He should have done that before he created this thread, then he probably would not have created this thread!
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Desktops are dead ?
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He should have done that before he created this thread, then he probably would not have created this thread!
not everyone absolutely need a screen so huge and so high quality
unless you're a professional
Thunderbolt display is not cheap. But it's not exactly a rip-off. It's one of a kind. It's a nice huge display, it's a thunderbolt dock, and it has sexy design.
I don't know what kind of 27" you can get for $300, maybe a generic 1080p Samsung or LG. Now these are comparable monitors to Thunderbolt Display.
Dell U2711
Samsung 27A850d
30" NEC <--- Now you know Thunderbolt Display isn't the baddest boy out there.
Same case with a desktop computer. Not everyone need it, unless you're a professional .. Not everyone fond of working with a laptop either. You enlightened yourself.
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Get real
A base model 15" Macbook Pro is £1499 in the UK - that's $2,400 ********kng $dollars.
Add to that a high quality, 27" display, which over in the UK would be an absolute minimum £350 - £400. Lets also take into account that that display would inevitably be an ugly, hideous, plastic monstrosity... Then I'd have to buy a keyboard and mouse - if I go for Apple ones, that's another £120.
I'd be looking at paying over £2000 for a laptop and a display - that's over $3250. $3250
$3K+ for a chunky, fat ass laptop to plug into an ugly, black plastic Dell monitor that will just sit on my desk in the office and maybe leave once a month.
Or I could just pay a touch over $2000 for a beautiful, 27" iMac.
Image
- 15" laptop sucks, they're too big. 13" is better
- 27" is way too big. i saw one and don't even want one. 21.5 is fine with me
- again, not everybody needs super high quality displays to get the work done.
- the thunderbolt display doesn't even have USB3, nor HDMI
that's 1200 + 200
anyway calm down, i guess i posted in the wrong forum
i really think desktops are on the decline, just like these huge PC boxes. only people who have grown with them still use them.
when the iPad will be fast enough, the same thread will happen
"laptops are dead ?"
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That comparison was spot on and exactly why the iMac gets more bang for your buck. As long as portability isn't in your cards, the iMac simply offers more performance for less money.
Yes, quite an unfair comparison. The iMac will obliterate a 13" MBP in graphics alone.
Seriously - you live on a different planet
You are obviously not a professional - people who use computers professionally need big screens, deal with it. Go play on your tiny laptop with your ugly cheap monitor.
I'll stick with a 27" iMac and an Air.
Good luck with your penny pinching goals in 2012.
Stay safe.
Why do I need a desktop? Many reasons but essentially as a home 'server' where all the photos, videos, music etc are sitting which for my family cases requires more than just 0.75 terra. Don't want the unsightly mess of cable sticking out of boxes and external hard drives. That's a personal choice. Also I want my kids to sit at a desk to do their homework. Don't want them lagging around an expensive MBP, sitting at the kitchen table spilling tea on it, sitting in the living room, being distructed by the TV. Those kind of reasons.
i am, in the audio department
actually, a lot of professionals are always flying, working all around the world, and i don't think they're carrying an iMac in their luggage
once again : external display
who cares about "ugly cheap" i want to get the job done, not something that looks pretty. OS X is the same weither you use an external screen or not
Good point all I agree on. A laptop is for me only needed if I had a job that required a lot of moving around. Everything else with a laptop is pointless. It's messy, your desk gets easily cluttered and filled with needed extra peripherals...it's pointless to me. Last time I bought a mb pro it just lied there connected to the teeth for a year... Which resulted it the battery getting bad extremely fast. Why would I want this again?
It's cool if you're an audio professional. But don't assume desktop is dead just because you see people use laptops while sitting in a cafe for WiFi time.
Apple slow the pace down with desktop. If Apple abandon Mac desktop, people like me wouldn't hesitate to build PC tower and hackintosh or going back with Windows. Anything as long as not using laptop as primary or the only machine.
And if you don't care about ugly cheap looks, you wouldn't buy an MBP. Let's be honest .. What kind of job that involving OSX and can't be done on Windows side?
That's a fair point - in that case then yes, for someone who has to be on the move all the time, an laptop is essential.
I care about ugly.
What I was really getting at it that for the price of a good, high end monitor and a decent macbook pro, I could pretty much buy an Air and a 27" iMac, which much better suits my needs.
