21" or 27" iMac for office?

[Jonathanm1222]

I am planning on buying a new iMac but cannot decide between the 21" or the 27". I am an attorney so I'll be using it mainly with MS Office, i.e. Word, PowerPoint etc. Drafting documents, email and research are the main uses.
I love the 27" but with the screen that large is it overkill? I really don't want to spend the extra money if there's not much advantage given the limited use.

[MsDalfo]

The 27" feels uncomfortably large for me, and I'm going to be using it for Adobe programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc). Besides that, it's a home-office computer, so I could watch movies or what-have-you if I so desired.

The 21" is a pretty generous space already for what you'll be using it for (word processing/internet), honestly. If you feel like spending the extra money for the extra screen real estate, go for it, but I personally feel like it's overkill for your uses. Since you don't want to spend the extra money, don't.

[Fatboy71]

Originally Posted by Jonathanm1222

I am planning on buying a new iMac but cannot decide between the 21" or the 27". I am an attorney so I'll be using it mainly with MS Office, i.e. Word, PowerPoint etc. Drafting documents, email and research are the main uses.
I love the 27" but with the screen that large is it overkill? I really don't want to spend the extra money if there's not much advantage given the limited use.

Bear in mind though, that the 21 inch does not have the option to upgrade the ram yourself, whereas the 27 inch does. Who knows what ram requirements will be for future OS releases and for future applications.

For me I will be getting the 27 inch for the ability to upgrade the ram, and the extra screen size is welcome too

[iMarvin]

Originally Posted by Jonathanm1222

I am planning on buying a new iMac but cannot decide between the 21" or the 27". I am an attorney so I'll be using it mainly with MS Office, i.e. Word, PowerPoint etc. Drafting documents, email and research are the main uses.
I love the 27" but with the screen that large is it overkill? I really don't want to spend the extra money if there's not much advantage given the limited use.

With the 27" you can have all of those things open at once, that's what i loved when i had mine. I'd say get the 27" iMac, it's not overkill. And if you have a big nice desk, the 27" is a nice design piece in it self.

[flynz4]

The 27" has nearly twice the number of pixels. Once you have use a screen with 2560 horizontal resolution... it is hard to go back to 1920X1080 screen.

/Jim

[MacMiguel]

It's not an office question, it's about the use that you are gonna have.... If you are rich like Paris Hilton then you can forget the price and buy the extra options iMac 27" if you wanna optimize the money you have to think about the used...

Will you need to open lot of windows at the same time? Are you gonna work with high resolution images? Do you need to have a wide screen?

Due to the information you've provided I think that the 21.5" fits your needs. Good luck

[Dornblaser]

Originally Posted by Jonathanm1222

I am planning on buying a new iMac but cannot decide between the 21" or the 27". I am an attorney so I'll be using it mainly with MS Office, i.e. Word, PowerPoint etc. Drafting documents, email and research are the main uses.
I love the 27" but with the screen that large is it overkill? I really don't want to spend the extra money if there's not much advantage given the limited use.

For those apps it is unlikely that you will go full screen. More likely, you will resize each work window to a comfortable work size and maybe have a second app, like Outlook, open simultaneously. None of those programs use any significant resources. My wife use an ultra book with few resources with MS Office and does not have a problem with those apps. A 21.5" machine would be awesome for for a law office. Rather than a 27" I wold think a 13" MBA or 13" rMBP would an attractive choice. The mobile choices would allow you to take you laptop to court if your local rules allow, the law library, to depositions, to negotiations or closings, home to work, etc. Adding an app like Dropbox you can have your entire office at your fingertips.

[iHailCarlo]

Go with the 27 inch, having a large the workspace on the monitor is great.

[rmitchell248]

I would suggest a 21'' the 27'' is really too large to ever use all of these apps at full screen. A Word document or single web browser at full screen on a 27 is actually comical. I have had the 27'' in my office, I found it to be uncomfortably large for most office work. Uncomfortable enough that I am actually using my 15" MBP instead of the 27'' for the time being. My secretary however has the 21'' and I think that her computer is much more comfortable in an office setting. I will be buying the new 21'' for my desk in the next few weeks.

[DrRadon]

I personally prefer he 21 inch model. 27 is just to big. If i need more screen space for videoediting ect. i just get my second monitor out of it´s box and use it to put all the tools, menues and timelines over there.

Keep in mind that all these internet boards are filled with people that can only scream bigger, faster, better and gimmy now!!!!!1111oneelevenoneone
I am running a 2007 21 Inch iMac and via Windows 7 Bootcamp it even is able to still run "new" games like Skyrim (with some framrate drops during action on low settings) or X-Com (perfectly fine on low) or even Diablo and Starcraft 2 on OSX.

A 21 inch iMac is a machine to last you at least 4 years unless you plan on doing certain intensive tasks.

Also as for the ram panic please not that this is more or less a "All in one" concept and people have gotten used to not being able to do anything besides switching their ram on their own. IF you consider not being able to access or even upgrade ram at all the iMac might not be the right solution anyway... nothing can be upgraded AT ALL except ram and the hard drive, if anything breaks you need to bring it to a store. This issent a tower PC. The last time you decide what goes in is when you order.

[iMcLovin]

27" is a perfect size, until they release 32"

[seanm9]

It all comes down to how manyt windows you want opened and visible at at time... my uses are similar to yours and I am considering a 27" iMac with an External 27" TB display. The way I see it is i can open up Word, Excel, and Email on 1 display and have My browser open on the other... that would allow me to see information from several apps at a glance and help with some of the work that i do in transfering that data from 1 app to another...

[akatsuki]

27" - 2 documents side-by-side comfortably.

[mapleleafer]

Another vote for the 21.5". I also work mainly with text and find that switching between different applications is pretty fast and easy without having them all constantly visible. I highly recommend that you see these things in person before you decide. That's what I did, and I decided very quickly on the 21.5".

[Duckit]

Both would work well. I think that the 27" model is better if you're willing to spend the money.

[Abazigal]

Originally Posted by akatsuki

27" - 2 documents side-by-side comfortably.

This. And the main reason I am glad I splashed the extra for the basic 27" version. It's a dream to read PDFs and work in documents 2 pages at a time, though the troublesome thing is you need to keep magnifying all your documents to 150-200%.