Deals: Apple's 24-Inch iMac (7-Core, 256GB) Drops to Low Price of $1,239.92

[To The Moon]

Unless in school or office setting, I wonder why people would opt for iMac instead of MBA + external monitor.

I'm a big fan of desktop settings (albeit with minimal tower footprint). I have a Lenovo Tiny PC (very small w/64GB RAM) connected to two monitors, and an 8GB iMac 24". Of course I own a notebook, but for daily work, I prefer a dedicated desktop computer. For travel exclusively, laptop is enough.
Besides, I'm not a fan of unplugging cables every time. There is something about 'port wear' I don't like, especially with USB-C, HDMI and those ports.

Everything is synced anyway, thanks to OneDrive / iCloud.

 

[ackmondual]

Not speaking for all, but at least in my case I prefer having a full desktop for macOS and an iPad for on the go.

I'm not a power user and upgraded my 2012 27" iMac to the new M1 -- when I'm at home I prefer having an all-in-one that I can use for "bigger screen" things like research, writing, Logic, playing the occasional game and watching an episode or two. 24" is the sweet spot for me and I love just having it all set up without needing to have a MacBook with me and worrying about cables. I also have an audio setup that would be too tedious to set up with a MacBook. I traded my MBP for an 11" iPad/MKB so use that for on the go and note taking since I wasn't really using any macOS specific features while out and it compliments the iMac well. And I just love the look of the yellow iMac -- to my surprise I loved the white bezels so that too was a good selling feature for the iMac vs external monitor.

That being said, I don't know a single person who has a desktop (besides a few who are heavily invested in PC gaming, but even then their primary computer for anything non-gaming is a laptop) anymore so I feel like I am a minority in this case, especially amongst the university crowd.

I play some PC games (more if I ever bother to reinstall Steam), but none of that requires any bleeding edge hardware. I don't have a laptop. If I do work, I'll use the desktop provided by my workplace. I kind of do NOT want a laptop since if I'm out and about, I shouldn't be on a computer (I do that plenty anyways). Desktops are also cheaper, with better specs, and last longer (my Windows PCs have lasted me 7 to 10 years)