One of these is a computer.
And one is Apple’s new Studio Display.
But which is which?
We invited several iFixiters who have never seen the insides of these devices
to guess.
These huge fans, speakers, and power supplies tricked half of our contestants-but this is
indeed the display!
Last week we got a little ahead of ourselves and popped the Studio Display open during
our Mac Studio teardown—we’ve got the link in the description if you missed it—but
we’re back for a deeper dive into this dense display.
This Display doesn’t just look like an iMac, it opens like one too.
An iMac opening tool makes short work of the splittable foam adhesive, and, just like the
M1 iMac, there’s no “chin” to rest the display on.
Safely on its back, let’s use some heavy duty suction cups to lift the display juuust
enough to free the display connectors.
And here’s the reason so many were fooled, it looks a lot like an Intel iMac in here.
Like a kid in a candy store, I’m not sure where to start, but since everyone is talking
about it, let’s grab that disappointing webcam first.
Every single review says the camera quality is terrible.
It’s easy to blame the hardware.
But is it really the camera’s fault?
Little plastic shield, some copper tape, and this 12MP Ultra Wide camera pops right out.
The iPhone 11 selfie camera from a couple years ago is also a 12MP Ultrawide and they
look… pretty much identical.
Hardware-wise, a 3-year-old sensor is perfectly capable of packing a better punch than all
these reviewers are seeing—megapixels aren’t all that matter.
Apple says they’re working on a fix, and it’s entirely possible that a software update
will save this little disaster.
Since this is a Display, we should probably check out well... the display, right?
This is exactly the same display as the 5K iMac, and while a 60 hertz LCD isn’t much
to write home about these days V, at least Apple has a native 5K display without the
computer attached!
After removing the hinge screws, we find a different way to remove that stubborn power
cord.
It takes way less force than some have had to use, and we didn’t even need ^ Apple’s
fancy wheel to do it.
Now on to the fun stuff.
I’m dying to get to both of these power supplies, I’ve never seen board cutouts
for capacitors before!
Apple never does it the easy way.
It’s a huge amount of engineering effort and cost to design a slim power supply like
this.
Keeping the power supply in the display drove three design decisions that make this really
different from the iMac: First, these massive fans are here to dissipate
heat from the power supply, which generates much more heat than the simple A13 processor.
Second, a split power supply board with complicated cutouts for the thicker components—Apple’s
power engineering team clearly put a lot of effort into this.
And last, the Studio Display is about 50% thicker than the iMac.
If they had gone with an external power supply, this thing could have been the same exact
design as the iMac.
Next up, the brains of the operation.
With an A13 Bionic chip and 64 GB of storage for some reason, this iMac mini is most of
the way to a giant iPhone—it even runs iOS!
These speakers may not be quite as slick as the ultra-thin chambers we saw in the M1 iMac,
but they’re certainly impressive for a display.
Don’t be fooled by the two simple Torx screws or the adhesive poking over the edge, these
suckers are glued down tight—no stretch release tabs in sight.
Extra vibration in a speaker system is a major problem, Apple has even engineered some exciting
force canceling woofers to keep it in check.
So glue isn’t surprising or even bad, it is, however, really, really annoying.
Last but not least, let’s talk ports.
This 27” 5K Retina display features three USB-C ports, and since it only has one Thunderbolt
4, you can’t daisy chain more displays.
If you do want multiple screens, your computer has to drive them.
Swap that third USB-C for a Thunderbolt, add a headphone jack, and you’ve got yourself
an iMac.
There is one other port on the iMac, the ethernet port—but it didn’t fit inside the aggressively
thin form factor, so they banished it to the external power supply.
It’s wild to see what might be an alternate universe iMac.
If nothing else, it’s an impressive testament to Apple’s ability to solve problems.
If they can make a power supply this thin, I think they can figure out how to make repairs
safe and easy.
Our door is always open!