{"id":2344,"date":"2011-05-04T15:23:44","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T19:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam-jackson.net\/blog\/?p=2344"},"modified":"2011-05-04T15:23:44","modified_gmt":"2011-05-04T19:23:44","slug":"marco-arment-on-mac-pros-imacs-and-macbooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/05\/04\/marco-arment-on-mac-pros-imacs-and-macbooks\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 Marco Arment on Mac Pros, iMacs and MacBooks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marco<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Laptops have all of the same limitations as iMacs.3<\/a><\/sup> We\u2019re fine with that, because laptops provide a lot of value in other ways, and they cost a lot less than Mac Pros.<\/p>\n

I should really think of the iMac, therefore, more like a laptop \u2014 but one that trades its portability and small size for a much larger screen and slightly better hardware. And that doesn\u2019t sound like a very appealing tradeoff, since you can plug laptops into external monitors, and since many iMac owners will still want to own a laptop for portability.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth thinking about this if you\u2019re considering an iMac purchase: will you still want a laptop? If so, will you be better served by just buying a fast laptop and connecting an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor to it at your desk?<\/p>\n

My answer would be \u201cabsolutely\u201d, so an iMac definitely isn\u2019t right for me. The question for me, therefore, isn\u2019t \u201cMac Pro or iMac?\u201d, but rather, \u201cMac Pro\u00a0and<\/em> a laptop, or just a MacBook Pro?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One thing that\u00a0occurred\u00a0to me is the lifespan of a MacBook is far lower than an iMac as the iMac never moves and is never being thrown around. The cables you plug into an iMac rarely change and the Bluetooth keyboard & mouse are always paired. You plug it into a surge protector and leave it there and, for those of us with a lot of digital media, streaming from an iMac that’s always running to my AppleTV is far easier than getting home with my MacBook Pro, going to the office, plugging it in, pairing the keyboard and mouse and then leaving that laptop running all night (which means the fan basically will run constantly.<\/p>\n

I bought an iMac in 2009 and realized that an always on computer with a spacious screen and a low AppleCare price was PERFECT alongside a low cost MacBook Air that serves me for day to day use. I believe a low-end 27″ iMac + 11″ MacBook Air will cost you around $2500 with discounts and you’ll have two fantastic machines. For $499 more, you can add an iPad to that and for only $199 more you can have an iPhone. You can have Apple’s complete spectrum of the latest and cutting edge devices for work & play for less than $3500. I know that sounds like an amazingly high price to pay but compared to the price of a single Mac Pro (before buying a monitor), this is a steal. You would never see me buying a Mac Pro ever. I owned one back in 2005 back when Intel CPUs weren’t out and the iPhone was 2 years away. It was a great machine but, even then, I still had a G4 iBook along side my dual 2.5Ghz G5.<\/p>\n

If you have any amount of digital media and a real living room (most people over 25 have these things) and perhaps you have kids and are married, you’re going to want to have an iMac that is in the family room that everyone uses. There’s no password on it and it has digital media, a few user accounts, games for the kids and it’s an all around reliable computer that’s hard to bring down unless the kids somehow knock over the desk it’s sitting on. Then, Mom & Dad have their low price SSD powered MacBooks and the entire family shares an iPad and the teenagers have iPod touches while Mom & Dad have iPhones. This is the modern home computer setup and, if you’re in college, yes, a 13″ Macbook Pro is what you need but having a MacBook Pro that you attach to a keyboard, monitor & mouse is absurd for most adults.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marco: Laptops have all of the same limitations as iMacs.3 We\u2019re fine with that, because laptops provide a…\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-linked","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-BO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":704,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/12\/15\/apples-late-2009-27-core-i7-imac-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":2344,"position":0},"title":"\u2605 My Thoughts On Apple’s Late-2009 27″ Core i7 iMac [REVIEW]","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"December 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Opening: I stated on Thursday when the iMac came in that I only review new technology after I've been using it for 2-4 weeks. It's been 5 days and I'm already fully prepared to review this amazing machine. The key reason is that the iMac isn't a notebook. A notebook\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"My Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Unboxing the new Core i7 iMac","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2742\/4174468983_e13c379ee7.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2798,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/07\/21\/im-selling-my-computers-and-starting-fresh-heres-why\/","url_meta":{"origin":2344,"position":1},"title":"\u2605 I’m selling my computers and starting fresh. Here’s why.","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"July 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This has been quite a weird couple of years. It was a while ago that I chronicled all of the Macs I've owned in my life. I've owned over 20 at this point. 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After a month, this was my main takeaway: As for the system\u2019s responsiveness it\u2019s fine\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Apple MacBook Pro 2021 M1 Max 16","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51783399363_3dcb856640_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51783399363_3dcb856640_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51783399363_3dcb856640_b.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51783399363_3dcb856640_b.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8681,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2022\/03\/11\/linked-apples-mac-studio-27-imac\/","url_meta":{"origin":2344,"position":3},"title":"Linked: Apple’s Mac Studio & 27″ iMac","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Michael Tsai: I\u2019ve been happy with my 27-inch iMac, after many years of laptops-as-desktops before that, so I had kind of been assuming I would either get anew iMac or a desktop Mac with an external display (to go along with the non-Retina Dell that\u2019s attached to my iMac).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Linked"","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5700,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2016\/04\/08\/technology-the-apple-imac-5k-27-late-2015\/","url_meta":{"origin":2344,"position":4},"title":"Technology: The Apple iMac, 5K 27″ (Late-2015)","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In putting together this post, I\u2019m losing track of how many iMacs I\u2019ve owned. 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