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Oh my gosh, I can't decide....

A

atMac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 20, 2011
328
0
I went to another Apple store, one with good service, and I was looking at both the 13in Air, and the 21.5in iMac. I can't decide which to get.

THe fully loaded 13in Air does everything I need in a notebook, but the iMac with the 6770 has everything I could use in a desktop. They can both do the productive work I want to do, but it comes down to how much fun I can have vs how portable it is.

iMac Pros:
HD display
faster CPU
faster GPU
more storage
Can play Starcraft 2 and Left 4 Dead at a good FPS
cheaper than the Air

iMac Cons:
not portable


13in Air Pros:
Light
1400x900 display (better than the 13in Pro)
good battery life
SSD

13in Cons:
Not good Starcraft 2/Left 4 Dead
No HD display
costs more than the iMac


Any guidance folks?
 
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Buy the iMac
 
Unless you actually need a laptop you should get a faster desktop. You could also consider the 13" MBP as sort of a middle ground.

Personally I would never buy another laptop again if I didn't need them for my business. I'll take a powerful desktop any day. Though personally I would build my own. If you want a Mac you can build a badass hackintosh and dual boot to Win 7 for games.

I did that for a while and found I never used the OS X side and didn't bother with it on my most recent rig.
 
It really comes down to how important being portable is to you. If you can say it’s importance is >50% of your criteria, then get the Air. Otherwise get the more powerful iMac, which is somewhat portable anyway.
 
Seems to me that if you're even considering the iMac, you don't need mobility. It's like my buddy that bought a beautiful MBP a few years back, and not once has it left the desk in his office. If there's a chance you'll end up like him - might as well go for more horsepower for your dollar.
 
Well I enjoy moving around my house. Sometimes I'm in the kitchen, some times the porch, the basement, my office ect. I like not being locked to a single table. I do spend much of my time in my home office, but I just like having the option to not have to be at it.

I just setup a NAS in my house so I have 500GB of my files anyplace I go that has internet so I'm not kept to my desk for storage reasons. My biggest toss up in my mind is portability vs GPU. I know the GPU is for games, I don't need it for my work. It's just the fun factor is hard to give up. If the Air only had a little bit better GPU, darn it.
 
atMac said:
Well I enjoy moving around my house. Sometimes I'm in the kitchen, some times the porch, the basement, my office ect. I like not being locked to a single table. I do spend much of my time in my home office, but I just like having the option to not have to be at it.
Click to expand...

Do you do the same kinds of tasks while moving around the house as you do while sitting at the desk/table?

Depending on what the tasks are, maybe get iPad for mobility, and iMac for desktop. You could screen-share the iMac and get a VNC app for iPad and do some things "telekinetically". I just wouldn't want to do a lot of typing that way.

What do the 500 GB of files represent? Movies? Music? Would the inherent wireless bandwidth constraints also limit the usability of the files?

And if the Air's GPU is problematic for the games you want, then it has the same problem whether you're moving around the house or sitting at a desk. Look at iPad games. They won't be the same as Mac OS X games, but they can still be amusing.
 
chown33 said:
Do you do the same kinds of tasks while moving around the house as you do while sitting at the desk/table?

Depending on what the tasks are, maybe get iPad for mobility, and iMac for desktop. You could screen-share the iMac and get a VNC app for iPad and do some things "telekinetically". I just wouldn't want to do a lot of typing that way.

What do the 500 GB of files represent? Movies? Music? Would the inherent wireless bandwidth constraints also limit the usability of the files?

And if the Air's GPU is problematic for the games you want, then it has the same problem whether you're moving around the house or sitting at a desk. Look at iPad games. They won't be the same as Mac OS X games, but they can still be amusing.
Click to expand...

I do the same stuff everywhere, Xcode, Coda, Pages, iTunes. The files on the NAS are backups of my work files, movies, TV rips. So it is a mix of work and fun.

I really just see the iPad as a huge iPhone. I browed one for a week from a friend and found myself never using it. Since I already had my iPhone or old MacBook Pro on me so it seemed like it was intended to fill a void that doesn't exist for me.
 
atMac said:
I do the same stuff everywhere, Xcode, Coda, Pages, iTunes. The files on the NAS are backups of my work files, movies, TV rips. So it is a mix of work and fun.
Click to expand...
If you're mostly coding and moving around the house (plus outside!) then get the MBA. I've got a MB and it has yet to sit on a desk. It's on my couch or dinning room table mostly. I find it amazingly convenient. Then again, I don't game on the Mac.
 
I got the base Tier2 21.5in iMac. I'll eventually get a 2TB drive in it as after moving everything on I have already used about 525GB. I also hooked up an external 2TB I had laying around for a Time Machine. So it seems I'm all set.

Thanks guys.
 
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