TRADE: Macbook Pro 15" 2.33GHz <--> iMac 24" 2.4GHz?

[Cyman]

Hey everyone,

I need your help.

Someone offered me to trade my 15" MBP 2.33GHz C2D against his 24" Glass iMac w/ 2.4GHz C2D CPU and 500GB hard disk.

I am so indecisive and don't know what to do so I wanted to ask you guys if you think that this is a good trade or not.

Here are the points I am thinking about:

 

I need a laptop for my stuides, but as an alternative I thought I could buy one of thes mini laptops such as the eeePC since I read that one can also install OS X on it/them.

Anyway, I think the choice of these new mini laptops is getting more and more complicated because of the growing range of models from different companies.

So if anyone could advise me which of these mini laptops I should go with, this would help me a lot.

But back to the Macs:

since I have eSATA ExpressCards for my MBP which I couldn't use anymore with an iMac I am hesitating (although none of the two ExpressCards are working at the moment). So, performancewise I have to stick with USB 2.0 interface with my external disks, which is ok, although I would prefer SATA of course.

The second thing which is important for me is the warranty. The guy says that if there is an issue with the iMac I just need to call him because the official warranty time (1 year) is over.

My MBP has still 1 year of extended warranty left.

The most important thing for me is the possibility to hook up the iMac on a Full HD LCD-TV, which shouldn't be a problem with a miniDVI->DVI->HDMI adapter or something or would it? (I know it should work with a MBP and a Full HD TV screen).

Then we are coming to the tech specs:

if I am right, the 2.4GHz C2D of the Glass iMac only has 3MB of Cache whereas my MBP has 4MB. Does this matter a lot or isn't there any noticeable difference?

My MBP has 25&MB of VRAM (ATi X1600), I think the 24" iMac should have the same amount on an nVidia 8600, right? (I need to look it up, because it is not the available anymore).

Since nVidia recently acknowledged that there are issues with almost the whole range of their GPUs I don't know if I should take this into account for my decision or not.

Talking about heat issues the guy told me that the iMac is getting quite hot on its surface - so I want to know if I have to think about that, too. I don't know if any users of this iMac generation encountered problems with overheating or due to heat (like issues with the screen/panel because of this or something). Wasn't there also a problem with the sealing of the glass and humidity in some cases?

Pleas let me know about any other possible issues with the iMac.

I am really interested in this deal but just want to sort all these possible problems out before I take my decision.

Meanwhile I will try to google some issues or more detailed specs of the iMac (which I haven't inspected personally yet).

So, I would be thankful if anyone could help me take a decision.

Cheers.

 

Cyman

 

EDIT:

I asked the guy if he could give me the model number later today, it appears I was wrong and this iMac series has got an ATi video card on board. I just don't know yet which one exactly...

[kitkat54]

I'd keep the notebook. You can always plug a display and keyboard to the notebook and use it as a desktop. I have a 17" Mac Book Pro (2008 LED backlit 1920x1200, 2x2.5GHz), and a Mac Pro (8x2.8Ghz), and if I had to choose, I'd give up the desktop and one of the monitors its connected to, and keep the laptop and the other monitor.

 

(of course, I am also partially biased, since a mac book pro has dual link DVI, and thus can drive a 30" display, whereas an iMac cannot, and for me that is a deal breaker as I do have a 30" display).

[Synaesthesia]

Like Kitkat mentioned, however, you can hook up your Macbook Pro to any screen up to 30"! So it can act as a killer desktop too.

 

The iMac is really well designed and doesn't suffer from any issues. In fact it runs very quitely and a lot cooler than a Macbook Pro. It's also a bit faster.

 

Of course with the giant screen - it's a much better desktop! I really love it, but it's up to you if you want a Desktop or a laptop!

[Cyman]

Well actually I just sold my DELL 2405FPW 24" screen to the very same guy, so I ran my MBP in a configuration similar as the ones you described. I didn't know though, that the MBP was capable of Dual Link and the iMac wasn't - anyway, I never thought about buying a 30" screen.

So, basically I don't have to worry about not having Dual Link DVI when I just run a screen with a resolution smaller than 2560x1600 (i.e. 1920x1200 or as I plan 1080p on a 40" TV)?

Good to know though that the iMac doesn't seem to suffer of any issues as those that I mentioned - but only from the value, do you think the deal is ok (since the MBP is also older -> late 2006 vs. early/mid 2007 iMac)?

