27" At work would upset me.

[rivercottage]

Hiya guys!

After a few years of getting by on a core2duo macbook pro and aging dell, its time to get a new setup.

Im a designer. I work out of an office in the city, and my home is the middle of a field.

Previously I took my macbook pro into work, plugged into a monitor and did my work, came home, did some more work if needed, I had all my personal photos in itunes, all my music, everything in one place...brilliant.

But...poor macbook pro ran out of space and started to struggle with all the files needed. So I shifted over to working on the dell in the office, and using the macbook pro at home for bits and bats.

Long story short, my query is what to get.

Went into the apple store today and fell in love with the 27" imac - and its the same price as the macbook pro.

Id love the imac at work, but id be stuck with macbook pro at home. I would really like to have some method of keeping everything with me, all my photos, music itunes etc - so macbook pro would fit the deal...but gosh....that 27" screen!

Basically Im trying to get something I cant have, all my content with me, all the time.

Any thoughts very welcome.

Sorry to ramble on.

 

[keisi]

Same Boat

I was in a similar boat over the past couple of weeks. I bought an iMac (Top of the line) for use at home and I would use my 11" air to work at my university when I needed an internet connection. But then my 11" air had to be replaced with a current 13".

Since I deal daily with online software repositories this jump between the two is becoming a hassle so I have decided to try and sell my iMac. All in all, the iMac is very tempting - but in my situation the laptop was the way to go.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

What about a lower end Macbook Pro and a Dell IPS monitor?

 

[velocityg4]

Since storage space seems to be your main issue. Why not get a 1TB hard drive for the MBP or new MBP with 1TB hard drive? If you need even more space you can replace the optical drive with a MCE Optibay and add an additional 1TB drive. If 1TB is plenty and you want it to be as fast as possible you could use a 128GB or 256GB SSD for your boot drive and programs then use an Optibay paired with a 1TB drive for storage; just be sure to buy an SSD that has plenty of room for your OS, apps, fonts &c.

As for the Optibay if you want to save some money you could get an Optibay knockoff on eBay for about $15 rather than spending $100 for the real McCoy. All an Optibay does is provide a mount and route the power and SATA cables. Just be sure to get the correct model for a new MBP it would be a cheaper all SATA model while some of the older ones need a SATA to PATA model.