Apple iMac Pro Review

With the iMac Pro, Apple has built an all-in-one that is a worthy successor to the Mac Pro from 2013. The Xeon processor and Vega-gpu are fast and well cooled by the silent cooling . The loudspeakers produce a considerable amount of noise. The basic model is up to the price, although the hardware is still somewhat justifiable. Upgrades, however, are exorbitantly expensive and can hardly be executed themselves. We can hardly get used to the supplied keyboard and mouse.

Final verdict

In 2013, Apple released for the time being its latest Mac Pro, with the characteristic cylindrical design, two video cards and an Ivy Bridge E processor. Intel is now three processor generations further and the 2012 design of the Fire Pro GPUs in the Mac Pro has been followed more than once. In short, it’s time for a new Mac Pro and unfortunately we have to wait until 2019 .
But, Apple does not leave its ‘pro’ users out in the cold and announced in June 2017 iMac Pro on, with today’s processor and gpu, and as usual with an iMac, a built-in screen. The Xeon processor has a maximum of eighteen cores and AMD’s fastest Vega-gpu can be chosen, in combination with a maximum of 128GB of memory. On paper, the iMac Pro is a worthy successor to the Mac Pro, but how does it work in practice?

Appearance and connections

Apple has been busy for some time to paint the color of its smartphones to introduce the other equipment. That started with the 12 “MacBook, which is now in gold and pink to get, and spread to the MacBook Pro’s The iMac was the only computer that was” just “gray, but with the iMac Pro is there change This computer is distinguished by its “spacegrijs” appearance, which fits the phones and laptops that Apple sells in that color.It also differentiates the iMac Pro from the regular iMac, which is still in the old-fashioned light gray is performed. just like the case of the iMac Pro are also in the new colors.It is good that the color is darker, because otherwise people could confuse your Pro-iMac of at least 5500 euros with an ordinary of only 2100 euros. housing size has remained the same and that is quite a nice achievement, because the iMac Pro is equipped with much faster hardware, which obviously requires better cooling.

If you have the iMac Pro omdra ait, it appears that the housing is not quite the same. Under the suspension of the foot is a larger ventilation grille and two horizontal ventilation slots are added below the connections. The shutter to upgrade memory has unfortunately been killed. This is not only because the cooling needed more space, but also because Apple started using full ddr4 dimms instead of so-dimms and placed them on a different spot on the motherboard.

As far as the connections are concerned, only two Thunderbolt connections seem to have appeared compared to the regular iMac, but there is something more going on. The card reader now also supports uhs-II sd cards and the ethernet connection does not exceed 10Gbit / s, instead of 1Gbit / s on the regular iMac.

Keyboard, mouse and touchpad

The iMac Pro comes with a wireless keyboard and ditto mouse. Unlike the regular iMac, you can not choose the compact keyboard without a numeric keypad, but you always get the wide version of the keyboard. A Magic Mouse is also included and you can replace it for fifty euros extra with a Magic Trackpad. Do you want them both, then you lost 169 euros extra. That is pricey and on the trackpad after we can not get excited by the supplied peripherals, which pulls the tight design of the iMac, but does not work.

The keyboard is just like the iMac Pro in spacegrijs and has black keys. As far as we are concerned, this is an improvement compared to the white keys on the standard keyboard, on which you quickly see dirt. The keys, like those of Apple’s laptops, have a light dimple, so that your finger has to find its way to the center of the key. Unfortunately, the keys have very little travel. It’s more than with the MacBook Pro, but that’s all. Because the keys are close together, during blind typing you get lost more easily than on a standard keyboard and because the keys can hardly be pressed, it is not comfortable typing, especially when working on a longer text.
The Magic Mouse is also executed in black, but does not differ from its white brother. For those who like a flat mouse without separate buttons for left and right, the Magic Mouse will be a godsend, but we prefer to see a bolder mouse with separate buttons. Because the mouse is so flat, you can hardly grasp it and you either sit your hand without being supported by the mouse, or you lay your hand flat on it and ‘mop’ the mouse that way back and forth . We also prefer a physical scroll wheel. The magic mouse instead has a touch-sensitive surface, over which you can swipe your finger to scroll. The surface also supports other gestures, allowing you to change fullscreen apps, for example, or call up Mission Control by tapping with two fingers. That works fine in itself, but does not provide any feedback as a physical scroll wheel does.
The optional Magic Trackpad was also included with our review sample and that makes us a lot happier. The trackpad measures 16 by 11.5 centimeters and is at a slight angle to the user. Your finger glides back and forth just as easily thanks to the glass surface as on Apple’s laptops and the touch pad responds smoothly to the touch. There is support for Force Touch, which we already know from the MacBooks. During reviewing, we often used the touch pad instead of the mouse.