[kitkat54]

I didn't know though, that the MBP was capable of Dual Link and the iMac wasn't

 

yah, you need a "Pro" (macbook or mac) model computer to get dual link ports. Worst part is that there is no good reason that the video out on the iMac is single link.

 

anyway, I never thought about buying a 30" screen.

 

Oh, but 30" displays are so pretty.

 

 

but only from the value, do you think the deal is ok (since the MBP is also older -> late 2006 vs. early/mid 2007 iMac)?

 

According to everymac, the estimated current retail on the iMac is $1400-$1800, and on the MBP is $1800-$2000, so prolly you MBP is worth a little more. Note the ATI card in the 2.4GHz 24" iMac was an ATI Radeon 2600 Pro.

 

See: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac...inum-specs.html

 

And: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macb...3-15-specs.html

 

-Josh

[Cyman]

Thx for the detailed answer. Of course a 30" screen is quite pretty but for me it would be too big to sit in front of when working at the desk, that is why I wanted to hook my Mac up to a bigger 40-inch Full HD-TV screen but with a bigger distance to sit from when working with it.

 

What is also nice is the price estimation of the two computers although one has to note that the iMac comes with 2GB of RAM and 500GB HDD instead of the standard 1GB and 320GB respectively.

 

Well, I think I will have to make up my mind on this until this weekend, although I have to say that I am really tempted by the iMac.

 

Oh, one more question. I cannot really figure out what the differences are between:

 

2nd Display Support: Dual/Mirroring 2nd Max. Resolution: 2560x1600

Details: Simultaneously supports native resolution on the internal display and a maximum of 2560x1600 on an external display.

(MBP 2.33GHz)

 

and

 

2nd Display Support: Dual/Mirroring 2nd Max. Resolution: 1900x1200*

Details: Apple reports that this model supports "digital resolutions up to 1920x1200" and "analog resolutions up to 2048x1536".

(iMac 2.4GHz)

 

Does this mean that the iMac cannot display the image on its own screen and an external screen at the same time? Maybe it is not as misleading as I think it is since it says "Dual/Mirroring" 2nd Display Support for both Macs. Ia it juat the difference between the higher resolution due to the Dual Link capability of the MBP that makes the difference?

 

Do you also happen to know a link with a performance comparison of either both computers or at least the two different video cards? That would be fine, thanks again!

[kitkat54]

Does this mean that the iMac cannot display the image on its own screen and an external screen at the same time? Maybe it is not as misleading as I think it is since it says "Dual/Mirroring" 2nd Display Support for both Macs. Ia it juat the difference between the higher resolution due to the Dual Link capability of the MBP that makes the difference?

 

both models can display mirrored (same image on the built in display as the external display). Since the internal display on an iMac 24" is 1920x1200, there is no issue with the single link DVI for mirroring. The only differences between the video systems on the two are as follows:

 

MBP:

Radeon x1600, internal display 1440x900, max external display 2560x1600(*)

 

iMac:

Radeon HD 2600 Pro(*), internal display 1920x1200(*), max external display 1920x1200

 

(asterisks mark the "better" of the two).

 

Do you also happen to know a link with a performance comparison of either both computers or at least the two different video cards? That would be fine, thanks again!

 

Well, you can check my sig below for what hardware I have. On most things, the only one that ever feels slow is the UX, which is a handheld machine, and as you might guess, a 1.2GHz machine with integrated graphics and 512M of ram actually is underpowered. (and even it is not painful to use for Mail.app or Safari.). Otherwise, 99% of the time I can't tell the difference between an 2.8GHz octo-core xeon desktop, and the 2.5GHz dual core laptop.

 

So I suppose it depends on what you do. If you game, the HD2600 is a better video chip than the x1600. Otherwise, the systems are going to perform pretty equivilently as far as you can tell, unless you do some serious number crunching things like video encoding that might make the faster drives noticable (you're just not going to notice the 70MHz difference in the chips). The iMac will have more hard disk space and a bigger display with higher resolution. The macbook pro can be taken with you for your studies -- and its worth noting that a real macbook pro is going to be more reliable than a hackbook. I actually have an rsync/mirror arrangement on my hackintosh at work so that I can do updates on the cloned drive, and rollback if things break.

 

 

Best of luck,

-Josh