My first introduction of an Apple Mac computer suffered from a setback as I wrote in a post a few weeks ago. I ordered the newly released 5k retina iMac that sports 5120 x 2880 display pixels. At this resolution it has a whopping 7.11 times more pixels than "true HD"'s 1920 x 1080 resolution. It has 14.7456 million pixels to be exact. It has 1.67 times the pixels of the 4k display (4096 x 2160), which at the time of this post cost $2499 for just the monitor.
Oh, just checked Dell's website. Now they have a 27" 5k monitor for sale for $2499.99. I looked carefully for what it take to use this display and what I found bring little comfort. I know with the displayport interface to drive an LCD panel of this resolution will require using 2 displayport cables with a dedicated video card that is designed to work with the specific display in a tiled arrangement. Until the product is designed to displayport verson 1.3 this is the way these monitors are to be driven. Yet Dell fails to make this very clear, as well as stating which graphics cards have been tested.
Optimal resolution:
5120 x 2880 at 60 Hz (Dual DP cable required)
3840 x 2160 at 60Hz (single DP cable required)
displayport 1.3 press release by VESA
Unfortunately the unit that I received suffered from an obscure bluetooth related defect. After some research and my own testing to characterize the failure symptom, I came to the conclusion that the problem is likely lies in the hardware, as opposed to software like the new Yosemite Mac OS 10.10, contrary to most reasoned. With much reluctance I decided to ask Apple for a replacement, which I entitle to because I reported the problem within the 14 day no-question-asked window. To be honest I was quite apprehensive that a replacement would solve the problem. Nonetheless I returned my iMac about 19 days ago for an exchange.
A replacement was scheduled for Nov 26, which is interesting. Reading between the lines, I can infer that because of it being a newly released product the demand outstrips the supply, hence the almost 20 day lead time. Alternately, I may infer that Apple was aware of this issue and is working hard to determine the cause and a resolution. More than a week has gone by, and I received an email that my replacement unit would be delayed by about 10 days to Dec 3 - Dec 5. I thought to myself - OK, the delay must due to a hardware problem in which Apple wants to ensure all new 5k retina iMac it ships is free of this issue. Any product return is very expensive for a business, especially electronics. The return units cannot be sold as new, and typically are sold at a substantial discount as refurbished.
A day later I received an update email that my replacement would arrive on Nov 25. Well it arrived a day early this morning. Very excited, I immediately set it up to check to see if the bluetooth HID issue has been resolved.
So far so good. The system is no longer trying to thrash itself to death upon resume from sleep using a bluetooth HID devices to wake it. This new replacement system has the same first release of Yosemite 10.10.0. This give credence that the bluetooth HID issue was indeed due to a problem in hardware - most likely the host bluetooth controller made by Broadcom.
In case you wonder why anyone would write such a long winded post on his computer. Well I tried to cut to the chase as much as I can and have actually left out a lot of glory details. In any event I would just say I am one who regular listener of this tech podcast called Accidental Tech Podcast - and you think I am long winded.
I should mention one of the most important thing I tested when I first received this 5k retina iMac. I tested it playing a host of different video material. In my experience of owning many Windows PCs I had never have one that can gracefully play video and movies without seeing tearing and drop frames. So far this iMac plays everything I threw at it beautifully. Inability of the display to support 60Hz as well as playing video and movies without tearing or dropped frames would be a deal breaker for me. So far it seems Apple delivered.
netflix has a number of test 4k video clips in different frame rates - 24, 30, and 60 fps; these really shows off the capability of this beautiful display as well as the video decoding and rendering
these netflix 4k test clips are named "el fuente"
With its slim all-in-one design, thermal management can be challenging. With everything housed inside a thin aluminum chassis, there is only one air vent port located near the attachment point of the aluminum mono-stand. The force air exits from there while playing Netflix streaming, including the 4k test clips gets noticeably warm. You can tell that the fan speed increased but the noise level is barely audible for someone sitting in front of the computer, even in a very quiet home environment. I have to mute the audio to hear the faint fan noise. Nice!
I proceeded to swap in the 32GB of DDR3 memory that I ordered from Amazon. I also updated the OS to the newly released 10.10.1. One of the software suite that I want to test out is the Final Cut Pro.
