For many years, I’ve done the bulk of my design and development work on a big 27" iMac. I always loved that huge screen and the simplicity of the iMac’s design (only 1 cable, no tower, no fuss).

During this time, I had a laptop as well, so I went to great pains to sync all of my stuff across the two devices with a combination of Dropbox, and iCloud, and Gmail. This worked OK, but I’ve trimmed down my setup even further - and I don’t think I’ll ever go back!

I sold my big iMac on eBay for a good price, and purchased components of my new setup for only a fraction of that selling price. Here’s the overview:

• 13" Macbook Air
• 20" Flat-Panel Cinema Display
• A Cooler Master Clutch vertical Macbook stand
• Apple’s wireless Magic Trackpad and wireless keyboard

The Air, in my opinion, is the perfect device for every situation. It’s incredibly portable - light and thin. The 13" size isn’t too small if I don’t have an external screen around, and I can close it up at work and at home where I do have a screen. It doesn’t have impressive specs - just a 1.7 GHz processor and 4 GB of memory - but it performs blazingly fast for everything I do (web development and programming, using the Adobe Creative Suite, and foolishly keeping dozens of apps open at once).

The best part of my single device setup is that I don’t have to bother with syncing issues anymore. If I’m in the middle of a project at the end of a day, I can just snap the lid shut and pick back up right where I left off at my next stop!

I added details and links to the equipment on Flickr if you’re interested.