Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

What can the iPad with iMac do vs the MacBook Pro.

N

newmacboyoutube

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 18, 2010
44
0
Ontario, Canada
So I am in highschool right, and I have a White MacBook right now and I was thinking of selling it once a Sandy Bridge iMac or MacBook Pro comes out because the MacBook 2.13 C2D is barely a year old, but very underpowered...

Anyway, all I do while portable is take notes and search the web and on very rare occasions, I edit wit iMovie, so would an iMac 21.5" high end with an iPad 2G be better than a MacBook Pro 15" mid range?

I think either will be fine but I was hoping for other people's input and their opinions. :rolleyes:

I am hoping either will last me for three-four more years until to get to university...

So what I am really asking is that is the iPad if paired up with an iMac be good enough to be better than a MacBook pro

P.S. I have a Palm Pre with an iPod Touch 4G, if that helps...

P.P.S. I will upgrade to iPhone 7 in two years
 
Is this a troll post?

newmacboyoutube said:
So I am in highschool right, and I have a White MacBook right now and I was thinking of selling it once a Sandy Bridge iMac or MacBook Pro comes out because the MacBook 2.13 C2D is barely a year old, but very underpowered...

Anyway, all I do while portable is take notes and search the web and on very rare occasions, I edit wit iMovie, so would an iMac 21.5" high end with an iPad 2G be better than a MacBook Pro 15" mid range?
Click to expand...

Why again is a C2D Macbook "not enough" for you right now?
 
hippo206 said:
My guess he is going to say gaming.
Click to expand...


Nope. When I am @ my house, I work on Photoshop, and inDesign (I have joined various clubs requiring this), I edit loads of HD video (am thinking about upgrading to FCE since Sony Vegas Pro puts iMovie to shame.) You know, not all high school boys waste their time in gaming, and other useless stuff. Although I do play a few airplane simulator game while running bootcamp, and I do play Sims 3, once a while. But, I don't waste my time on that since I have studying and other extra-curricular. And downloading any podcasts or streaming HD video is horrendously slow, and I can't even think of multi-tasking with 2GB of RAM... But this is all done in a desk. While mobile, I do pretty basic things...
 
hippo206 said:
My guess he is going to say gaming.
Click to expand...

hippo206, it seems like you have an i5 iMac as well as an i7 MacBook Pro. If you had the options to pair the i5 iMac with an iPad running iOS 4.2 vs i7 MacBook Pro, which would you choose? Is the Quad Core i5 noticeably faster than your dual core i7???
 
newmacboyoutube said:
hippo206, it seems like you have an i5 iMac as well as an i7 MacBook Pro. If you had the options to pair the i5 iMac with an iPad running iOS 4.2 vs i7 MacBook Pro, which would you choose? Is the Quad Core i5 noticeably faster than your dual core i7???
Click to expand...

Well, actually, i just listed all of the apple product in my household. The imac is for my wife and the MBP is mine (even though I purchased them both ;) ). Its hard to say, as me and my wife do totally different things. She is into essentially low cpu usage tasks, such as office (although she loves to edit HD film on the side). But, the imac was perfect for her because she is an accountant and the massive resolution allows her to see like 40 columns of excel and quickbooks at a time.

For me... I need to be mobile. I travel 4 days out of the week and cover just about every major city west of the colorado river. I don't really want to get into what I do, but accessing large amount of storage is what is important for me. So the iPad just doesn't have the functionality for me yet (but I have no doubt that someday it will). I also need/want the large screen as it usually my only form of entertainment when I am in small remote towns.

I will say, for a student, I really suggest a laptop. At my university, its basically a necessity at this point.
 
A little depends on when you're going to College, and if you're going to live on Campus or Commute.

If you live on campus -- the iMac might be better. You can chill in your dorm, eat nachos and hack away on your sweet i7 iMac. Take the iPad with you to jot down notes in class or the library. Sync up back at the dorm.

If you commute, then the MacBook Pro makes more sense. Drop it in your back pack and you can use it in class, the Library, study sessions with mates in the Student Union etc. Toss it back in your back pack and catch the bus (or drive) home.

Either is a good choice. Just depends on where your base camp is.
 
Don Kosak said:
A little depends on when you're going to College, and if you're going to live on Campus or Commute.

