Which MacBook for me?

[GatorsUF]

Need a little advice on how to replace my iMac for a MacBook of some sort.

My current device - 21.5" iMac Mid 2010

I want something that can be portable but also can "dock" at home and be utilized like a PC on a desk. I am looking mostly towards the MacBook or the current MacBook Pro. I don't know if anyone has a strong recommendation on which version to buy or which model year etc... Mac is a little confusing to me since all of their devices are named the same thing and only differentiated by a "model year" tag which macs searching difficult.

My whole idea came from this video:

Which laptop?

Screen recommendation?

Would like to stay around $1500 total, which may be impossible...

 

[thats all folks]

are you ruling out the Air completely?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

You haven't told us what you use your computer for but I would reccomend the 13 inch rMBP it has all the ports and power you require by the sounds of it, and is the best bang for your buck.

 

[maflynn]

I am looking mostly towards the MacBook or the current MacBook Pro.

What apps will you be using?

Would like to stay around $1500 total, which may be impossible

If you have to buy a new monitor on top of getting a laptop, then yeah. That budget may be tight.

What are you mobility needs? Are you doing this just to have a dock, i.e., what's not working with your iMac that will be solved with a laptop?

 

[Tomorrow]

Even a base MBP with external monitor, keyboard, and pointer would stretch that budget. For my money, a MacBook is underpowered and overpriced by comparison.

Are you sure just getting a new iMac isn't the right choice for you?

 

[GatorsUF]

Ok sorry for the delay in writing replying, thanks for all the help thus far guys.

I think the appeal of portability is something my wife and I would like, being able to take a powerful computer with us on the go. I am not completely sold on the docking solution as of right now, because I think we decided to keep our iMac as a desktop computer at home.

We will use the laptop for Photoshop and Lightroom quite often as word processing, emails, excel etc...

I found a (early) 2015 12" MacBook Retina for $999 it includes parallels 11 also. Is that a good buy? What significant improvement would I get with a MacBook Pro?

 

[thats all folks]

Ok sorry for the delay in writing replying, thanks for all the help thus far guys.

I think the appeal of portability is something my wife and I would like, being able to take a powerful computer with us on the go. I am not completely sold on the docking solution as of right now, because I think we decided to keep our iMac as a desktop computer at home.

We will use the laptop for Photoshop and Lightroom quite often as word processing, emails, excel etc...

I found a (early) 2015 12" MacBook Retina for $999 it includes parallels 11 also. Is that a good buy? What significant improvement would I get with a MacBook Pro?

powerful relative to possibility, nothing 13" or under from Apple. Powerful would be the quad core 15" with discrete graphics. MacBook is definitively the least powerful Mac there is.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Ok sorry for the delay in writing replying, thanks for all the help thus far guys.

I think the appeal of portability is something my wife and I would like, being able to take a powerful computer with us on the go. I am not completely sold on the docking solution as of right now, because I think we decided to keep our iMac as a desktop computer at home.

We will use the laptop for Photoshop and Lightroom quite often as word processing, emails, excel etc...

I found a (early) 2015 12" MacBook Retina for $999 it includes parallels 11 also. Is that a good buy? What significant improvement would I get with a MacBook Pro?

None it has a vey low powered CPU and only one port.

If you are using Photoshop and Lightroom then the pro is your best bet by miles if only for the SD card slot and HDMI port for external screens and cards from cameras.

 

[merkinmuffley]

Get a 13 inch MBP with 16gb of memory. You'll be set. The 2014 models are a good value.

 

[DFTU101]

Get a 13 inch MBP with 16gb of memory. You'll be set. The 2014 models are a good value.

I agree. I have the macbook 2015. It's good for nothing except web surfing, word processing and emailing. It's slow and if you're using parallels or anything that requires processing power, get the MBP.

 

[HBOC]

i remember that when i sold my early 2011 MBP 15" top of the line model, i thought that the MBP 13" (at the time) would suffice. It was a dual core i5. It was painfully slow. I then took that back and got a base model 21.5" iMac that had a quad core i5 that was much better. just sold that and went with a dedicated graphics 15" MBP. much faster than the iMac. I run adobe CC software all the time.