[OSX-Users] Purchase advice please

[Hugh Glaser]

So, I’m a newbie, since I’ve never bought a Mac desktop before :-)
(Yes, really, I realise - I’ve had Mac Book’s since the 100, and before that I used to lug my compact Mac home and back. Almost 30 years of portable/luggable Macs.)

I don’t get out much now (!), so my 2011 Air will be enough when I do (along with the iPad); but I could do with a better machine than the Air plugged into my 30” at home (i particular more than than the 4GB)…

So, I think an iMac is on the horizon, since it gives a lot more bangs than Books do.
It has to be the bigger 27” one - I use a 30” twin DVI HP now, and it would be strange not to have something similar on the machine itself.

Synchro?
First question is about using 2 machines at the same time (iMac and Air). I think that the Apple synchro is better than it was, and may even be quite good now. I’m not talking hand-off here - more about having a bunch of files, and hopefully browser history and bookmarks all synched.
iCloud? Dropbox as well? Something else? Certainly not GDocs :-)

Screen?
I’ll probably pay the extra to go for the 5K, just for forwards compatibility (my eyes can’t really see the difference of retina, I find).
I do worry that Retina makes more demands on the processor (and memory), since it needs to service 4 times as many pixels, although a lot of that will be taken up by the graphics card.
Any views?

Memory?
I’ll want 32GB one day, I’m sure.
As usual, Apple charges an arm, a leg and a hand for memory.
So I think I buy the 8GB machine, and can upgrade to 32GB immediately or when I want, for the same extra money as buying the 16GB version?

Disk?
I’ve got plenty of external spinning rust around, with TBs of space free, and really don’t need some more, especially one that is only 1 or 3 TB (I’ve been running off a 128GB SSD Air for the last 4 years).
So I think 256GB SSD is more than enough for normal use, and the price of the 512GB SSD isn’t justified for me (I don’t edit large movies).
SSD and not Fusion because managing my own use of the SSD is no trouble, and going to guarantee things are in the right place.
So I think 256GB SSD is the best thing to do?

External Display?
I will be plugging my HP LP3065 30” 2560 x 1600 in to it as well. At the moment it is plugged into the Air, via a Thunderbolt to Twin-DVI adaptor. As far as I can tell, this should be OK for Thunderbolt 2 too, but does anyone have any experience of this?

Clock?
Can’t imagine it is worth the extra spondulicks for the faster one?
Although that would also let me get a faster graphics, which I probably don’t need either, but could burn more money on :-)

TIA
Hugh