Sell iMac for MBP?

[gsusser]

As you can see from my tag, I have a fairly recent iMac, 2.7GHz, big hard drive and still under apple care protection.

I was thinking of upgrading the memory from 8GB to 16GB mostly because my large iTunes library seems to be causing memory problems. Then I started thinking why spend money on something I'll probably sell when the apple care protection is up and that it would be nice to chuck my windows laptop and get a MBPro with a second big screen. It would be nice to have one powerful computer that I could travel with and use at home. Does this make sense? I would only buy the MBPro if it was noticeably faster, i.e., faster processor, more memory, etc. Or can I customize the MB Air to meet these criteria? Or is there a better option, haha.

[I posted in another thread about my iTunes sluggish searching problems.]

 

[maflynn]

If you need a device for traveling then yeah I can see selling the iMac for the MBP. If traveling isn't a major criteria, just a nice to do thing, then perhaps keeping the iMac makes more sense.

I think if you have such a new computer, you're going to be losing money by selling the iMac and buying the MBP - just my $.02

It really depends on your needs, i.e., mobility vs desktop usage. Plus can you live with a 15" display after using the beautiful 27" iMac display?

 

[Isamilis]

iMac is one of my most worthy investment in Apple product. Screen real estate, large disk and desktop property which open so much possibility for media server, game center, office, kid's creativity etc etc.
MBP is only you need mobile, which in my case I end up switched from MBP to MBA for true mobile experience.

 

[Orlandoech]

I sold my 2011 i7, 16GB, 1TB iMac and barely got $1400 for it.

 

[yusukeaoki]

If you need to carry it around yeah go ahead and get it.
But other wise, I dont see the point of getting one.

If you do major heavy work that needs CPU power, I would just stick with the iMac.

 

[karpich1]

I made that mistake once... the MacBook Pro was on my desk 99.999% of the time.

If you see yourself needing a work-horse away from the desk often, then by all means get the powerful laptop.

Otherwise, a desktop plus either an iPad or the cheapest MacBook Air would cover your needs. A cheap second machine that you can browse or type when travelling or wanting to just lied down on the couch.



It's one of the reasons why I like my iPad. It's nowhere near a Laptop-Replacement... but I can carry it around with me (travelling, toss it on the couch, etc) and am less concerned about damage. No hinges to wear out, keys to mess up, etc. And it covers most of my PORTABLE needs... so long as I don't have to write more than a short email.

 

[robvas]

A big iTunes library will use 16GB of RAM? Is this real life?

 

[maflynn]

A big iTunes library will use 16GB of RAM? Is this real life?

I can't see how, that doesn't seem to make sense.

 

[gsusser]

I can't see how, that doesn't seem to make sense.

If you're referring to my original statement, that's not what I said. The reason I was considering (I just ordered another 8gb) was because in addition to a huge library, I play games and have a gazillion tabs open on my browser almost all the time. So, I decided to keep the iMac. The 8gb of additional memory was only $67 anyway so if it's a waste of money, then it's not a big waste.

 

[tekksan]

I can't see how, that doesn't seem to make sense.

If you're running iTunes 11, I think there is a memory leak that exists.

Run this command from a terminal

top -o VPRVT -n 10 -s 10

This will list your top 10 process sorted by virtual memory usage. Watch it for a few days and see how iTunes will bubble to the top. I did this and noticed eventually iTunes reached 70GB of virtual swap space and after that time my iMac locked up because of lack of swap space.

I wrote a script to watch iTunes and if its virtual swap space gets too large, the script will Quit iTunes and relaunch it.