Mac Mini or iMac for graphic design?

[kwebbotaurus]

would there be much difference apart from price?

 

[CamFire]

If you hate glossy screens, then go for the MacMini and a LCD monitor of your choice.

 

[MyRDXS]

I would have thought for graphic design work having ample screen area would be the primary consideration, so either get the 24" iMac or team up the best Mac Mini you can get with a large screen. You may even need an extended desktop area, so get an imac with an additional screen.

 

[willj12]

I would say get a Mac Mini and a high quality external display, the glass on top of the screen on the imac causes ALOT of reflection, you can easily see your reflection in it while working.

 

[Fizzoid]

If it's conevenient, pop in to an Apple store, PC World, Comet or somewhere that sells iMacs and have a look at one, see what you think. Maybe pop in to each, that way you can see how the screen is under different lighting conditions

 

[tomson]

iMacs are fine - most of the design companies I work with use them.

 

[EndlessWaves]

It all depends on what sort of graphic design you're doing - what sort of things do you require from the screen?

 

[kwebbotaurus]

I prefer a non-glossy screen, but I was thinking more in terms of performance are they fairly similar?

 

[Liquid101]

I'd go for the 24" iMac

I have them at home and work and use them for photographic and graphic design work. I don't find the glossy screen a problem at all.

I'd avoid the 20" model, the quality of the display is really quite poor.

EDIT: Performance wise, you're obviously going to get more from the iMac because the specs go higher, and they offer better GPU's

 

[P-P-S-S]

I would say get a Mac Mini and a high quality external display, the glass on top of the screen on the imac causes ALOT of reflection, you can easily see your reflection in it while working.

The iMac screen reflects a bit but only when the screen is showing black pictures. Otherwise there's hardly any reflection. At least that's the case with my screen. And also you are limited what type of graphics card you can have in your Mini.

 

[MrSossidge]

I don't like the glossy screen screen on my imac. Also, I've used smaller screens and worse spec'd machines to produce work in the past than I do now.

I think it all depends on personal preference.

 

[Steven]

I would have thought for graphic design work having ample screen area would be the primary consideration, so either get the 24" iMac or team up the best Mac Mini you can get with a large screen. You may even need an extended desktop area, so get an imac with an additional screen.

Depends on individual needs. Some might prefer a non-TN screen even if it means a smaller pixel count

As someone who owns a matte Samsung 215TW monitor, I would say that if you can put up with an iMac in an Apple store with the copious retail lighting employed, then generally you will be fine with it at home.... generally

 

[kwebbotaurus]

I'm leaning towards the Mac Mini (mainly due to cost), so would going for the basic model +1g extra ram be sufficient or should I upgrade to 4gb & or upgrade the processor? would mostly be using illustrator/Photoshop.

 

[spinaltap]

In my conversation with a Mac Genius at the Apple Store about the relative merits of the 2.26Ghz processor over the 2.0Ghz processor (especially in using Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver et al), his advice was to max-out the Mini with 4Gb RAM and the 2.26Ghz processor for graphic intensive work.

Installing 4Gb RAM will access 256Mb of video memory compared to the 128Mb video memory in standard 2Gb RAM configuration.

With the 0% interest/deposit deal currently on offer from Apple (until 15/6/09), the bump-up in processor speed only adds £10 to your monthly outlay, compared to paying £112 up front in cash.

That's what I intend to do next week (after Monday, that is).

 

[CamFire]

I'm surprised that a fast HDD isn't mentioned. I understand PhotoShop uses a "scratch disk" for its operation and the relatlvely slow 5400RPM internal HDD should be complemented with a external HDD (7200RPM) via FW800.

With a budget limit to include this said external HDD, I'll stay with 4GB RAM and the standard 2.0GHz CPU.

 

[spinaltap]

I did discuss a faster hard drive with the Mac Genius. I wanted to specify the lower capacity hard drive for the Mini (120Gb), buy the latest 500Gb Seagate 7200 SATA 2.5", and have the Apple Store swap this with the standard drive.

His advice was to stick with an external firewire drive. Moreover, if they were (in theory) to swap the drive to one not ordinarily specified by Apple, and if anything at all should go wrong with the new Mini, possibly it would be likely that the 'alien' drive could be blamed for the fault (however unlikely) and thus void the warranty.

I already have a LaCie 250Gb Firewire 800 drive, so this isn't so much of an issue, but it would have been better for me to install a better/higher capacity hard drive.