Mikey Campbell
After repair experts at iFixit got their hands on Apple's new 21.5-inch 4K iMac on Friday they immediately tore it down to find a new high-resolution LG LCD panel and internal design tweaks that make aftermarket upgrades even more difficult.
According to iFixit, Apple is using a new ultra high-resolution panel from LG capable of reproducing a DCI P3 colorspace, meaning the 4K iMac screen technically covers a much wider color gamut than competitors.
As can be expected from a 21.5-inch screen packing in more than nine million pixels, pictures are reproduced with smooth edges, with individual pixels almost indistinguishable to the naked eye. Compared to last year's model, the 4K iMac crams in 4.5 times the number of pixels and the results are obvious. Powering the pixel-dense display is an array of Texas Instruments chips and a Parade Technologies LCD timing controller identical to the unit controlling the 27-inch iMac's 5K Retina display.
Moving on to the hard drive, iFixit found Apple removed the PCIe SSD slot meant to serve a factory ordered Fusion Drive found in 2014 iMac versions, a reversion to 2013's design that came with empty solder pads. This means users looking to upgrade from Apple's stock configuration, or buy cheaper modules to install on their own, are out of luck.
Apple also chose to solder Intel's Broadwell CPUs onto the logic board, barring users from replacing the processor on their own. Memory, too, is non-user-upgradeable as DIMMs come soldered on.
A quick tally of component makers finds Samsung supplying stock RAM, Broadcom responsible for Ethernet and Texas Instruments chipping in with an SMC Controller and DisplayPort switch. Other manufacturers include Cirrus Logic, Vimicro, Intersil, Winbond, Delta and more.
Overall repairability was rated at a dismal 1 out of 10 due to soldered-on RAM, soldered-on CPU, fused glass display and missing Fusion Drive connector.
William Gallagher
Malcolm Owen
Charles Martin
96 Comments
Did they find the IGZO in it? The IGZO is probably glued to the back of the screen! iFixit score: -6
Doesn't mean the CPU isn't user-replaceable... Just means you need to know how to solder and have a decent set of CPU soldering equipment. Sigh
Frankly I don't get why these guys persist in issuing ratings for stuff that they know isn't remotely repairable by the average consumer. Anyone who really cares about repairability ratings is building their own Linux system from off the shelf parts anyways.
I'm always wondering.... for such high-quality components as this new LG LCD screen producing amazing results, how much was Apple involved in the engineering? Is this 100% on LG to have done the work and Apple just sourced the panels, because there's no competitive advantage to that.
And didn't Apple say that they designed their own timing controller? Why is it called the "Parade Technologies LCD timing controller"? Did they design it, but Parade made it? Is it a modified Parade controller?