15" rMBP or iMac 21", or both?

[onlysum]

I have a (mid 2011) 21.5" iMac, 2.8 GHz, i7, 4GB RAM, 512 AMD, 1TB HD and for christmas I unexpectedly got a 15.4" rMBP, 2.6 GHz, i7, 512 SSD, 8GB RAM as a gift. Now I don't know weather I should keep both or sell the iMac and buy a 24" or 27" apple cinema display? I will be mainly using for video edit, post production.

I can't decide. What would you do?

 

[boto]

I would sell both and get a rMBP with 16GB Ram. It seems you will be utilizing the additional Ram with your needs. As for the Thunderbolt display, I feel you should wait patiently for a new release (hopefully it updates this year). Apple should update the USB ports to 3.0, reduce the glare like the iMacs, and should offer a slimmer design to stay up-to-date on the current technology. Although it is your choice whether you require it now or later.

 

[bill-p]

I don't see why you can't keep both.

Aside from more screen real estate, I don't see what the 27" TBD would do better compared to your iMac.

The iMac can be used as a standalone computer, and... I think it'll be a better that you can keep one machine on your desk plus one machine in your bag.

 

[yinz]

rMBP, sell the iMac. One machine is far easier to manage. You probably won't touch the other machine..

 

[onlysum]

I think i'm just outside the time scale where I can return and upgrade it, it would of been good to have the 16GB of RAM. I don't want to sell both machines to just update the RAM. Not sure I would of really needed the extra RAM anyway as the editing I do isn't that heavy. I would be nice to have more screen real estate for editing. As for waiting for the New displays to be released, the update of the USB 3.0 would be sweet but don't think i'd be able to afford it when it's first released. If I sell the iMac I can pick up a cinema display for around £500-£600 and with the left over i could get a CD drive, keyboard, mouse etc. It would make things a lot simpler to just have one machine, but in the long run will that be the best option considering MBP battery life etc.? What would be the benefits of having two machines? (one for at home and one for the bag). I can see working on a video project over two machines being a hassle.

 

[bill-p]

I think the benefits are obvious. You can leave the MacBook in your bag if you have an iMac at home.

When you spring out of the house, all you have to do is grab the bag and run. You don't have to unplug a bunch of cables and put the laptop in its place in the bag, etc...

I've been down that road before. It's not pretty.

Another benefit is that having two machines would force you to use external storage more often to transfer data. And if you edit videos as often as my colleagues do, then... trust me, you'll want to have external storage for your video data. 500GB in the rMBP will go away very fast.