I own a 2009 27" iMac that luckily just had its hard drive so kindly replaced by Apple out of warranty.
I'm choosing to sell this iMac because this is now the fourth drive being replaced. It's in great condition and it still has all the original packaging. I'm hoping to get around $800 for it.
Once it sells, I'm going to being needing a new Mac. This where all of you come into play. I'm not sure which direction to go.
I really never considered the rMBP before, but it's such a beautiful laptop and I love that it's mobile. The biggest draw back for me is that I'll be getting a less powerful machine, smaller screen and something that can't really be used to game on.
With the iMac, it's ideal for video editing and gaming, which are extremely important for me. The biggest drawback is obviously that it isn't mobile.
I'm leaning towards the iMac now, but who knows?
A couple things:
1. Many people are finding that where a sole laptop sufficed before, a Mac desktop of some sort and an iPad are even better. I'm not going to say that this is, by any means, the superior route for you to take, but it is worth consideration.
2. Were we having this discussion a year or even six months ago, I'd probably recommend a 15" non-retina MacBook Pro without hesitation as, at the time, it was, in my opinion, the best Mac on the market. Now that Apple no longer makes them, and now that, even if you could find one new, they aren't using the latest Intel parts like their retina successors, I can't make that recommendation as easily. Nevertheless if that interests you, check Apple's refurbished Mac section as they'll still sell those machines there.
3. Speaking of refurbished Macs, aside from the newest iMacs and MacBook Pros (which aren't yet in the refurb section), it's a fantastic bargain.
4. If you are considering a retina MacBook Pro:
a. Don't do the two lower-end models of 13" MacBook Pro as you're locked into either a small SSD or an even smaller SSD and that's not cool.
b. If you are considering a low-end 15" retina MacBook Pro and you want to up the RAM to 16GB (which you should) and the SSD to 512GB (which you probably should unless you store all of your things on external drives), you're $100 shy of the high-end model, which has a discrete graphics processor with discrete VRAM, and at a $100 difference, there's no point in not just going with the high-end model.
c. It's worth checking to see which apps you want to use, whether or not they are optimized for the retina display and how usable they are if they aren't yet. People tend to underscore this with the rMBP. But if you are a Mac gamer and your game isn't yet updated to run on retina, it may not even be playable. Portal 1 is a great example of this; or at least it was nine months ago (Valve may have updated it since then). If you are a Blizzard gamer, WoW, StarCraft II, and Diablo III are all optimized for retina and look fantastic.
4. The current 21.5" iMacs are, like the Mac mini, more laptop than desktop. With the Late 2012 models, the CPU was still that of a low-powered desktop; with these new Haswell models, the only thing that makes the 21.5" iMac not a laptop is the larger screen and the lack of a battery and integrated trackpad and keyboard. It's still great and honestly, given that Apple insists on making them so thin, it actually makes for a substantially more reliable machine than the 2009-2011 generation, but alas, it's a laptop in the skin of an iMac. Still though, perfectly capable machine. I'd do either an SSD or a Fusion Drive and pre-configuring it with 16GB of RAM out the gate is an absolute must as you cannot do that later.
5. The 27" iMacs appear to be much improved from the 2009-2011 generation. If you wish to simply continue the 27" iMac subscription, that's not a horrible way to go. Going with a Fusion drive isn't as important on these models as it is on the 21.5" model, but if you like speed and capacity and you don't plan on doing any crazy formatting or dynamic re-partitioning to your drive, it's something you might want to consider. You don't need to beef up the RAM at the time of purchase on this one as, aside from the 13" non-retina MacBook Pro from 2012, it's one of the last Macs with user-accessible RAM and Apple will gouge you on the cost to upgrade. Better to buy a 32GB kit aftermarket.
6. If you want to go the iMac route, it may be worth your while to wait until Mavericks comes pre-loaded rather than going through the minor hassle to either upgrade or wipe and reinstall; if you wait about a month longer, that'll probably be when that happens.
Given these, I'd say either another 27" iMac is probably the best call for you. Let us know what you decide on!
