Macbook Pro Or iMac?

The MBP is a lovely machine, I've had one but the latest models don't have firewire, which is a deficit in my opinion - however, you obviously can take it with you, which is a plus, and with maxed out RAM it should be able to handle all your needs. The trackpad makes using Lion easy. The battery is not user replaceable.

On the other hand, you can get a 27" screen iMac, with 1TB drive and lots of RAM. This machine can handle anything you throw at it, both in terms of music and video. The screen is lovely (I have one) and using the magic Mouse or a trackpad, Lion works very well on it.

It really depends on whether you want to be able to take your Mac with you where ever you go, or whether you want a big screen and almost umlimited computing ability.

Danny33 wrote:

If iMac it will have:

-3.4ghz, 27inch

-8 or possibly 16gb RAM

-1 TB ATA Drive

-AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5

That's about 2,500$

If Macbook Pro

-2.7ghz, 13 inch

-8gb RAM

-750 GB ATA Drive

It will cost about 1800$

Is the money differance worth it.

I have a monitor at home not big though.

If you need something to bring around with you, that's a MBP.

However, if music and recording is your main application, and you plan to do that in one spot, then I'd get the iMac.

FWIW, I'm a musician too and use an iMac for recording. It replaced a tower. A lot of musicians are using iMacs for recording as well.

I'm not sure how ambitious your recording aspirations are, or if you'd generally prefer a portable computer, so it's hard to judge how happy you'd be with one over the other.

Working at my desk is much morecifortable. In fact, I got rid of my MBP and got an 11" MBAir, which is much easier for me to carry to meetings. On the whole, I'd vote for the iMac, particularly the configuration you list.

Good luck with your new iMac,