If you live on campus -- the iMac might be better. You can chill in your dorm, eat nachos and hack away on your sweet i7 iMac. Take the iPad with you to jot down notes in class or the library. Sync up back at the dorm.

If you commute, then the MacBook Pro makes more sense. Drop it in your back pack and you can use it in class, the Library, study sessions with mates in the Student Union etc. Toss it back in your back pack and catch the bus (or drive) home.

Either is a good choice. Just depends on where your base camp is.
Click to expand...

Since I am in High School, I guess I commute a lot. However I am afraid a 15" MacBook Pro will get stolen, however that is unlikely since everyone has a MacBook... I'd feel much safer taking an iPad to school :)... What to do? What to do?
 
Apple... said:
What!?!? Everyone has Macs? :D
Click to expand...

LOL I see this all the time too.

Everywhere I go, like 80% of the machines are Macs. It's like the PCs in the world are "Dark Matter". We know they make up 90%+ of the Universe, but they are unobservable.

Oh, and to the OP, I meant how many years before you graduate and head off to College. if you're a senior in HS now, you should be buying for College. If you've got a few years left, then there will probably be other cool things out for College. (Try to convince family members to pitch in for your College gear!)
 
Do yourself a favor and get the best combo you can afford. Once you hit uni your needs may change and it is better to have too much power than not enough. Plus you futureproof yourself a bit, a high end machine will probably meet your needs for longer than a mid ranged machine that may not meet your needs in a years time.

I am a uni student and to be honest, for my particular course and needs my desktop is overkill, but my ipad is perfect, I actually sold my laptop after getting my ipad. Having said that, in a few years time I may be grateful that my computer has an excess of power, who knows. Computers grow better, software becomes more resource intensive, one day I might actually use more than one core of my quad core :p
 
I will say I have a 24" iMac and 1st gen ipad and find it better for my needs than my previous setup, only a MacBook.

I also do things with photoshop, indesign, dreamweaver, etc. All that, as well as watching movies and tv shows are done on my iMac now. My ipad is so much more portable than my previous MB.

I don't know if you travel, but if you do, the ipad is a lot easier on flights, at least for me. Something to think about.

My thinking is, if you get an iMac, you'll be set for a few years, as opposed to buying a MBp and having to upgrade every 12-18 months. Not to mention, the harddrives are so much larger on the iMacs, which is easily fixable in the laptops, but I'd rather not worry about that and just get them larger "stock" from Apple.
 
I have an iMac 20" 1gb upgraded to 3gb with two 1tb external drives with an ext 24 HD monitor, plus an iPad 32gb wifi.

I find this setup works well as home setup and as a mobile setup.

With the iPad I can vnc into my home system whenever I need to, or just go portable with the iPad and sync up the system when I get home.

The dual monitor helps with gaming or mixing whilst keeping the main screen free for smaller tasks.

This system also replaced my home stereo and my TV.

A true all in one home system.
 
Don Kosak said:
Everywhere I go, like 80% of the machines are Macs. It's like the PCs in the world are "Dark Matter". We know they make up 90%+ of the Universe, but they are unobservable.
Click to expand...

That's only because you obviously haven't joined the workforce and the corporate world yet. Apple is nice for home and consumer mobile use, but the OS X platform still does not play well in the corporate world. Using a Mac in the business landscape makes your life harder, not easier.
 
I find the iPad and iMac to be the best of both worlds. While in my opinion a laptop is an overall compromise. An iMac is more powerful than a MBP, and an iPad is more portable than the MBP.
 
Winni said:
That's only because you obviously haven't joined the workforce and the corporate world yet. Apple is nice for home and consumer mobile use, but the OS X platform still does not play well in the corporate world. Using a Mac in the business landscape makes your life harder, not easier.
Click to expand...

We've been using Macs exclusively in my company for over 6 years. You can't just say, "Macs don't work in a business landscape," because they clearly do. I think what you meant to say is that Macs aren't interoperable in many Windows-centric business environments. In which case i'd agree, because most businesses are run with a means to keep short term costs down, whereas I focus on trying to keep long-term costs down because, unlike a lot of company managers, i'm not an idiot.


