can't decide which Mac is for me

HI,first of all I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask my question, feel free to move my thread if I am not. My apology in advance for my poor english as I don't speak English as for first language.

My question is a little bit complicated.
I will go to university and live in the school campus for the next 3 years. Currently I own a Macbook Air 11" but it cannot be my desktop replacement because the screen on it is just too small. So I have think of a few solutions, but none of them really satisfy me.

a.) buy a MacBook Pro with retina display
The machine is absolute beautiful but other than the display, everything else that comes with the computer is just a waste for me since all I do with my computer is watching youtube videos. ( maybe not as Adobe Flash is so power hungry ) And I might want to play some game like battlefield 3. Although the Macbook pro can handle the game in a lower resolution, I don't want to play any games on it, I mean, who really wants to use bootcamp on a Mac?

b.) buy a big monitor and a Mac mini ( I don't really want to use my Macbook Air as my primary computer)
This way will be cheaper and meet my gaming need because I can always build a PC for games as I have already own a monitor. But the issue is, I have to move everything out of the hostel for summer holiday every year, moving the monitor will be kind of inconvenient.

I am just a student so money is an issue and should be taken into consideration even though I can afford it.
I don't have to edit video on daily bases but a few times a year so I really don't need a super powerful core i7.
Or do you guys have a better idea?

Welcome to Mac-Forums

Get the 21.5" iMac with the i5 2.5 GHz processor that sells in the US for $1,199. Make sure that you retain the original box the iMac came in so that you can put it back into it for safe travel during the summer.

You should be able to use you're monitor you had for you windows machine with the mini but you should check first with others). I have a 2006 mini and when I want to travel with it, I just pack it in my back pack (my parents have extra keyboards and monitors) and it has parallels on it for my windows games (you should check if the games you want to play work well in vms). You also can use any usb keyboard and mouse. That being said you should also be able to use a second monitor with a MBP and (not sure) MBA.

Just to be safe tho, you should make sure first that what you want/need to do is possible on the machine you buy..

Good Luck