Anonymous asked:
What made you choose the 27" iMac over the Mac Pro?
Convenience, cost and environment. The iMac is an extremely convenient computer—one cable, one piece of hardware, a relatively small footprint. It fits well on my desk and looks very nice.
It’s also very affordable for what it offers. I got the top of the line 27-inch model with the 2TB HDD + SSD option, bumped it to 16GB of RAM (not through Apple) and I still paid less than $3,000 USD before shipping. That price includes a lightning-fast computer with tons of storage space and an insane amount of memory, plus a beautiful 27-inch LED display. Mac Pros start at $2,499 USD without a display. Now, you can build an insane Mac Pro, but I don’t need that kind of raw computing power. My iMac is the fastest computer I’ve ever owned by leaps and bounds. Cost-wise, it just doesn’t make much sense to buy a Mac Pro any more (for me).
One complaint I’ve heard in the past is about the iMac’s lack of user-replaceable drives or that the limit of two is a problem, but I mostly disagree. If you have a very extreme need for storage I could see you having to buy many external hard drives. But I have 2.5TB built in, and with Thunderbolt (which the Mac Pro doesn’t have) I added two 1TB Thunderbolt drives that are lightning fast, and I have hundreds of GB to spare right now. I shoot lots of video and photos, have thousands of Photoshop files, et cetera, and I’m not at all worried about space. With Thunderbolt and the larger built-in disk options, this isn’t an issue so much these days.
The iMac also uses only 25% of the power the Mac Pro uses. Even at peak activity, the iMac with a built-in display uses 40% less power a Mac Pro uses. This might not be an important aspect for everyone, but it’s something I think about.
