The screen
Your view on the world – you’re stuck with it, so it had better be good
The Apple iMac has one of the strongest screens you’ll find anywhere
We’ve commented already on the iMac’s expansive internal bezels, and it’s hard to ignore them initially. But equally, they’re probably there deliberately; there’s absolutely no reason that an aesthetically driven company like Apple wouldn’t be able to cut the edges down if it wanted to. With space around the sides of the screen, your eyes get a chance to breathe, to focus on your work or play without being overwhelmed by the image or whatever’s behind the iMac. And what an amazing screen it is, utilising the latest iteration of Apple’s Retina tech to deliver a 4K panel, driven by solid internals, impeccably well lit, bright, colourful – it’s just about one of the strongest screens you’ll find anywhere, AIO or not. It’s real pro stuff.
Unfortunately, you’re stuck to using the iMac’s screen with the iMac only, unlike each of its competitors here. Both the Lenovo IdeaCentre and the Acer Aspire include HDMI inputs as well as outputs, giving them a level of versatility that Apple simply doesn’t offer and, potentially, life in the future, past the point at which they’ve outlived their usefulness as PCs.
Lenovo’s QHD screen is far from matching the 4K of the iMac, but it’s dense enough that you’ll have to lean in close to be spotting pixels, even at the bigger size (which offers lots of working space). It barely has a bezel at all, and it’s decent in terms of viewing angles – probably slightly better than you’d expect at the machine’s reasonably low price, although we’d hesitate to call it world class.
Acer doesn’t even quite reach that level of detail, packing a Full HD panel into the confines of the S24-880’s upper portion. It’s the least dense here, and generally the least suited to image work or photography, although we give Acer points for giving it a matte finish. While the iMac and IdeaCentre have both been treated to reduce reflections on their glossy screens, the Aspire is more suited to brighter environments, and it performs well despite its lower resolution.