iMac to Macbook Pro

[2Sticky]

Hi, I'm looking to move from my iMac to a laptop, so looking at a refurb MacBook pro M1 or the new MacBook Pros that I can hook up to a decent monitor.

From a performance point of view how much difference will I notice between my current iMac and the MacBook pro's?

I currently have a 2017 27" iMac, 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 with 40gb memory, Radeon Pro 575 4 GB.

Do I need more memory in the MacBook or would 16gb be ok?

Any advice or thoughts would be much appreciated.

 

[maverick100]

I Was doing the same thing and add a 27" monitor; but changed my mine when I found out they do not have an ethernet port. Still trying to figure out to do now

 

[wilberforce]

The MBP Pro will be significantly faster.

I have a 2020 iMac i7 with 32GB, and it is roughly the same speed as my base 14 MBP M1 Pro with 16GB. However, I am more often in yellow memory pressure on the 16GB M1 Pro. This is when editing very large files in Photoshop and Lightroom. If I were to do it again I would get 32GB.

Whether you will be OK with 16GB on M1 Pro very much depends on how much of the 40GB you are utilizing on your iMac. If your memory usage is currently high, I would get 32 GB. If it is low, you will likely be fine with 16GB.

 

[wilberforce]

I Was doing the same thing and add a 27" monitor; but changed my mine when I found out they do not have an ethernet port. Still trying to figure out to do now

Ethernet to USB-C adapter?