Possible?

[kitsunesfire]

I'm going to get a 13" MBA for college. I was going to get the base model with the 4GB upgrade, since I already have a 21.5" iMac for my main machine. But my mom posed an offer to buy my iMac off of me...should I upgrade to the ultimate 13", get an external HD and sell the iMac? I have a 32" tv I can use as an external monitor for movies and such. I do photography and play games, but nothing I couldn't stash on my external HD. I'm just worried I'm going to miss my iMac...it's a powerful, fast machine and has been my baby for the past year. Thoughts?

 

[halledise]

I'm going to get a 13" MBA for college. I was going to get the base model with the 4GB upgrade, since I already have a 21.5" iMac for my main machine. But my mom posed an offer to buy my iMac off of me...should I upgrade to the ultimate 13", get an external HD and sell the iMac? I have a 32" tv I can use as an external monitor for movies and such. I do photography and play games, but nothing I couldn't stash on my external HD. I'm just worried I'm going to miss my iMac...it's a powerful, fast machine and has been my baby for the past year. Thoughts?

take mum up on her offer - you won't regret it!

 

[peapody]

I'm going to get a 13" MBA for college. I was going to get the base model with the 4GB upgrade, since I already have a 21.5" iMac for my main machine. But my mom posed an offer to buy my iMac off of me...should I upgrade to the ultimate 13", get an external HD and sell the iMac? I have a 32" tv I can use as an external monitor for movies and such. I do photography and play games, but nothing I couldn't stash on my external HD. I'm just worried I'm going to miss my iMac...it's a powerful, fast machine and has been my baby for the past year. Thoughts?

Hmm..

I would keep the iMac and get a base with a 4gb upgrade...unless your mom needs a computer...

You won't notice that much difference between the ultimate and the base besides the ssd space. But since you have an imac already, the MBA would be a good supplement. Although the ultimate is just fine as a main machine, I wouldn't let go of the iMac. That is just me though.

 

[oakie]

when you say, "photography," do you actually mean it or are we talking snapshots? depending on your workflow, you wont be able to efficiently perform any worthwhile post-processing on the MBA.

i have an MBP15, a 27" iMac, and just bought a new, fully loaded, 13" MBAir myself. using the MBP15 for on-location processing is limited to just batch processing as any retouching is just not doable on a small screen with RAW images... so anything beyond batch processing i do on my iMac at home.

plus, while the screen on the new MBA is nice, it's nowhere near the quality of the MBP or iMac screens when it comes to color gamut, thus any manual adjustments in photoshop pointless.

 

[kitsunesfire]

On my iMac I do some work in between those extremes. It's primarily a holding cell for my shots, as well as some minor editing software. I do some work on them, but no radical changes. Any detail work I do at my school's digital photo lab, where we are blessed nearly infinite access to large screens and the full adobe software.

Since I hold so many images, I'm considering getting a network storage device:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FFP4PK/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

and using that to house my photos (as well as my itunes library) to free up space on my MBA. Do you think that would work?