Imac to Macbook Air?

beachBOYken

beachBOYken

beachBOYken

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Hi

I own an iMac (late 2013) model, later this year Im thinking its time to get a new one, (few slight annoying issues with it) plus I miss the upgrades of the OS. At first I was thinking of a new iMac, but Im quite tempted to go for a MacBook Air, it will not be used outside of house, but the portability is tempting me. It will be used at the desk most of time but being able to pick it up and use it in say the living room or at the dining room table would be nice to be able to do as well.

Is moving from an iMac to MacBook a bad idea?

I do just the basics on iMac, internet shopping, emails, all basic stuff, I never will use it for games.

I would like to also know if you can leave a MacBook powered into mains 24/7 or is it better to only main power as and when?

Ok for configuration, not sure where to start, my current iMac has 16gb ram, and a 500gb SSD drive, so this iMac was purchased new and Ive still got 444gb free! Despite having 3 users that use it. So Im thinking I should be fine with the lowest storage drive available.

I see there is an M1 and M2 macbook air, not sure what the difference is there, I do plan to keep the MacBook air for a long time so I do like to over spec it a little. I also want to get a magic mouse to use with it at the desk.

Can anyone help with what spec I should go for please for the MacBook air, Im pretty set on a MacBook over the iMac really.

Thanks
 
ChrisD. said:
Base level M2 Air would be perfect and run rings around your own model.
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I see that starts with 256gb, so thats plenty for me I think.

I think I will up the ram to 16gb though, everywhere I read they say you should add as much as possible, thinking down the line really 16gb may be better?

So that would work out at £1449, need a mouse as well though so bit more.

Is worth me also upping the the CPU/GPU to the 10 core GPU, or not worth it for my needs.

Thanks
 
HACO said:
16GB of ram would be a worthwhile upgrade. Other upgrades cost way too much.

You can get a cheap USB hub for your printer and other USB-A accessories.
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I see, yeah good idea.

I have a Canon Pixma mg6350, I just hope it works still, I did see some say certain printers dont support apple AirPrint, whatever that is, but hopefully a direct connection should not be an issue.
 
GMac11 said:
Yep, since your printer has WiFi that is a much cleaner solution and should work absolutely fine. I run a Pixma as well (not the same model mind you) and I've never had any issues. It's a far cry from the good old days of WiFi printing which were pretty much a lottery!
As for a mouse, do yourself a massive favour and pick up the Logitech Mx Master 3 - unrivalled IMO.
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I will check that out, I currently use the apple trackpad, the non rechargeable older version. It looses connection quite a bit, same with the keyboard which can be annoying.

Would I use the bluetooth connectivity over the receiver ?
 
ChrisD. said:
If you are used to a trackpad in desktop mode then get their new one. If you also want a mouse then get the MX3. Don’t get the Magic Mouse, it’s utterly terrible.
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I’m either or really, I can quite easily go back to mouse, I will get the mx3 when time comes.
It’s usb c charged, will that connect to the thunderbolt usb 4 ports on MacBook Air?
 
Im still with my old iMac, hopefully in the next month or so I will replace it with a MacBook air.

I have a question about backups, with my iMac I use that time machine backup, which backups up every hour to an external hdd I have connected. With my MacBook I won't want a bulky drive connected.
Is time machine still a thing on newer versions on MacOS, if so what's the best drive to use for doing these backups, can I use a small pen drive for example?
 
HACO said:
Time machine is still a thing, and you can use a USB stick for it too (that's what I do). You can also do Time Machine backups over a network drive (e.g. a NAS), or even on other macs (so if you have two macs, they backup on each other). With some trickery you can also back them up on online cloud storage services.

Backup disks you can use with Time Machine – Apple Support (UK)

Which devices can work as a Time Machine backup destination?
support.apple.com support.apple.com
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Say I got the 256gb MacBook air what size USB would be recommended, also will any USB drive do, or should I be looking at a certain speed/version.