Don Kosak said:
Everywhere I go, like 80% of the machines are Macs. It's like the PCs in the world are "Dark Matter". We know they make up 90%+ of the Universe, but they are unobservable.
Click to expand...
Hahaha. Funniest thing i've read on this forum in a while. :)
 
EssentialParado said:
We've been using Macs exclusively in my company for over 6 years. You can't just say, "Macs don't work in a business landscape," because they clearly do. I think what you meant to say is that Macs aren't interoperable in many Windows-centric business environments. In which case i'd agree, because most businesses are run with a means to keep short term costs down, whereas I focus on trying to keep long-term costs down because, unlike a lot of company managers, i'm not an idiot.



Hahaha. Funniest thing i've read on this forum in a while. :)
Click to expand...

I guess a high end 21.5" Sandy Bridge iMac with iPad 2G it is :)

Hopefully, I will raise enough money to buy this...
 
ditzy said:
I find the iPad and iMac to be the best of both worlds. While in my opinion a laptop is an overall compromise. An iMac is more powerful than a MBP, and an iPad is more portable than the MBP.
Click to expand...

I have used my MacBook Pro and iPad at work using citrix client and then have windows xp of both devices.
 
newmacboyoutube said:
I guess a high end 21.5" Sandy Bridge iMac with iPad 2G it is :)

Hopefully, I will raise enough money to buy this...
Click to expand...

But, now I think about it. iPad still can't do many of the things that a MacBook Pro can, such as better word processing / keynote, better multi-tasking, inDesign, Photoshop, Complex Video Editing... Who knows, in three years, I may need these things while mobile. But, in three years the iPad may be able to do these things better than now... I really don't know what to do :)...


I have somewhat narrowed my options in accordance to price:

13" (Sandy Bridge) MacBook Pro + iPad - High End - Upgrade iPad every 2 years - Upgrade MacBook Pro in THREE years - Approx. $2400 first year

iMac 21.5" (Sandy Bridge) + iPad - High Range - Upgrade iPad every 2 years - Upgrade iMac in FOUR years (1st time cost - Approx. $2450 first year...

Which one seems to have the most bang for the buck?
 
newmacboyoutube said:
But, now I think about it. iPad still can't do many of the things that a MacBook Pro can, such as better word processing / keynote, better multi-tasking, inDesign, Photoshop, Complex Video Editing... Who knows, in three years, I may need these things while mobile. But, in three years the iPad may be able to do these things better than now... I really don't know what to do :)...
Click to expand...

You can't buy based on what you "might" do in three years. You don't actually know what you will be doing three years from now, plans change. And even if your plans don't change, in three years, the best way to do those things could be totally different from what you expect now. You need to figure out what your present needs are *now*, then buy whatever equipment best fit those needs *now*. If you have some money left over in your budget, then you spend a little more on extras, like buying a 64GB iPad instead of 32 GB.

The two options you are contemplating now both seems to have an iPad in them, so right now, you seem set on getting an iPad, just wondering if a MacBook or an iMac will complement an iPad better. If so, start out by buying an iPad, after using it for a while you'll have a better idea of whether to get a MacBoook or iMac.
 
If you feel the c2d is "very underpowered" you're going to want to go with a REAL quad core i7. The new dual cores are nice but honestly, it's only few seconds faster when it comes to CS work. It would help tremendously with HD movie work but I can't imagine it's anything very serious.

I have a MBP and a ipad now and I find myself using the mbp less and less on the go. For notetaking and browsing the ipad is just much, much better.

If I could do it again I would personally get a decked out iMac+iPad.
 
Night Spring said:
The two options you are contemplating now both seems to have an iPad in them, so right now, you seem set on getting an iPad, just wondering if a MacBook or an iMac will complement an iPad better. If so, start out by buying an iPad, after using it for a while you'll have a better idea of whether to get a MacBoook or iMac.
Click to expand...
I agree with this. Get the iPad you want now, use it for a month, and then see what you want to compliment it with.

Personally I chose the iMac+iPad combo. My reasoning is the iMac is a beast enough to last several years doing high-end work, whereas a MacBook Pro's power will not stretch quite as far. Yet the iPad is inexpensive enough that I can easily upgrade it each year and I'll still be better off cost-wise than buying a MacBook Pro.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back