Half Monk 697 Report post Posted October 19, 2014 The key feature of Apple’s new iMac is in the name: the 5K Retina display. Despite the fact that Apple’s latest went on sale just days ago, the repair specialists at iFixit couldn’t resist the urge to see if the addition of a super high-resolution display would affect its repairability. That, of course, meant a complete teardown was in order. It is good news from the get-go as the machine features the familiar, easily accessible RAM upgrade access panel found on other iMacs. On the opposite side, the team discovered the process of removing the display requires a steady hand but otherwise hasn’t changed much. With the 5K panel out, iFixit found it was manufactured by LG Display while much of the hardware that controls it comes from Texas Instruments. Yet as they delved deeper into the system, they realized that the layout of supporting hardware was almost exactly the same as last year's model. If something isn’t broken, don’t fix it, eh? All said and done, iFixit awarded the 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display a repairability score of five out of 10 (10 being the easiest to repair). User-replaceable RAM, hard drive and CPU were all cited as positives although the latter two components require the removal of the display. The fact that the glass and LCD are fused together as well as having to peel off the old double-sided sticky tape and apply new tape in order to remove and replace the display, however, earned negative marks from iFixit. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
