MacPrices.net

MacBooks and MacBook Pros vs iMacs - Value Bake-Off

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

by Charles W. Moore

The aluminum iMac has been the greatest temptation for me to try anther desktop computer since the G4 Cube (which I did try for a short time back in 2001). The operative question is whether the iMac would be a satisfactory laptop-as-desktop-substitute substitute? It depends. Certainly not if you need a seriously portable computer even occasionally, and you’re only having one, your best bet is likely to get a MacBook or a MacBook Pro (but read on).

However, over the past decade or so, a steadily increasing proportion of notebook computers s have been purchased for use mainly as desktop substitute computers that spend most of their time plugged into AC power, frequently with an external keyboard, mouse, and even an external monitor hooked up. My 17” PowerBook sometimes goes for weeks or even months at a time without ever being called on to run on battery power (I use one of my hotrodded Pismo PowerBooks as my road machine in most instances). For mostly “desktop laptop” users like me, the iMac presents itself as a cheaper, faster, alternative to a ‘Book, at least as a main workstation computer.

Ad: Compare prices for new and clearance Macs at Mac Prices. Price trackers updated daily. New Macs are currently available for up to $300 off MSRP!

Now, personally, I wouldn’t want to be without a real, portable computer, but I already have four of them - five if you count an old PowerBook 1400. An aluminum iMac could be an excellent compliment to serve as a general-purpose workstation that still doesn’t take up a whole lot of space and can be relatively easily moved around if necessary.

As I noted above, I’ve been down this road. When the G4 Cube was unveiled in 2000, it immediately occurred to me that this new compact desktop Mac just might be a sensible alternative to my PowerBook, and I did get a Cube several months later, but discovered that while my idea I had sounded good in theory, in practice the Cube, with its satellite speakers and speaker amplifier, external power supply for which “brick” was more than just a metaphor, along with a keyboard, mouse, and display, needed nearly as much desktop space as my SuperMac S-900 tower. However, the iMac is much more efficiently integrated than the Cube was, with internal speakers, an internal power supply, and sizes up quite favorably compared with a notebook on a stand connected to an external keyboard and mouse.

I love small computers. Compactness is the essential quality of a laptop - even the mighty 17-inch PowerBooks and MacBook Pros.

For me, the principal deficiency of the iMac is its lack of battery power, not so much the lack of real portability so long as I have my backup notebooks, but because I live in a rural area where power outages are fairly common, which was one of the reasons why I never really got comfortable with the Cube as a workhorse computer. I had become accustomed to the PowerBooks being able to cruise through power outages seamlessly, sometimes without my even noticing that there had been a power failure until the little lightning bolt charge indicator in the menubar caught my eye.

The workaround would be some sort of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and/or power inverter and a 12 volt automotive battery or power pack to run the iMac off of during power interruptions, but even in that instance a laptop will give you a lot longer runtime on the same battery.

I haven’t said much about the economics of this concept so far, so let’s take a look. The 20” AlGlass 2.4 GHz iMac starts at $1,199.00, 100 bucks more than a base 2.1 GHz MacBook, which isn’t too far from being saw-off price wise since if you want to use the MacBook in comfortable desktop substitute mode, you’ll still need a keyboard and mouse, and a laptop stand. However, the iMac has a whopping great 7” larger display with higher resolution, a faster Penryn Core 2 Duo processor, a faster system bus, and better video support system with a real ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT GPU and 128MB memory instead of the MacBook’s Mickey Mouse Intel GMA X3100 “vampire video,” 170 GB more standard hard drive capacity in a full-sized 3.5” 7200 RPM desktop hard disk, and a standard SuperDrive instead of the MacBook’s poky Combo drive. BOth have 1 GB standard RAM.

Moving up a notch, the 2.66 GHz 20” iMac sells for $1,499.00, coming with an even larger 320 GB hard drive and a better ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO video card with twice as much video memory as the base model. The upmarket 2.4 GHz MacBook goes for $1,299.00, and also includes a SuperDrive, a 250 GB, 5400 RPM HD, and the GMA X3100 video kludge, and both machines come with 2 GB of RAM.

On the basis of specification and performance in desktop mode, it’s not difficult to justify the iMac’s slightly higher purchase price in either comparison, but I would say that the 2.4 GHz MacBook fares better against its next-nearest iMac counterpart than the base 2.1 GHz low-end machine does, since it’s $200 cheaper.

Conversely, when we get into the higher-end models, the iMac bolts way out in front in power and features for money spent. The cheapest 15” MacBook Pro sells for $1,999.00, but has the same 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU as the upper end MacBook and entry-level iMac, just a 200GB hard drive and an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT GPU with 256MB of video RAM. Even the base iMac gets a 250 MGB hard drive.

For $200 less ($1,799) you can get an iMac with a wide open spaces 24” display, a 2.8.GHz processor, and a 320GB hard drive, or pony up just 200 bucks more than the base MacBook Pro’s price to $2,199 and you’re in 3.06 GHz country with a 500 GB HD and an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS GPU with 512MB video RAM, which begins to sound like a serious bargain compared with the higher-end MacBook Pros, which come standard with 2.5 GHz processors, 250 GB hard drives, the same NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB VRAM, 1440 x 900 and 1680 by 1050 resolution displays and sell for $2,499.00 (15”) and $2,799.00 (17”) respectively. Bumping up 100 MHz in clock speed to 2.6 GHz, will set you back another $250, and if you want to go with the supreme ultimate 17” MacBook Pro, you can order up a 300 GB HD (only 4200 RPM, though) for $75, and an LED backlit 1920 by 1200 Hi-Resolution display (same res. as the 24” iMac) for $100, bringing your grand total to $3,224.00, or a cool $1,025 more than the king-of-the-hill 3.06 GHz 24 iMac, or looked at another way, a piddling $74 less than it would cost you for the screaming fast iMac with the humongo display *and* a 2.1 GHz MacBook for road work, which when you think about it is kinda hard to argue with, and that would still be a couple hundred dollars less than I paid for my 233 MHz WallStreet PowerBook back in 1999.

In terms of appearance, my subjective evaluation is that it’s pretty much a wash. All of these machines are attractive, and photos really don’t do them justice. Aesthetically, I would be happy with any of them, but the aluminum & glass iMac is arguably more visually arresting. However, there is more here than just styling as with all good design. The iMac’s case is made from a single sheet of aluminum, with no seams or screws except for a single compartment on the bottom that provides easy access to the memory slots.

Alas, none of them comes with an internal modem, so if you live beyond the reach of broadband as I do, you’ll need to pony up yet another 50 bucks for Apple’s external USB Modem, so in that instance, the iMac’s greater number of USB 2.0 ports (five, including two on the Apple Keyboard versus two in the MacBook) looms larger as an advantage.

So, have I lost the laptop faith? Not at all. As I said, if I were to be limited to owning just one computer, it would still definitely be a conventional laptop. However, the new iMac offers about as close to notebook virtues as we’ve seen yet in a desktop computer, and in some respects represents a crossover - its main shortcoming (admittedly a biggie) being the lack of battery power. On the other hand, I still expect my next system to be a notebook, but if, in the upper end of the price/performance range you can get an iMac and a MacBook both for the price of a MacBook Pro, that has to be food for thought, especially if you’re located where wall power is usually dependable.

CM