So am I, which is why I have a laptop and an iPad for when I travel and desktop computers (Mac Pro at the office, iMac at home) for when I don't. Sure, today's laptops are very capable, but to duplicate the functionality of a desktop, I'd need:
- An external display
- One or more external hard drives
- A separate keyboard and mouse or trackpad
If a laptop meets all your needs, great. But as a professional who can afford it, I prefer to have the right tools for the job.
This argument is flawed in that the classic term 'Desktop Computer' implies the PC 'box' AND monitor sit on the desk(or the box under, which is very often an inconvenience due to space), while yes technically this is true for the all in one units like the iMac, there is always the issue of desktop space, for that reason I would say the All-in-ones are not necessarily in the same category as your classic Desktop computers. My 2p anyway.
And I'm sorry but what offices have you been into lately where not every desk has a 'desktop' on it??? In most design departments all they have are iMacs and if you spend most of your day at a desk working on a PC then laptops can be very tiring and inconvenient.
And I'm sorry but what offices have you been into lately where not every desk has a 'desktop' on it??? In most design departments all they have are iMacs and if you spend most of your day at a desk working on a PC then laptops can be very tiring and inconvenient.
it's not a matter of money, i can get a mac pro if i want, it's a matter of having a single machine vs having two
but it all comes to personal preferences. some people like having tons of gear, i'm the opposite : the less, the better.
with my macbook & imac i have two itunes library, two iphoto library, two logic pro installations ... also two machines to upgrade. i'd rather have a single thing. or two things with the same brain, but it's not possible.
why having two? why can't a professional just work on a single iMac if he does not need portability?
You can. OP keeps is implying everyone needs a notebook.
If you work at your desk, and you want the best combination of power, comfort and usability, there's no combination of laptop+external monitor that can beat an iMac. Either we're talking about pricing or performance.
Laptops are noisy.
Laptops are over priced.
Laptop screens are too small.
Laptop gpus are too weak .
Macbook pros are easy to steal. And people like to steal them.
In 5 minutes all the theft preventions can be removed.
Laptops have a purpose if you are mobile.
While you may be mobile you would be surprised at how many people don't need mobile gear.
I have 3 mac minis and a diy pc.
I had 2 mac minis an imac and a mac pro.
I also have a cheap pos windows laptop for the rare occasions I go mobile.
Once you have had a mugger stick a 45 in your face (1992 Astoria Queens NY) you learn not to carry around high end gear.
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everybody that i know has a laptop, that's why i didn't think about desktop only users. they're a minority these days i guess
I read a good post here, forgot who posted it originally; that for most cases, using a laptop = riding a bicycle, and working on a desktop = riding a car. I think that metaphor is a spot on.
Not directly comparable since they serve different purposes. You can't ride a car in a small pathway but you can't go cross country with a bicycle either.
Both are complementary and so it's better to have them altogether and use it for whatever it was designed for.
Riding a bike/bicycle will never be as comfortable as in a car. Just as in for a short quick tasks, laptop is good enough. But for serious long travelling and all, I'd take a car anyday.
Not directly comparable since they serve different purposes. You can't ride a car in a small pathway but you can't go cross country with a bicycle either.
Both are complementary and so it's better to have them altogether and use it for whatever it was designed for.
Riding a bike/bicycle will never be as comfortable as in a car. Just as in for a short quick tasks, laptop is good enough. But for serious long travelling and all, I'd take a car anyday.
Agreed. Laptops are great for their intended purposes, but are normally a poor substitute for a desktop. It's like saying a sports coupé with a trailer is as useful as a pickup truck. First of all, the tow hook makes a coupé look ugly and secondly, the coupé can't go down to my bottom field to pick up the trees that I've cut down.
It's the same thing with a laptop, even from an aesthetic point of view alone. Once I've added all of the Thunderbolt goodies and attached an external monitor to my rMBP, it looks like some horrible science fiction abomination. With a desktop I can hide all of the cabling away.
To illustrate my point further, how is a coupé with a trailer going to get me across 2 feet of water?
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How Orwellian.
So, just think different has turned into just do what we tell you.
Sad.
Not so much that they're doing it.
That doesn't surprise me at all.
It's sad that so many are indoctrinated into professing it.
