You Passed on iMac Retina for rMBP + Monitor, What Monitor Makes You Happy?

[MacSignal]

If you passed on the iMac Retina to go with a rMBP and a monitor, tell me what monitor you chose, how you use it, and if you are happy.

The recent launch of the iMac Retina tempted me to try one. I have another week to decide if I am keeping it.

I would rather have one portable computer (rMBP) and an external monitor that doesn't make me miss the display quality of the retina laptops. From prior experience, I can share that Apple's TB display was not close enough.

Trying the iMac Retina has been a reminder of how much more productive I can be on a larger screen, but I don't want to be looking at big panel that causes more eye fatigue when I am at the computer for long hours -- or have a larger monitor that makes me miss the display quality of the retina laptops.

If you have had a similar experience, let me know how you worked it out for yourself and if you would make the same choices again. Thanks!

 

[venom600]

If you passed on the iMac Retina to go with a rMBP and a monitor, tell me what monitor you chose, how you use it, and if you are happy.

Using a 4k display with a MBP should give you a similar experience. They even support HiDPI scaling like the internal display. Which one you choose depends on how much money you have to spend.

However no standalone display looks like the 5k iMac. When we got them in at my office I sat it next to a $3000 IGZO 4k display and the picture destroyed the standalone monitor. It's not just the resolution, it's the fact that it is laminated onto the glass. That makes it look like the image is printed onto the glass, and nothing else (outside of an iPad Air 2 or iPhone 6) looks like that.

Also, the iMac is going to be dramatically faster than any Macbook Pro. I don't know what you use your computer for, but the iMac is actually faster than the Mac Pro in some cases, and the graphics card is seriously impressive as well.

 

[MacSignal]

Using a 4k display with a MBP should give you a similar experience. They even support HiDPI scaling like the internal display. Which one you choose depends on how much money you have to spend.

Thanks for the reply and the additional comments about the iMac Retina display and performance.

In asking about external monitors, I am less interested in what I can get at a given budget level and, more interested in what I would have to spend to get an external monitor that does not make me wish I was using the laptop retina display instead. But if the price of the most probable candidates is too close to the iMac Retina, I will keep the iMac instead.

 

[venom600]

I am less interested in what I can get at a given budget level and, more interested in what I would have to spend to get an external monitor that does not make me wish I was using the laptop retina display instead.

The truth is that whatever external you get is going to be so much larger that you will be sitting further away anyway, so the benefit of the internal display sort of disappears. I use a 13" rMBP at work with a 24" Apple LED display and at the distance I sit the differences are minimal.

Get an affordable 4k display (they can be had for $600 and up) or one of those new 34" 21:9 ultra wide displays (around a grand) and you won't even notice the tiny screen sitting next to them.