[OSX-Users] Re: Purchase advice please

[Julian Field]

Hugh,

On 15/07/2015 12:15, Hugh Glaser wrote:
> 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.
Why not a Mac mini? Does your HP also do dual-link DVI or anything more 
modern than twin DVI?
>
> 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 :-)
I would go for Dropbox for the files, and iCloud for everything else. 
Then it will all sync with your iPhone, iPad, and so on too. Dropbox 
support is coded into 3rd party iOS apps more than iCloud usually is, so 
tends to be more useful.
>
> 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?
Don't see the point of paying extra for 5K if you can't see it. The 
graphics card ends up doing all the work anyway, so I wouldn't worry 
about CPU usage.
>
> 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?
Yes. Last time I checked the RAM is behind a little panel you can remove 
from the back of the iMac, involves pressing a tiny button hidden by the 
mains connector.
>
> 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?
Sounds good. The only reason you might want to think of going any bigger 
is if you might want to try out betas and such like (at which point you 
can just clone your existing partition into the other half of the space 
and put the betas on there while leaving your original alone until the 
final release is put out).
>
> 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?
Again, if you've got that monitor working off a Mac already, why not buy 
a much cheaper Mac mini in the first place? Do you want to use 2 
monitors at the same time?
>
> 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 :-)
You're probably going to be good for quite a few years on a Core i5, but 
the new Core i7 CPUs are *very* nice and fast.

Hope that helps,

Jules

-- 
Jules Field MEng MBCS CITP CEng
email+iMessage: Jules at ecs.soton.ac.uk
Twitter: @JulesFM

Senior Tutor, Electronics and Computer Science
Teaching Systems Manager, Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering
University of Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

'When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder
  That such trivial people should muse and thunder
  In such lovely language.' - D.H. Lawrence