Can I use my iMac as a monitor for my Windows laptop?

My wife and I would like to buy a new computer and/or monitor for our bedroom. I use a MacBook Air as my primary work computer. So, I'd like to buy either a Mini or an iMac for the bedroom to supplement my Air.

My wife uses a Thinkpad for work. She doesn't have a choice about this. She has to use the Thinkpad. She has a decent little dock that allows her closed laptop to be displayed on an external monitor while it's charging [and used with an external mouse/keyboard]. This is her preferred way to use her Thinkpad.

Is there any way of running her Thinkpad dock into the iMac so that the iMac can be used as her external monitor? Or should we just buy the Mini and connect her Thinkpad to whatever external monitor we use?

Thank you!

If her company allows remote access to the Thinkpad, you can use any Mac with Microsoft's Remote Desktop to remotely access and control the machine via the Mac. I use this method often to access my various Windows machines in my house with my MBP 13".

Otherwise, no, there is not a native option to use a Mac's Display with another Windows machine [to my knowledge].

EDIT - In order to use Remote Desktop, her Windows OS needs to be the Windows 10 Pro version.

Many, many years ago this was possible between MacBooks and iMacs through something called Target Display Mode. But Apple, in its infinite wisdom, decided that this was too good of a thing and decided that it shall exist no more. So it's very unlikely they're going to allow it now, and if they did, it would probably be limited to Macs only.

You might need to figure out an alternate solution such as the one mentioned by the person above.

i am wondering the same. i would like to use the new imac as external monitor as well

No you cannot use an iMac as an external monitor. I would recommend just buying an external monitor if that is what you need. If you also want a new M1 desktop Mac, you can buy an M1 Mac mini too.

You might be able to use Luna Display. It has support for the M1 in the newest iMacs.

jdb8167 said:

You might be able to use Luna Display. It has support for the M1 in the newest iMacs.

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looks interesting wonder how it will work

buck1127 said:

looks interesting wonder how it will work

Click to expand...

I've used a software version of the same idea in the past. The drivers were somewhat unstable with new versions of macOS but it was reliable after the company made updates for each OS update. I haven't heard too much about this hardware solution on the M1 yet.

Use Microsoft Remote Desktop, it works really well, as long as it is not for gaming:
//apps.apple.com/dk/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id1295203466?l=da&mt=12
However, it does require her laptop to have remote access enabled and if her machine locked down, she might have to go through it-support on her workplace to enable that.

Besides MS Remote Desktop, I sometimes use Jump to remote into my computers.