Another what to buy?

[carlsbergbeer]

My late 2008 15” MBP died two weeks before work from home started. I pivoted to my wife’s 2012 13” MBP and put in the SSD from my dead Mac to replace her HDD. 13” of screen isn’t ideal but I’ve been making it work.

History: MAC for life ... IIGS, Performa 5200, G3 Tower, Titanium PowerBook G4 , late 2008 MBP.

Usage: Manage large photo library, large music library, usual internet stuff, Citrix applications for work from home, office 365, manipulating PDFs, etc.

Have read a ton of threads over the last few weeks. Originally thought an iMac could work, but hate the spinning hard drives. Looking hard at Mac mini’s, but by the time I buy a monitor and keyboard, mouse, camera, speaker I’m at the price of a ... 16” MBP.

I thought I might like a mini and a nice 24” screen, then use my 1st gen iPad Air on the couch for surfing (and upgrade to a faster I pad later). Now based on pricing I’m tilting back to MBP. Or the air.... thoughts?

 

[BATman.Berlin]

How important is the following to you:

- carry around easily/work at different places
- large internal drive over 512GB
- screen size
- external connectivity

I feel unless you are going to need a portable computer, you are getting much more for your money buying a iMac.

 

[glenthompson]

As iPads have gotten more powerful and feature rich my needs for a portable computer have pretty much gone by the wayside. You might try going iPad only except for things that must be done on a Mac. See how it goes and base your decision on that. If an iPad meets your portable needs, why pay the price for another portable device.

 

[carlsbergbeer]

Thanks for the replies. I do need to figure out if I want to work in one spot or move around. I could spec an iMac with SSD. I’m really intrigued by what people are doing with iPad pros, but I think I need a home for my photo and music collection.

 

[keeper]

Photos are interesting but what do you do with them?
i take mine mainly on my iPhone and nothing much more, holiday snaps etc.
I sold my Mac and moved to windows where although I do download the to the PC as a backup I don’t like the windows photo app and can’t find anything that matches the apple tagging, simple cheap solution is to use iCloud and access from anywhere.

Music I guess it depends if you rip your own files etc, I have mine on a NAS and access via the PC. Do I use it no, I mainly use Apple Music and Qobuz and dont really use my local files and never buy or rip cd,s.

i use the PC for gaming and everything else is iPad Pro but I’m mainly a consumer and do no creation.

 

[carlsbergbeer]

Windows is not an option for me. I take photos with my phone and a DSLR. Short video clips of action sports, etc.
I have 100 something gigs of music ripped from CDs, all complete albums. I don’t use iCloud for photos other than photos team, or Apple Music.
I’m eyeing minis and monitors at the moment.

 

[ipponrg]

I think I need a home for my photo and music collection.

I’m eyeing minis and monitors at the moment.

I could spec an iMac with SSD. I’m really intrigued by what people are doing with iPad pros, but I think I need a home for my photo and music collection.

Based on your requirements, it sounds like the Mac Mini makes sense.

Depending on your budget, I would actually do something like a NAS plus a Mac Mini / MBP though. The NAS would allow you to keep photos/music at "home", and accessing it is arbitrary for any platform.