Both of my macs are pushing the 4-5 year old mark and it's time to upgrade. My dilemma is this. Would you rather go with a new MacBook Pro (15') or a new iMac(27") for post processing? I currently have the 24" version and love the real estate for working with images, but I also love the convenience of the MacBook Pro since it's always with me. What would you do?
howardm4 wrote:
how about a MacBook Pro and a good external screen?
I've been toying with that idea too, it's just been so long since I've bought (or used) an external monitor, I have no idea of a good hi rez monitor for photography. I know it can run upwards of another $1000 on top of the Mac. As it is now all I use the iMac for is photography and a server (4 hard drives attached to it for over 4TB of storage and backup) for my Macbook Pro. U use Lightroom, Photoshop and Premiere so I need some horsepower and right now the old iMac doesn't have it. (or my MB Pro for that matter)
Brian, can you use the monitor portion of the iMac as an external monitor? The reason I ask is that awhile back, someone stated that you can access the iMac monitor as a separate monitor. If you can, that could be your external monitor for a new MBPro, assuming that the iMac monitor is decent quality (IPS panel).
If you can't use the iMac monitor as a stand-alone monitor, it highlights the problem with an all-in-one system. Once the "computer" portion becomes outdated, the entire system, including monitor becomes obsolete. With a discrete system, you can reuse the monitor. I've upgraded my computer twice while still using the same monitor.
I believe only the later 27" generations of iMac can be used as a display, otherwise, it's a big paperweight or should go up on craigslist etc. yes, the problem w/ the all-in-1 iMac concept and I wish they would make a supersized Mac-mini
