Buying Advice -

[Darrenp1988]

Wonder if anyone can give me some Mac advice. I have a late 2015 27inch imac. I use it for a variety of graphic design work, running Creative Suite.

I have a few questions, I'm thinking of replacing the iMac, but I also have a 2022 MacBook Air, it might sound silly but is the Macbook Air quicker than my iMac?

I dont relaly use the Mackbook Air for anything more than emails and web, but I was going to buy a replacement for the iMac, I'm thinking a Studio, but wondered if I should just be using the Macbook Air? Any advice welcome!

Thanks!

 

[OldMike]

I have a few questions, I'm thinking of replacing the iMac, but I also have a 2022 MacBook Air, it might sound silly but is the Macbook Air quicker than my iMac?

I am going to assume your 2015 iMac 27 inch was the higher spec Core i7-6700K instead of the i5. And even if that were the case, would you believe me if I told you that your MacBook Air is just about twice as fast as your iMac? Really it is.

As long as you don't have a ton of RAM installed in your iMac (that you actually need) then I would think your MacBook Air would provide a much better experience for almost any work you are trying to accomplish.

Enjoy your MacBook Air!

 

[Basic75]

Wonder if anyone can give me some Mac advice. I have a late 2015 27inch imac. I use it for a variety of graphic design work, running Creative Suite.

I have a few questions, I'm thinking of replacing the iMac, but I also have a 2022 MacBook Air, it might sound silly but is the Macbook Air quicker than my iMac?

I dont relaly use the Mackbook Air for anything more than emails and web, but I was going to buy a replacement for the iMac, I'm thinking a Studio, but wondered if I should just be using the Macbook Air? Any advice welcome!

Thanks!

You already have the Air? For crying out loud, just try it and see how it performs! The CPU in the Air is much faster than your iMac's, but RAM could be a problem, especially if you have the 8GB model.

 

[Darrenp1988]

Well I always saw my iMac as the workhorse, silly really as its a desktop, the iMac is 3.2 i5 but has 32GB in it.
and the Air is M2 with only 16GB ram in it

 

[OldMike]

Well I always saw my iMac as the workhorse, silly really as its a desktop, the iMac is 3.2 i5 but has 32GB in it.
and the Air is M2 with only 16GB ram in it

I think you are going to be in good shape since you bought the M2 Air with 16GB RAM. I would think even if you had the 8GB Air, it would have performed most tasks better than your i5 iMac, but with 16GB RAM you should have plenty of room to work with. I've seen some amazing things done in reviews with 8GB RAM (which for me did not work out - I had tons of memory pressure and swapping on the 8GB M1 Mac Mini that I returned), but I really think 16GB RAM is the sweet spot on these for doing work beyond the basics.

 

[Darrenp1988]

Thats great news, thansk Mike! the other option was to buy a Studio but I'll swap out the Air for ther iMac and see how I get on!
Any advice on a possible replacement welcome though, its a bit of a minefield out there! lol

 

[OldMike]

Thats great news, thansk Mike! the other option was to buy a Studio but I'll swap out the Air for ther iMac and see how I get on!
Any advice on a possible replacement welcome though, its a bit of a minefield out there! lol

The M3 Max seems to be a pretty good upgrade over the M2 Max, so maybe use your M2 Air until the updated Studio comes out. I don't know what the pricing will be when it gets updated - but the current price of the Mac Studio is really good for what you get.

 

[Mousse]

Good advice testing out your workflow using the MBA. I can see you wanting a larger display*, so I'd start looking for a generous sized display to hook up to the Air. If you get a Studio later on, you've already got your monitor.

*I've done emergency graphics work on a laptop. I did more panning than a '49er during the Gold Rush.😬