Also I wonder if I even need to bother with time machine backups. I only use my iMac for emails, surfing the net, all basic stuff, don't really have many files stored on my iMac, and photos are all synced with iCloud. Makes me think if I should save some money and not bother?

Put it this way I have an iMac late 2013 with a 500gb drive, with 3 users on it, and in total we have used just 60gb of storage, most of that i guess is taken up by apps and any photos that have downloaded onto iMac.
 
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HACO said:
If you don't have anything there that you'd mind losing, there's no point with backups.

My backups are about 1.5GB each, and I do once per day. So a 128GB drive would be sufficient for ~3 months of backups. Time Machine automatically deletes old backups as the drive gets full. A fast USB drive one would make it smoother (e.g. DataTraveler Max), although any reliable drive would do.
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Thanks, think I will not worry about it then, any important file I can just manually back up to usb.

My photos and anything else over iCloud would be safe still ?
 
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Just a thought, would I better going for the 13" MacBook pro (2022 model) over the air (2022 model) both look to be similar spec, the display is ever so slightly bigger on the air, has a liquid retina display, compared to retina display on the pro, not sure what difference that is.
Slightly longer battery life as well on the pro.

I plan to upgrade the ram to 16gb so both will come in at around £1500, I also think the pro has the a 10 core GPU as opposed to 8 core on the air, not wanting to customise that on the air.

The air looks nicer looking to me.
 
Any alternative to the logitech mx3 mentioned in here already for a mouse to go with my MacBook?

I have seen lots of reports of issues with this mouse used with MacOS, some may say they have had no issues, but I've seen a lot of big threads now to do with various problems.

Anything else recommended, budget £50-100
 
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ChrisD. said:
I've got the MX Master 3, it's excellent. There are occasional issue caused by Logitech's ropy software (button customisations, scroll wheel settings etc), but it's getting better. I wouldn't be without it even with the minor issues.
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If I got it, do I need the "for mac" version, that one comes without the usb receiver, I read the mac version has an improved bluetooth connection for mac. Not sure how true that is.
 
ChrisD. said:
I haven't looked at it in full, but my 2 year old one works fine over bluetooth.

I'm getting the white Mac one in the new year when I get a new allowance from work for IT kit.
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I will just get the black one as getting dark coloured mac. Some seem to suggest that the mac version has a better bluetooth connectivity for mac.
 
Anyone know how much the system/MacOS takes up of the the 256gb SSD, can't decide between the 256gb and 512gb.

I have 500gb SSD in my Imac and we have used a total of 60gb across 3 users since 2014, as only use it for light tasks. Its on MacOS Catalina.

I don't think I would need the 512gb storage but it depends how much the newer OS takes up?
 
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ChrisD. said:
Depends entirely on your workflow and what you use it for. Things like Photos can be offloaded when using the app, so if you have reasonably quick internet that's a good space saving measure. Also, external NVMe drives are quite affordable now, ie, a Sabrent one is £130 so if you can store data externally then there's less need for larger internal storage. But if you travel a lot and take lots of 4k video/photos and put them on your Mac with no internet then you might benefit from more storage.
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I think I will go for 512gb, the MacBook will be for long term, hopefully like my current iMac, so I think having more storage is safer bet, even if I don't use much of it, you just never know, and didn't want to have to worry about getting external storage down the road. Thanks
 
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Heres a choice

After adding the 16gb and 512gb storage price for the m2 air is £1649

I look at the MacBook Pro 14" which has M1 pro and 16gb/512gb SSD as standard for £1899

Now that larger display is quite tempting, and as portability is not my highest priority, Im wondering if I should just go for that, would do you think, m2 vs m1 pro?? would the M2 air be better future proofed for updates?
 
HACO said:
Yes absolutely. With the base M1 Pro (6P, 2E) you get 6 performance cores (versus 4 on M2). And you get a bigger GPU. You also get a bigger battery and a much brighter, sharper MiniLED display with proper HDR that's miles better than the Air's.
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I thought the battery life is not quite as long vs the air?

I presume there will be a refresh soon on the pros though, perhaps to an M2 chip, but that may bring a price hike.
 
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