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OCalcutta

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 27, 2010
22
0
Advise needed for a novice. I’ve been eyeing a 27” iMac for a while, just because. I would use it primarily for documents, web surfing, Youtube. and very little use with Gimp to crop, brighten personal photos. That’s it. My computer needs are 90% for home and 10% for travel. What if I purchased a 13 inch Macbook pro instead and attached a 27” monitor to it ($200-300), a wireless keyboard and mouse? Or just get the base 27” retina and stick with my iPad for travels? Thank you.
 
A good 4K monitor that you can run in HiDPI (retina) mode + MacBook Pro is a nice setup, but keep in mind that the 27" iMac is a much faster computer than the 13" MBP. That may not be all that important to you, but if you do want occasional mobility and get performance that is closer to an iMac, you'll need the 15" MBP with a dGPU. Still, for Youtube, documents and Gimp, the 13" will do just nice.

My advice - if you can use the iPad for traveling, the iMac 27" is probably a better buy (unless you already have a good monitor). Both choices are fine, though.
 
It's not entirely clear to me why you'd be interested in a 5k, 27 inch display over a 4k 21 inch imac.

It sounds as if you could get a portable machine, and a largish 4k monitor, and be quite happy,
 
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