I am about to graduate college and am looking to upgrade to an apple device. I have had the displeasure of using a windows 8 laptop for my graphic design work for 2 years and can't wait to get rid of it. There is only one problem I don't know what to get. I'm stuck between the 13in rMBP with 8gb of RAM or the 2nd teir 21in Imac that has the dedicated graphics. I don't game a lot and have mostly been just surfing the internet, listening to music, and doing design work on my laptop. Anyone have any advice?
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13rMBP or 21.5in Imac
- Thread starter Arkados
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I've always preferred a big monitor when doing graphic design.
I just can't see a 13" screen being big enough.
I just can't see a 13" screen being big enough.
I second the larger screen. I have a 13" MBP, a 20" iMac and 27" iMac. The larger screen of my iMac's is much more preferable to my MBP. The only way I would pick the rMBP is if I absolutely had to have portability. Or if you bought a bigger screen that you could use with the rMBP.
Thank you. I think I will go with the Imac, now I just have to find where to place it on my desk. The portability would be nice, but having that extra storage, bigger screen, and more power from the cpu and graphics would be nice. I tend to use InDesign and Illustrator more than the others.
I'd suggest a MBA 8GB RAM and an external monitor, you're getting the big screen + portability with awesome battery life via the new Haswell chips.
You absolutely do not need a desktop for ID/AI use. Get a laptop, hook it up to a decent sized external monitor and use the laptop screen as a secondary monitor. Add a wireless keyboard and mouse and you have all the advantages of a desktop system with the ability to just unplug the laptop and go.
Unless you're processing pro-quality video or rendering CGI, a laptop will comfortably meet your needs. I'm doing professional print work on a 13" MacBook Air with 8Gb of RAM on the set-up described above. If you're really worried about performance, you can get 16Gb of RAM in the 13" MBP now and that will comfortably meet your needs.
Cheers
Jim