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Comment by acdha | Hacker News Reader

The 27” iMac on my desk is better than dual displays: simply better display quality when you’re not on a laptop power budget but also losing the borders, alignment, etc. issues is hard to give up since there are a lot of development tools designed for one big display.

The drawback is that they lost target display mode years ago and there’s no way to upgrade. I’d love to swap a logic board to go to ARM but it feels wasteful to toss a perfectly usable system.

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There’s been a number of people who’ve converted their old 27” iMacs into displays using AliExpress driver boards, if a tinkery solution is appealing. Probably wouldn’t be too difficult to fit an M1 Mac Mini board in the chassis alongside the driver board to produce a 27” M1 iMac if one were so inclined.

Yeah, we’ll see how it’s doing by the time the 2020 one stops getting security updates. I’ve seen a few of those guides and they don’t seem too terrible.

And if you compare to a single ultra wide display? I have a Thunderbolt one with USB ports that charges laptops and serves as a hub. All the portability benefits of a laptop that can be taken and used to work elsewhere, with the comfort of a big screen and fixed set up.

The combination has usually been a good bit more expensive but I think the next time around I’ll be doing that with a Mac mini. The last time I bought was in 2020 and at the time the 5+K display market was surprisingly expensive.

Then why not get a Mac Mini or a Mac Studio and 27 inch Apple monitor.

That’s probably what I’ll do next time but there’s something nice about having it be a single thing on the desk, and the last two times I bought one it was cheaper than buying separate parts (trading longevity).

4k displays are peanuts these days. A Mac mini + a 4k display would cost about the same as an iMac. But in a few years when the mac mini is useless you can keep the same display.

Or if you buy a nicer mini then you can get a nicer display later on. The iMac is still limited the base M3 CPU, while the current mini is available in either M2 or M2 pro. Hopefully they update the Mini with M3 pro because that's what I've been waiting for.

I wouldn’t drop down to a 4K but the 5+K display market has also come down considerably so I think that’s also why Apple isn’t in a hurry to refresh the 27” since the sweet spot isn’t there any more.

My setup used to consist of a VESA mounted iMac Pro which was really nice since it doubled the amount of free desk space between having no separate computer and the whole unit floating thanks to the VESA arm. The arm also helped with keeping cables corralled in a way a monitor stand wouldn’t since it has channels for that.

VESA mount your monitor and mount your Mac Mini or Mac Studio under your desk.

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