Astropad’s Luna Display is a hardware box that allows you to connect an iMac as an external display to your Mac.
Astropad says it’s intended for the secondary display, and not for things that need fast refresh rates, like gaming.
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Monitor discussion from 2023 but still relevant:
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I used iMacs in Target Mode as a second display for my MacBook Pro for many years.
After using several about 2012-2013 iMacs for about 6 years I upgraded the RAM to 16GB and replaced the HDs with 1TB SSDs. (This was a really hard upgrade–you literally have to peel the screen off the aluminum body, and not cream the fine wires connecting the two. One computer didn’t make it!).
My daughter used one of these for 6 more years until she couldn’t run application software for her working at home. She gave it back to me.
I am now running Linux on it. It is still a really good computer. Completely incapable of AI, which is good for the most part–only when I want it.
How much will you pay me to haul your iMacs off?
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I’ve ordered it, let’s see…
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I haven’t yet replaced a laptop, but I don’t think comparing them to iMacs makes much sense. It’s not like they have the kind of displays that you would want to use as a monitor with another computer.
I felt like I had killed a puppy when I left my IIci at an e-cycling event in front of Tekserve. It still bothers me. It might have been fixable…
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I made a similar post a few years ago after two iMacs were effectively on death row because the drives died. Unacceptable repair dilemma. The “form” fundamentalists overpowered the “function” realists.
To be fair, my one Fusion Drive in a Mac mini was also challenging to replace and rebuild. But I’m still favoring minis these days for desktops.
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Conceptually I agree, but you can use your 27” iMac — I am running 2022 Mac Mini with the 2015 27” iMac as the display. I’m using Luna – I will be the first to admit it can be glitchy on occasion, and I do use a small second monitor directly on the iMac, but I’m going on 18 months with rare hassle. I do think that if Apple is serious about their environmental statements that they could release a software update that would allow us to natively use these in a ‘target display mode’.
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Luna is a reasonable option, but if you are using an unsupported iMac as your second display, you should be sure that you understand the potential security exposure from using a computer that is not getting security updates and that you are comfortable with it. For most people, it’s not a major issue, at least not today, but for others, it can be a real worry.
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Agreed. I got rid of several old Macs that would no longer power-on, including a IIci and a Quadra 840av.
Years later, having watched lots of repair videos, I now realize that replacing all the electrolytic capacitors on the board probably would have fixed it. A time consuming job, but definitely within my (current) skill-set. But that’s in the distant past.
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Great question. And no.
It may have to do with laptops not having really great screens until recently. Or maybe functionally I think of a laptop having a screen and an iMac having a display.
Even if those are only conceptual differences without a true distinction, I figure it’s one screen per laptop and when the machine goes, its screen goes as well.
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That’s what I’m doing now with my 2019 iMac. I wanted something that would approximate the beauty of the Retina 5K display and could sit side by side with the iMac. I also wanted an escape hatch to get me through the (slim) possibility of an iMac failure. That actually happened to me years ago with a 24-inch Core 2 Duo iMac that went belly-up so convincingly that a Genius at the Apple Store pulled the hard drive and handed it to me along with the computer because they didn’t think they could repair it.
I can easily connect my newish MBPro M4 Pro to the Dell monitor and use the same wireless peripherals. And there’s not nearly as much to rescue from the iMac because (1) iCloud sync carries all my documents and (2) I migrated apps from the iMac to the MBPro when I purchased it.
The Dell looks nice for about $500, though it doesn’t quite stand up to the iMac display.
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Yes, and 2026 me still agrees with 2023 me. As I’ve noted elsewhere in this thread, the Retina display is really great. And a 27-inch 5K Dell display that I’ve since purchased as a second display looks really good, but doesn’t quite measure up to the iMac.
The only thing I would change about the post is the “+” in the “supported with OS updates for another 2+ years.” It was exactly 2 years for my machine (which is a 2019, not a 2020), though the flood of security updates is still reaching it.
Some app developers are already branching away from the Intel-era Macs, so a few of my apps are now frozen in time. The only one that “hurts” so far is a way-cool VST plug-in for Dorico that synthesizes and performs vocal lyrics in real time. No plug-in for me.
I’ll have to consider options eventually. But it really stings that those options don’t include a way to use that Retina 5K monitor!
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i loved the big imac for similar zen reasons. although i’ve gone to the dark side by becoming an apple hater, i’d still buy another in a flash. currently labouring with a recalcitrant minimac (likes to crap out its apps, like finder or messages, which essentially causes the entire machine to lock-up) and a benq monitor (about which the less said the better).
I wrote about using Luna with a 27-inch iMac 4 years ago. I don’t know how it has changed since, but it didn’t work well enough for me to use it.
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I left a 24-inch iMac at an e-cycling event some 8 years after it was well and truly dead. It was not fixable. It had a capacitor that had failed at one point and blown smoke haze into the display face.
It bothered me, too.
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@ted2 About 5 years ago, after having stretched out some really old (2013/2014 iMacs) for my firm, I made the call to invest in Studio Displays paired with laptops/Mac Studios/Mac minis.
The math was that we could get maybe 10 years out of the display and as needs evolved, upgrade the paired system for each person.
Fortunately, that, looking back in hindsight, was the right call.
You’re spot on about the simplicity of an iMac. One cable for power/Ethernet (for the current iteration). Wireless keyboard & mouse. Looks really pretty, but the waste of “throwing away” those excellent displays just wasn’t palatable.
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20 or so years ago, I decided a laptop with an external monitor was the way to go for me. I bought a 23” Apple Cinema Display (M9178LL/A) which has a DVI-D connector. Today I’m a few laptops later (currently on a 2021 16-inch M1 Mac Book Pro) but thanks to an HDMI to DVI-D adapter, the Cinema Display is still going strong.
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Me too – laptops with external monitors the way to go. I’ve a particular love for the ALogic 4K 27” monitor – it’ll see me through many generations of Apple silicon, functioning just as beautifully as it did when first unpacked. Whereas iMacs while still looking beautiful slowly become unusable…
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How long have you had the ALogic? I’ve been tempted, but have seen bad user reviews at B&H based on quality control issues.