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Comment by minimaxir | Hacker News Reader

Now that my 27" iMac from 2020 is starting to get old and Apple will likely deprecate support for all Intel Macs soon, I really wish there was an easy way to use it as an external monitor for a MacBook. Every implementation of streaming to an iMac is hacky at best.

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There's not a super easy way to do it but if you're willing to take it apart there's driver boards available on Aliexpress that convert 5k imacs into HDMI/DP monitors.

I looked into this briefly when they announced that the iMac Pro is the oldest device that still gets the newest software.

It's logically two displays crammed together, which apparently makes Linux support difficult. Someone posted on HN a link to a Chinese company whose sole purpose seems to be making boards that let you drive an iMac Pro display with a traditional display cable. It's left as an exercise to the reader how mad your company would be if you tried that on your corp device.

Yeah those 5K panels are fantastic.

When I switched to a MBP M2 I got an Asus ProArt 32'' 4K and really like it. Comes precalibrated out of the box.

Were you able to see a difference between the 5k panel and the ProArt?

Not in terms of colors but the 5K panel (I assume from LG) was more uniform in the blacks and suffered from almost no IPS glow. Not a big deal. The Asus is great for the price paid.

Obviously big difference in DPI too, but 4K still looks great at 32''.

For reference, I'm using the PA329CV. I don't know if all ProArt monitors use the same quality of panel.

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