Using a 27" Dell Monitor with 27" iMac as dual monitors

Just wondering why you are going for the Dell 27" as the external monitor, instead of a 24" Cinema Display. Is it just the price difference? In Spain the Apple monitor is slightly cheaper than the Dell, which although larger offers the same 1920x1200 resolution.

Or is it to use the Dell with a PC or other input?

Just seems to me that the two Apples together would look better!

I collected my very first Apple computer, a 27" iMac yesterday. So far am thrilled with the difference from a PC, although amazed at how difficult Apple makes moving iTunes from a PC to an Apple. Should be an automatized procedure, at least in the PC to Mac direction!

Another suggestion

Get yourself another 27" iMac and use it as the second monitor, for a not massive difference in price, you have a far better resolution, two equal screens, use it as a Time Machine of your main 27" iMac, and you are also fully redundant. Any problem and you just switch computers.

Know it is a silly idea, just couldn't resist the suggestion.

The HPLP2475w costs less than all the other solutions here, will give you easily the best image display (IPS rather than TFT) has a much wider gamut than the Mac cinema display, a brilliant height adjustable display and, with a flick of the wrist, will swivel round to portrait mode and astonish you with how many sites and applications need that shape.

I am ready to buy a 27 imac, but require 3 monitors.
My current setup is a dell 30 inch and 2 side arm monitors.

Can i purchase 3 27 i macs, and use two of them for displays?
Will they be at full resolution if i do?

Thanks in advance

Frank

A DisplayPort connection would provide the highest quality according to what I've read. Are you aware that the images won't be equivalent in size since the iMac is 2560 x 1440 and the Dell (or the HP mentioned in another post} is 1920 x 1440.

The iMac has ONE Mini DisplayPort for connecting ONE display. So you cannot connect two additional displays. You can, however, connect that one Dell 30-inch you have using the special Mini DisplayPort to Dual Link DVI adapter that Apple sells. The iMac's 2560x1440 plus the Dell at 2560x1600 should give you as much screen real estate as before, with two smaller displays.

If you want to add a third display that is smaller, you can add it through USB using this product

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/VIDU2DVIA/

Note: There are some limitations for resolution and performance compared to a real video port.

Buy a MacPro with two built in video cards which can support up to 4 monitors. If you are doing the type of work that requires 3 screens... get a MacPro... I think you will end up paying less than buying three iMacs and have much more room to grow!

No, the 17 inch is IPS also as is the 24' Apple

I like the mac pros.
They are very expensive compared to what you can get on a windows machine.
Apple really knows how to over charge for hard drives and ram.
And the ram offerred is not 1666mh and the hard disks are not 10k rpm.

Still with the bloated prices, and the hardware choice limits i like the mac pro.
What i do not like is the outdated apple 30 inch cinema display.

I do a lot of programming and web development, so screen area is a high priority.
I was impressed by the screen on the imac.

Maybe can get the imacs only to run as screens?

You can install whatever SATA hard drives you care to buy to put into the three other slots. You don't have to get anything, other than the minimal config, pre-installed.

You can also use whatever dual-link DVI display you want to use with a Mac Pro. There are other 30-inch 2560x1600 displays on the market.

There is a Mac Pro on the refurb page for $2149.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB871LL/A?mco=MTEzMjY2NTA

Its a little late but you should be able to use a Matrox "DualHead2Go" (Digital Edition) It splits the single iMac output to 2 24" monitors. Haven t tried it but it should work. Of course that would mean that the iMac couldn't be in the middle 😟

buy a mac pro used and buy ram and hard drives somewhere else.

apple must have bought there hard drives and ram 5 years ago to offer those prices.

Have you consider this monitor 28" I-INC. Great price for it's value.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=332654 0&CatId=3774

That monitor looks like it blows!
1920 x 1200 resolution

It looks like a childs monitor if you are going to have a huge screen with limited resolution.

The dell 30 inchers, the apple 30 cinema and hp models have very high resolution.
Its not about the size but the number of pixels.

I have decided to stay with windows.
You can just get about twice as much for your money, and its a better choice for softare dev.