Using the new iMac as a games console display: Not that easy

By Nate Lanxon on 23 October 2009, 12:26pm

Apple's 27-inch iMac is a thing of highly reflective, hedonistic beauty. With up to 2.8GHz of quad-core Intel i7 power, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, 2TB of hard disk space and powerful ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics, this £1,600 beast is probably the most powerful all-in-one on the planet.

But it has a much-discussed additional feature over its smaller, less powerful 21-inch brother: Mini DisplayPort input. Theoretically, this allows you to hook up anything that either outputs video via Mini DisplayPort (such as a MacBook), or via HDMI when used with an adaptor.

It's not that simple though -- the adaptor we use to convert Mini DisplayPort to HDMI is not bi-directional, and we don't believe one that is actually exists.

At least not yet. We hear Belkin is working on one that may be released in January. We contacted Belkin to confirm this, but we're yet to hear back. The PR lady has a lovely answerphone message though.

So if you're considering a 27-inch iMac because you think it'll double up as a smashing display for your PS3, Xbox 360 or Blu-ray player, you might want to hold off for a while. We tried to get this to work, but at the moment it seems it's just not possible.