#Help Deciding on a MacBook

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

wintry sonnet
#

Within the next few months I’ll likely be upgrading my MacBook. I’m currently on a 2018 i5 and it has just gotten too far behind. At this point live streaming usually just taxes my computer to the point it totally locks up. Looking for some help on what to choose next!

My more heavy use cases: Live Streaming on Discord and YouTube with an external camera and mic, video editing (I mostly do pretty basic things in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro) , Photoshop, Podcasting (I use a Rodecaster Pro as my audio interface and usually use Hindenburg for editing), occasionally use Excel but usually will just use my windows computer for that.

Less intensive use cases: emails, web browsing, streaming videos, Numbers, Pages, etc

Any help here on what to choose? I feel like I probably have to save up for a Pro model but would prefer the price point of the Air. Hoping whatever I choose will last me a good 7-8 years. All feedback welcome! Thank you!

sonic roost
#

Buy a base MacBook Pro with M3 Pro if your workload is high. From what I’m seeing I pretty getting a MacBook Pro M3 Pro is better and it will last you longer and comes with 16GB as standard

#

Yet buying the MacBook Pro with M3 is good but only 8GB for the base model

#

But if your in a budget buy MacBook Air M3

#

And get it with 16GB of RAM

hidden flare
hidden flare
#

unless you wanna use 2 external monitors

sonic roost
wintry sonnet
#

Thanks for the responses all! Appreciate the input and is very helpful

wintry sonnet
# hidden flare i’d get the m2 air

Thanks! Any recommendations on the amount of RAM I’d need for my use case if I went with a M2 Air? Id assume 16 is sufficient but I am not really sure

hidden flare
#

how intensive is your photoshoping

wintry sonnet
hidden flare
#

i'd go for 16 then

#

my only worry is that the ram in the laptop isn't upgradable because of the soc

#

so if you decide later on that you want to do more intensive stuff

#

you might run into sisues

wintry sonnet
hidden flare
wintry sonnet
hidden flare
#

i feel like having more ram would be useful for the future but with the pro you get better performance

#
  • a nicer screen
hidden flare
#

i wish you could upgrade ram but that’s one of the drawbacks with soc

wintry sonnet
#

Right yeah that’s kind of the same spot I had been coming to myself. Alternatively I could just keep saving for a pro but I rarely pull an income from what I do it’s purely for my own enjoyment as a hobby so it’s hard to save up to spend another grand for that

#

(Although I would certainly love to in a perfect world lol)

hidden flare