Is the 27" iMac oversized?

H

hacke

macrumors member
I'm considering for some weeks if I should go for the 27" or 21,5" model..

At the moment I've a MBP with 24" display and it seems to be just the best size..

With this new purchase (21" with GT650M or 27" with GTX680MX) I definitely want to play some games (starcraft2 and battlefield3) and I do not want to purchase a windows PC! The iMac will also replace my MBP.

Are you also not sure about which monitor size and due to this which GPU size you want to order? At the moment the 27" feels just a little bit too big...
 
I have both a 24" iMac and a 27" iMac. The 27" is my primary machine and oftentimes I am wishing the iMac was a 30" or that I had an extra display for more screen real estate.

But you have to get what works best for you. :)
 
Wow... seems like I've just to cotton up to the 27" iMac.. I also would prefer the upgrades which the 27" makes possible
 
It takes a bit of time to go to a larger display, but once you do, it's hard to go back. (That's assuming that the computer isn't overwhelmingly large for the desk it's placed on.)
 
Hacke
If your playing games 680MX with 2GB DDR5 is going to be great. That takes you to the 27"
3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) with 6MB L3 cache should be good enough.
The tough call is what Drive. Are you going to Play PC games? If so then the 1 TB HDD or the 1 TB Fusion may be the way to go. Because if your going to use Bootcamp you won't be able to use the 3T Drives. And you won't be able to put Bootcamp on an external either. And if you get the Fusion Drive you will have to partition the HDD and won't be able to use the SSD side for Windows.
I would also get a third party Ram upgrade, OWC for 32GB is about $200.

I hope this has helped :confused:
 
The 21.5" looked small in store, while the 27" looked big. Too big, over time I can adjust to. Too small, will always not be enough imo. The 27" looked big in store, but when I brought it home it looked acceptable, and now after a year it looks just right, and even a tad small.

Honestly, the 27" iMac doesn't look 27" no more, feels small. Glad I didn't went with the 21.5" otherwise I'd hate myself right now.
 
Thanks! I think I will go for the 27" iMac with 680MX and 1TB FusionDrive and perhaps update via third party the RAM. I think I will get used to the extra sized 27" :D
 
The 27" seems to large, imo. Look at it at the store over a couple of visits. Maybe the new design makes the 27 feel less overwhelming.
 
Something around 24" with increased resolution might be ideal for a lot of people. Around 20-30" away it comfortably fits the field of view without making cursor navigation into a huge issue. Even for professional use in a wide range of fields, ability to hit something quickly with the cursor helps quite a lot, and being able to do so without cursor acceleration is generally ideal. I'm not sure what they'll do in that regard. A 27" display covers a lot of users who need more real estate, but I've always felt tying display size/specs to the specs of the rest of the machine was rather limiting. If it's just a 24", it may still feel restrictive for some individuals, so I'm not really sure. I can say that a single 16:9 or 16:10 display can displace a lot of prior use cases where dual displays would have been the primary option years ago. The greater horizontal real estate on a single screen often provides better continuity and fewer ui issues across applications.

The OP's context is specifically gaming. Apple has never really optimized in favor of gaming. They just market Macs, and many of them are good enough for gaming. They are not as tailored for that purpose as a gaming PC, as they are not purpose built machines.


rowspaxe said:
The 27" seems to large, imo. Look at it at the store over a couple of visits. Maybe the new design makes the 27 feel less overwhelming.
Click to expand...

I'm trying to be less nitpicky, but this is another one of those posts that annoys me, as it sounds shallow (even if the person who wrote it really isn't). What matters is how it looks in use. In use the new design is identical to the old one. You're looking at a 16:9 27" display either way. The design didn't change the resolution, overall footprint, scaling, or any other element related to actual use. Surface reflections should look dimmer. That's about it. Its look as a piece of furniture has nothing to do with how 27" feels in use, even in the store. Once you position yourself to look directly at it, the focus on the screen should dispel the illusion.
 
I just got my 27" yesterday. I had been using a mid-2006 iMac with a 19" monitor. I also use the 21.5" iMac at work. Now I can barely use my work machine. The 27" screen real estate is amazing. I installed an app that lets me easily snap windows around on the screen (similar to on Windows), so multi-tasking with multiple windows open is so much easier now.
 
I initially bought a new 21.5" iMac then later switched for a refurb. 27" and will never be able to go back. The real estate difference is amazing. When looking at a 21.5" it looks like a toy.
 
I can see how a pro would find the 27 useful when you absolutely need the real estate but getting it for the hell of it is silliness.

Having said that a lot of people are content with 15" screen these days including pros so a 21" is not exactly small.
 
ivbaseball06 said:
I just got my 27" yesterday. I had been using a mid-2006 iMac with a 19" monitor. I also use the 21.5" iMac at work. Now I can barely use my work machine. The 27" screen real estate is amazing. I installed an app that lets me easily snap windows around on the screen (similar to on Windows), so multi-tasking with multiple windows open is so much easier now.
Click to expand...

What is that app called?
 
I've never thought to myself my iMac 27" is too big & how I should have gotten the 21" instead while also saving some money along the way. But I'm almost certain if I had gotten the 21" I'd be regretting not having spent a few hundred dollars more for the 27". I don't upgrade every year so I wanted to make sure I'd be 100% happy with my purchase and I am. The downside to having a 27" iMac is that I don't want anything smaller now. And reading other comments from 27" owners in this thread, it seems we share the same opinion regarding our iMacs.
 
27" for sure

I use a 27" monitor now that I dock my MacBook Pro with


Couldn't imagine using a 21" monitor
 
I have had 3 27" imac now. It's gotten so bad that even my external second monitor has to be a 27". Keep in mind it isn't so much the size of the thing but the resolution. Things are so crisp and it's truly a beautiful panel. Throw a 21" monitor next to one and use it as a second monitor you'll quickly see how much more useful the 27 is over the 21
 
mchoffa said:
I was just looking into these and found Cinch, Moom, BetterSnapTool and Hyperdock, but not sure which will work best. Moom has a trial so may try it first.
Click to expand...

I'm partial to hyperdock. It also has some nice features that include live thumbnails of apps on mouse over, and interacting with iTunes from the dock directly... A must buy in my opinion if you like windows 7 style snapping, and app thumbnails.
 
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