Advice on purchase, MBP or iMac

[slooksterPSV]

Now I know some of you may say I'm answering my own question in this, but here's what I want to know - should I get an iMac or MBP.

I'm not going to toss out a budget, but it'll either be the 13" MBP or the 21.5" iMac.

Reasons I want the MBP: Portable, good specs, has 4GB of RAM.
Reasons I don't want the MBP: Old CPU (thinking refresh is coming?), small screen area

Reasons I want the iMac: Newer CPU, 4GB RAM, Large screen, Larger HDD
Reasons I don't want the iMac: Not portable

Also I love ATI, and the iMac has the 4670, but I'm a person who likes to go upstairs use computer or go downstairs and use it... hmmm.... it'll be a few months before I can get it, maybe the MBP will have Core i3's by then, what do you guys think?

Need any additional info?

 

[DennisVar]

You could go for the best of both worlds. Get an MBP for portability and an external monitor for bigger screen real estate.

There's another thread today for monitor recommendations if you don't want the beautiful but pricy cinema displays (I personally use Dell 2007FPs)

 

[Hellhammer]

Seems like you want portability so go with MBP. You can get an external monitor and turn the MBP into a desktop.

 

[NeoMac]

I agree with the other two posts. MBP with an external monitor. I would add a wireless keyboard and magic mouse/trackpad also. It seems like the best of both worlds.

 

[slooksterPSV]

You guys are awesome, I never thought about adding an external, what about the C2D though? I would have thought the MBP would get the i3 on the low-ends or are they possibly not going to do that? Hmmm... Worst case I get the 15", which would be better than the 13" for screen real-estate.

How do you guys feel about iWork vs MS Office? I personally like the Mac Apps look, but want to know if you feel iWork has more to offer than MS Office.

 

[Hellhammer]

You guys are awesome, I never thought about adding an external, what about the C2D though? I would have thought the MBP would get the i3 on the low-ends or are they possibly not going to do that? Hmmm... Worst case I get the 15", which would be better than the 13" for screen real-estate.

How do you guys feel about iWork vs MS Office? I personally like the Mac Apps look, but want to know if you feel iWork has more to offer than MS Office.

What are you going to do with it? C2D is still more than adequate for an average user and most people wouldn't notice the difference between i3 and C2D. RAM and a fast HD or maybe even SSD plays a much bigger role.

I personally like the new Office 2011 very much. It offers greater compatibility with Office for Windows than iWork does and especially if you're used to Office, it will feel like home. Both have free trials so give them a try before buying

 

[slooksterPSV]

What are you going to do with it? C2D is still more than adequate for an average user and most people wouldn't notice the difference between i3 and C2D. RAM and a fast HD or maybe even SSD plays a much bigger role.

I personally like the new Office 2011 very much. It offers greater compatibility with Office for Windows than iWork does and especially if you're used to Office, it will feel like home. Both have free trials so give them a try before buying

Ok, I'm not really looking to do office wise documents or that, just want a spreadsheet to do calculations and a word processor to do some writing and updating resume. ($49 preinstalled vs $79)

I don't want to use OpenOffice or NeoOffice, hmm.... Also I'm thinking Bento as I like doing DB's but don't need the full power of FMP. So we shall just wait and see.

 

[slooksterPSV]

Also, what I'm going to do with it, I forgot to answer that:

I run virtualizations just to play around with other OSes and that. I run Ubuntu Linux and Windows in VMs to keep up to date with or to use. I use Ubuntu as my main OS on my computers.

Other than that, music, videos, some gaming, programming, stuff like that.

 

[Sander]

I have a 15" MBP in a BookArc stand. If I were to select a solution today, I would have probably gone with HengeDocks, because my current situation is a little ugly with all the separate cables sticking out. With a bluetooth keyboard and trackpad, and a nice 1920x1200 mobitor (Iiyama in my case), my setup works just great, and I can take the laptop elsewhere if I can't work at my desk.

Another small drawback is that I want to buy a 27" iMac with quad i7 and SSD, because they're sexy, but I have a hard time justifying it because the MBP really covers all my needs.