This sound practical, or is there a better arrangement?

[Spitroast Panda]

Right, Im looking at moving to mac, and what I think I'm after is an iMac, (lets see what happens on the 23rd, first,lol), plus a.n.other. Probably either a 13" air or an ipad2...not sure which is better for us though, if indeed what I am considering would be enough.

Our current PC usage is: internet surfing, listening to music, bit of word processing for my open uni course, looking at mucky ladies , literally what 99% of the computer-owning population do!! The only future extra use we can forsee is Im getting the wife a 650D DLSR for her 40th next May, but would have guessed the iMac will deal with any processing requirements.

The kids will still have windoze for a while, but eventually the whole house will become fruity, and they will obviously end up with airs for homework,etc..

 

[wgnoyes]

Your processing needs sound pretty modest; I should think the baseline 21.5" iMac would do you just fine. As to a 13" MBA v. an iPad (get a 3, not a 2, since your budget clearly already is allowing for a MBA), it just depends on what your portability needs are. Macs and ipads are NOT the same thing; you won't be able to do all the same things on a iPad the same way you do on a real computer. But if you just want a handheld browser and email processor, and take-along music library and whatnot like that, an ipad would do fine. Rule of thumb with them is get the largest amount of GB you can afford.

 

[Paulywauly]

Rule of thumb with them is get the largest amount of GB you can afford.

I agree with your post wgnoyes up until this point above. The difference between a 16GB and 64GB on a new iPad is £150, which is alot of money if you're not going use that much space. My original iPad was a 64GB model, which i bought because i could afford it but in the end i only ever used around about 16GB of it (due to Cloud services mainly)

From his requirements the only thing he's mentioned which would use a lot of space could potentially be music, but an iTunes Match subscription may be a better alternative for someone with a large library anyway (less storage on device and cheaper)

When choosing between a MBA and an iPad i'd recommend going to a store and trying both though, its alot of money and definatly worth it!

 

[wgnoyes]

Well, I say that from experience (decades) with computers. Put it this way: My wife and I went to the store last december with the intent of getting a 32gb ipad2. After all, we were used to 16gb iPhones. And we got there and looked and the difference was an extra $100 for twice the storage. She has the same data processing background as I, and we decided to go ahead and get the big one. Good thing, too. We passed the 32gb boundary THAT NIGHT on loading it with stuff for a trade show she was going to be attending.

iTunes Match didn't really work out for me; apple does many things very well, but classical music isn't one of them!