However, in side-by-side testing using some sample images, the effect was subtle but impressive, with richer reds and greens, and Apple's photo apps as well as third-party programs such as Photoshop, all support color far beyond standard sRBG.

For photo hobbyists, you're unlikely to be able to appreciate the difference, as very little consumer-grade equipment is going to give you files that can take advantage of the wider P3 color gamut (some dSLR cameras, however, can). P3 is the standard for digital cinema projection in theaters, and for certain photo professionals and film and video experts, this is potentially a big deal. Apple says it adds up to 25 percent more available colors to display. Translated for the rest of us, that means the display can show more of the green and red color spectrum (blue, the third leg of the color triangle, is already fairly maxed out under RGB). The new Retina display supports the wider P3 color gamut versus the more common sRGB (standard Red/Green/Blue) version. It's the same system Apple has used in all its Retina display models, going back to the MacBook Pro with Retina display.īut there's more to the new iMac than just a higher resolution. On-screen text looks sharper and clearer than on lower-resolution screens, and Apple's expert scaling always keeps apps, menus and icons at a decent size, while giving you the option to mimic the look and feel of several different scaled resolutions. As we saw with the 5K display on last year's 27-inch iMac, individual pixels are practically invisible to the naked eye. It's just the latest spec upgrade to strive for, and most of your video content, and even video games, aren't going past standard 1,920x1,080 high-definition anytime in the near future.īut higher-res screens such as the 4K display here have other advantages. The big secret about 4K is that a lot of people buy a 4K TV, monitor or computer, without really planning on viewing much 4K content on it. The 4,096x2,304 on this new iMac screen will play any of your 4K content just fine, although the tiny difference in native resolution can have a small scaling effect, which we really only noticed when viewing 3,840-resolution test patterns. Your big, fancy 4K television set, and every other 4K computer we've seen to date, all adhere to the more consumer-targeted 3,840x2,160 version of 4K. That says to us that this system is targeting professional (and high-end enthusiast) photo and video users, who may shoot at that higher version of 4K resolution. The display resolution is 4,096 pixels wide, rather than the more common consumer version (sometimes called ultra-high definition or UHD), which has a just slightly lower resolution and is 3,840 pixels wide. It's worth noting that this is the more literal implementation of 4K in the new 21.5-inch iMac.

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