I'm in a quandary. You may not pity me for this...

It's got to the point where I find it pretty hard to read text and some of the more fiddly apps on my MBP's screen unless it's blown up large. Plus the screen is too dark. So I'm taking the plunge and getting out of the portable world and into the desktop world. These new screens are just fantastic.

I have a choice between the top end 21.5" and the bottom end 27" and apart from the screen size, you get the exact same specs between them, price difference over here £150. A further £150 gets the mad 4-core 27".

I've just checked, and the 27" will just fit under the shelf on my desk (these things matter.) What I'm asking myself is, would a 27" screen be just too bloody big? I'll be using it for writing (words and music) and some animation editing and multitrack audio editing, as well as the usual stuff. then there's this 'problem' with the 27" models and flash, which may be a deeper issue.

I guess a trip to the Apple store is in order.

The other quandary is whether I can wait until March (though I'm finding what I'm trying to do right now pretty hard with the smaller screen). Because in March I become a student again, and get a discount (plus they might have got cheaper/faster by then anyway, but that's always the dream/nightmare, isn't it?).

Okay, went off half-cocked there. The 27" is simply too big - I wouldn't see the top of the screen under my shelf, and it's too wide anyway! So things get simpler. I've never used a screen larger than 19" before, so 21,5 wide-screen is going to seem huge anyway.

I can get the 3.33GHz C2D 21.5" model with 4Gb RAM etc. for £1,510 and then get 4Gb more ram elsewhere for £90 (instead of the £160 Apple wants). This should keep me going for some years. So, £1,600 less what I get for selling my MBP and my mythically immaculate tibook.

I'd save a small percentage waiting until I'm a student, but then I'd be transferring all my data over to a new mac whilst in the throes of starting a new course, and I could really use the better/bigger screen now. So I think I'm going to do it this month - in time to sell the notebooks in the christmas rush, I hope.

Apologies for the thinking-out-loud shaggy blog story .

It can never be too big.

Which two monitors.

Edit - Oops. The reply window sat open for a while.

Never mind. You'll love the 21 anyway, enjoy.

To be honest

I love the screen real estate on our iMac 24 , then that went to my daughter and I got a iMac 20 inch . I love that just as well , mind you I am not a power user so unlike my daughter who has 6 apps open at the same time , so for me having a smaller screen real estate is not an issue

Believe me you will love the 21.5 more so coming in from a MBP .

I'm looking forward to it - I may already have a buyer for the MBP . And I'm going to get an external DVD drive for watching films - enough of this 'replace the superdrive 4 times' nonsense.

The external DVD is a good idea , go with it .

Only problems I had with iMacs was HD failure . Well they seem to run really hot but I believe that issue was addressed with the newer iMacs - otherwise very solid machines .

I'm looking at a bus-powered CD/DVD player, no need for extra power lumps just to play films. Found an apparently good one for £40.

That's a great idea, which one though oh man of mystery. Besides no lumps, when it wears out, and it will, they all do, you'll be glad it's not the internal.

This one from Amazon UK - it's an LG drive. I've also seen BluRay reader drives for around £80, but I guess I'll wait until I wear this one out, by which time BR drives will be £40 .

Okay, the iMac is on order - eek! Should see it (and the extra ram & external DVD player) in a week.

Now I'm going to need a bigger Time Machine drive, dammit. It's a bloody shame Apple aren't putting eSata sockets on their products yet, considering how many quad external drives are around these days. But apparently Leopard never played very well with eSata, never mind SL. Oh well, I suppose it'll be USB3.14159 or something that takes over from FW800.