The Manchurian Candidate wasn't just about politics...
sorry but the car/bicyle comparison is just dumb
cheap car vs deluxe one if you want, but both will get you from point A to B
people are obsessed with comfort and having the fastest car i guess. in my job it's creativity that matters, at the end of the day the computer is just a tool. anyway. this is endless
cheap car vs deluxe one if you want, but both will get you from point A to B
people are obsessed with comfort and having the fastest car i guess. in my job it's creativity that matters, at the end of the day the computer is just a tool. anyway. this is endless
I, and most of my colleagues, use a MacBook Pro, with a 24 or 27" external monitor, full-sized keyboard and mouse on the desktop. It's a great set-up - with the usability advantages of a desktop and the portability of a laptop.
You are, of course, paying a premium for portability - you definitely get more bangs-per-buck with an iMac - and it wouldn't make sense if you never take your computer away from the desk. However, some of the people comparing prices here conveniently forget about is that, if you do need portability, the valid price comparison is:
Laptop + decent external screen
vs.
iMac + a decent laptop + (possibly) additional software licenses.
...which levels the playing field a bit!
Also, the Laptop option gives you a 2-screen system - which for some things can be more convenient than one larger screen (e.g. just drag a window onto the second screen and maximise it, or run Parallels+Windows full-screen on one screen, keep OS X windows on the other).
Personally, I maintain several websites with server-side databases and scripting, so I have 'working copies' of the servers running on my computer for development and demonstration (no, not every conference room in the world has reliable WiFi) so 'syncing' a laptop and desktop can be a bit of a faff. It was about 1am in the morning with a 7am train to the airport when, while fiddling about making sure everything was transferred and working, that I decided to go down the laptop-only route. That time-saving is worth money to me.
Yes, there will always be some people who have a specialist requirement that demands the extra cpu/gpu power of a desktop, but its a diminishing group - squeezed at the other end by the people who need the expandability of a Mac Pro (expandability is hardly the iMac's strong point). Faster external expansion via USB3 and Thunderbolt are also eroding the advantages of internally-expandable desktops.
Oh, and I wish people wouldn't keep going on about 'Professionals' - unless you're referring to a specific profession with required qualifications it just means that you get paid for it. There are such things as professional writers, video professionals who don't need to work with 4K video or CGI and professional photogaphers who don't produce giant 1200ppi posters. These people aren't going to stretch a decent laptop. The last video professional I worked with turned up with a MacBook Pro so we could all sit around and interfere^H^H^H^H^H advise while he edited.
You posted in the correct place. It is just that the dismissive manner in which you respond to other people's posts (which I feel are very valid and certainly deserving of more respect than what you are giving) is extremely irritating. Basically, you seem to be trying to drive across the point that there is no reason to own a desktop over a laptop, and pretty much insulting everyone else who does.- 15" laptop sucks, they're too big. 13" is better
- 27" is way too big. i saw one and don't even want one. 21.5 is fine with me
- again, not everybody needs super high quality displays to get the work done.
- the thunderbolt display doesn't even have USB3, nor HDMI
that's 1200 + 200
anyway calm down, i guess i posted in the wrong forum
i really think desktops are on the decline, just like these huge PC boxes. only people who have grown with them still use them.
when the iPad will be fast enough, the same thread will happen
"laptops are dead ?"
However, I am willing to give you the benefit of a doubt.
Why did I get a 27" imac? Well, my home computer is a shared PC for use between me and my dad. I makes no sense to buy a laptop to bring to work and leave him with just a screen at home.
27" is great for when you want 2 documents side by side, or even simple stuff like surfing the net while a movie is running by the side of the browser. I don't need a laptop because I already have one issued by the school where I work in (meant to be used for work and when teaching in conjunction with an IWB), but even then, I rarely ever turn it on nowadays because I am finding the ipad+atv to be a far more versatile combination.
When I am outside, my ipad more than suffices in getting the job done for me. At home, my imac is superior to any apple laptop of comparable price. I am the kind of guy who values portability a lot. The 15" MBP already tends towards desktop replacement, and were I to get one, it would likely sit at home most of the time (in which case, why not just get the imac instead?). The airs are sleek and light and to be honest, I have thought long and hard about getting one, and come to the conclusion that there is just no room in my life for a laptop, Apple or no.
So to your question, my answer is that ultimately, the imac met (and still meets) my needs the best. I wouldn't replace it, not even for the new Rmbp.