How to choose beteen iMac and MacBook Pro

[ApplePie427]

Hey guys,

I've recently made the decision to take the leap of faith and switch to Mac. Not many people I know use Macs so it's kind of hard to get real-life opinions. Basically I'm stuck between an iMac 27 and a MacBook Pro 13. It would be great if anyone could give me some advice as to which one to choose.

I'm a fairly casual computer user, one of those typical just e-mail, web surfing, photos, and music kind of person. But while I don't do anything intensive like mix my own records or edit videos, I do have a substantial amount of music, photo, and video files just from everyday life, and I especially enjoy viewing and sharing them with friends and family, which is why I'm loving the huge 27" screen.

Right now I'm sharing a big studio apartment with another girlfriend, so I do have the space available for an iMac 27, and I tend to use my computer mostly at home. However, I'm not sure if I'm going to be moving around in the future. The MacBook Pro 13 is really a lovely little package, and I'm sure that spec-wise it's more than enough for my needs, but I have my worries that I'll find the 13" screen to be a bit too small for everyday use.

Oh and lastly, do the MacBook Pros suffer a performance hit when compared to the iMacs? I know the hard drive will be a little slower, but otherwise, is it going to be like PCs where the laptops are lagging all the time?

Thanks guys!

 

[djasterix]

Having that on mind, you better get the 15" i5 base model MBP, bigger screen, better performance, newer processor...

 

[elpmas]

Having that on mind, you better get the 15" i5 base model MBP, bigger screen, better performance, newer processor...

+1. Portability is ALWAYS nice. You can always hook the mbp to Apple's cinema screen, that'll be like an imac ^_^

 

[djasterix]

+1. Portability is ALWAYS nice. You can always hook the mbp to Apple's cinema screen, that'll be like an imac ^_^

Better, you can take it with you everywhere...

 

[green86]

If the main reason you want a iMac is the screen, consider getting a MacBook and external screen. Get at least a 15" for the i5 though. The iMac i5's and MacBook i5's should be about the same performance wise, however the iMac i7 is MUCH faster then even the MacBook Pro i7.

 

[iamrawr]

27" iMac is overkill for your needs. You can hook up a 13" MacBook pro to an external display like others have said. But the 15" models give you a higher resolution option for a clearer display. However, the graphics card might not be able to handle very high resolutions like 2500x(whatever numbers) for large external displays. Since you can only get higher Video ram memory from buying a pricey i7 15" MacBook pro to achieve a quality image at resolutions that high. Darn apple for cheating us with less options. There's no higher res option for the 13" neither...