting 4K for normal videos will become the dominate norm as 1080p goes the way of child's play.

Video Big Data

Speaking of which big disks are needed now with these big video files. I got a 2TB fusion drive setup in mine, and that kind of space will get me started with making a documentary film using my canon cameras! I will aim for 1080P most of the time! Our backpacking trip through Europe next summer should be the subject of the film! Two American Millennial Adult Exploring Europe : as a working code name title for now. Meg and I think more like Europe, even though we were programmed by life exposure in America. Meg was on a quest to find solutions to her diabetes and I was on a quest to end pollution, this gives us a lot in common as we both value technology and organic permaculture at the same time. We aspire to phase toxic chemicals out of all areas of our life by voting for cleaner sustainable products and services. Eco friendly and energy conserving are themes along with organic food and products, simple low ingredient count foods made of real natural organic components. We both value good art and architecture that is interesting, clean and modern natural granola nice looking, very Portland Oregon in nature, we like being outside in nature, and want to feel that connection in our lives, but find ourselves digitally detached like many modern computer screen users. More connected but less connected, the contradiction of the information age we find ourselves in today!

Pulling the Trigger

Best Buy had the 2TB fusion Drive version with R9 M395 2gb Video and 3.3 GHz Skylake 6th Gen Intel CPU action and 8GB (2x4gb) of DDR3 RAM 1867 MHz at  for $2136.99 or $2369.57 with WA sales tax. My beautiful wife Meg put in on her new Costco Visa, now I help her pay it off quickly to build her credit :) I love you Meg : In the future we can upgrade the RAM and CPU to top of the line for a couple of hundred $, and or a huge 4TB SSD when they become available for a reasonable price!

Impressions & Experience

The screen is big, sharp, bright, and interesting intense to look at full brightness, with warm colors it seems the better color gamut of the P3 can be easily seen by the photographer in me :) I have been using it for a few hours now, and its notably bigger and better than the Early 2008 iMac I was using earlier today Aug 18th 2016 in every possible way!

I just tested Steam with Counter Strike GO and it was glass smooth buttery graphics action! I will go shoot some video tomorrow and process the clips in iMovie it to see how the new machine performs with video editing!

I am almost done top off charging the Lithium batteries in the Keyboard, then the mouse will get it. They were about 80% charged out of the box. I read some bunk reviews about the how the Magic Mouse II was not that good, but so far it seems to work fine, right out of the box, turned it on and it worked automatically right away on the first power up of the machine!

Extension

I used a 256GB USB3 memory key to load by Time Machine backup, and the new system has the exact same OS layout, file structure, apps, and everything, like I cloned the OS from my old machine including user files, browser settings etc, even stored passwords, the root password, it setup everything automatically. Amazing