Industrial Design student - questions need answers!

[TSE]

So next year I am going to be a Freshmen in University and am going to be going for an industrial design major.

For about the price of a high end MacBook Pro, I could get a Lenovo X220i for about $750 and a 27 inch iMac for $1500.

Lets just say that the new 27 inch iMac is the exact same except for it's faster.

With the X220i with the 9-cell battery I get about 12 hours of battery, and the Core i3 processor is fast enough for basically anything except for CPU intensive tasks. That is OK because that is what the iMac is for.

A couple questions:

-Does this seem like a good plan?

-Does the Core i3 2310M come with the same graphics as the Core i5s and i7s?

-What is needed to have the X220i drive the iMac as an external monitor?

-Would it be possible to drive the iMacs Snow Leopard OS onto the X220i for when I'm on the go and I have internet connection?

-Is the iMac included in the free iPod Touch promo?

Hopefully the iMacs come out soon and are awesome!

 

[Badger^2]

Who knows if its a good plan for you?

You will have to look on Intels site to see what the graphics chips are in their laptops.

No, it wont power a 27" iMac screen.

No you cannot install OS X on just any random laptop.

Yes. When the promo comes its any mac but the Macpro.

You are aware that you can run both OS X and Windblows on a MBP, right?
And current MBPs are faster/as fast as current iMacs...

12 hours on the battery, LOL! maybe at 50% screen brightness doing nothing but typing a letter.

 

[TSE]

I have a feeling you dont quite know what you are talking about. Anyone else?

 

[Badger^2]

I have a feeling you dont quite know what you are talking about. Anyone else?

Feeling is mutual.

Lets look at one of your questions: Does the Core i3 2310M come with the same graphics as the Core i5s and i7s?

So on a *Mac* forum, you are asking people to know off the top of their head the specs for a Lenovo laptop and the Intel chip in it? I could find the info... if I headed over to the Lenovo site and looked at the specs on it.

And you ask: What is needed to have the X220i drive the iMac as an external monitor? and some simple research: no.

Although I already knew that since 27-inch models also support input from external DisplayPort sources -- and the 220 doesnt have a Display port adapter.

And the integrated 220 graphics push 1920 X 1080 only with the extra $80 adapter. iMac is 2560 X 1440.

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

I could go on, but I will let you do your own research

 

[TSE]

Alright. Sorry for the hassle. Thanks for the help. I wish the air had better battery life.... It looks like there is no perfect solution for me.

 

[iSayuSay]

A couple answers:

-Does this seem like a good plan?

Nope to me, you're ending up frustated because of mixed OS, you use winblows for Lenovo, and Mac OS for iMac. I suggest you get yourself base model MBA 11" for about $999 and base iMac 27" for about $1600

Yes, you may have to stretch your budget a bit, but you can get the best of both. You get ultraportability from MBA and decent power from iMac. But I suggest you wait for 2011 iMac to get more bang for your buck since they due to update.

Of course you may research and get lower price from amazon or some sort.

-Does the Core i3 2310M come with the same graphics as the Core i5s and i7s?

Yes they do come with the same IGP, as they are Sandy Bridge intel core generation. But in base model MBA you get older core 2 duo 1.4 Ghz, but decent gpu, which is Nvidia Geforce 320M

More or less, current base model 11" MBA perform equally to base model 13" MBP (non SSD BTO) due to MBA has internal SSD as standard, the loading speed of SSD compensate lower processor power on MBA.

-What is needed to have the X220i drive the iMac as an external monitor?

You just need mini display port cable to connect your Lenovo to iMac 27" since i heard x220i provide mDP port, but you need to check it for further details. You may also check maximum resolution supported by Lenovo.

But again, i suggest you get yourself MBA rather than lenovo, since with MBA you can get OSX and bootcamp windows together with your iMac, hassle free .. and looks nice when you put both on table. And MBA can be connected to your 27" iMac with full resolution, with mDP to mDP cable.


-Would it be possible to drive the iMacs Snow Leopard OS onto the X220i for when I'm on the go and I have internet connection?

Certainly not, unless you do hackintosh, but it can go haywire and leave you frustated since you may need to install certain kernel/driver for your laptop.

-Is the iMac included in the free iPod Touch promo?

Yes it is, between May and August if i remember correctly, if you don't need the iPod, you may sell it for about $200 as long as you don't open the seal. Consider it an additional discount.

Hopefully the iMacs come out soon and are awesome!

Yes i hope so, i'm counting on that too. I hope this answer helps. Thank you