What configuration do you recommend for 13" MBP?

What is your budget?
What do you use your macbook for?
What apps do you run?
How mucn portability/battery life do you need?
Do you need a retina screen?
What connection ports do you need?
How much storage do you need?
Do you need to carry all that storage around with you?
Do you still utilize CDs a lot?

For ram recommendations look here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1756865/

Dhodeltoro said:

I am looking to buy a 13" MBP.

If you were buying a MBP today, what upgrades would you go for? Is 16gb of ram excessive? I store most of my music and photos in the cloud, but 128gb hd strikes me as small..how have others found it? I could max my entire budget and get both upgrades, or find plenty of other ways to use the money if the upgrades are excessive.

I understand that upgrades are a bad idea if you plan to resell (and I may need to do this in a year or so), but I want to pick the optimal machine for now.

Thanks so much for your help!

Click to expand...

To the second part of your post, I'm not entirely sure what you mean. But just to make sure you are aware, there are absolutely zero upgrades you can perform to these machines (assuming rMBP.)

Everyone's configuration will be different; it depends on what you will be using it for. Unless you will be doing anything truly hardcore (editing multiple full blown projects at same time as gaming etc.), 16GB is probably excessive.

Regarding SSD Space - you said it yourself, most of your stuff is online. So that shouldn't be a problem either. I myself have my music in Google Music and I also have an All Access subscription (and I access all of this through a fantastic application called radiant player) so any music is there. Photos - Google. Documents - Google.

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Meister said:

What is your budget?
What do you use your macbook for?
What apps do you run?
How mucn portability/battery life do you need?
Do you need a retina screen?
What connection ports do you need?
How much storage do you need?
Do you need to carry all that storage around with you?
Do you still utilize CDs a lot?

For ram recommendations look here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1756865/

Click to expand...

Nice template!

Dhodeltoro said:

I am looking to buy a 13" MBP.

If you were buying a MBP today, what upgrades would you go for? Is 16gb of ram excessive? I store most of my music and photos in the cloud, but 128gb hd strikes me as small..how have others found it? I could max my entire budget and get both upgrades, or find plenty of other ways to use the money if the upgrades are excessive.

I understand that upgrades are a bad idea if you plan to resell (and I may need to do this in a year or so), but I want to pick the optimal machine for now.

Thanks so much for your help!

Click to expand...

I'd go for the sweet spot config - 2.6/8/256.

Dhodeltoro said:

I am looking to buy a 13" MBP.
I understand that upgrades are a bad idea if you plan to resell (and I may need to do this in a year or so), but I want to pick the optimal machine for now.

Click to expand...

Not true in my experience owning and reselling.
Best value retention configs are at low end and high end.
Buy the most you can afford and enjoy.

Dhodeltoro said:

If you were buying a MBP today, what upgrades would you go for?

Click to expand...

The only—I repeat, the *only*—upgrade that I would pay for is a larger SSD. For RAM, 8 GB is plenty. For the CPU, performance differences are negligible.

So by the exact same token, I would in fact choose to save hundreds of dollars and get a late-2013 refurb with base processor, 8 GB RAM, and a 256 GB SSD.

yjchua95 said:

I'd go for the sweet spot config - 2.6/8/256.

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly! I call it the Goldilocks config.

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Alternatively, you can just max out the CPU, then leave the rest bare bones. Upgrading via third party products is a possibility. The plus side is you can take the upgrades along with you when you sell it or just part it out.

Dhodeltoro said:

You are all so generous w your time, I really appreciate your help. When I said upgrade I think I misspoke, I meant base configuration upgrade at the time of purchase (eg to 256gb ssd).

I do basic photo and video editing and heavy excel. I'm sure I won't need more than 8gb now but wondering if it's useful to have 16gb in the future. I think im also trying to justify my decision to not get a MBA by maxing it out beyond my needs

Click to expand...

I just ordered one with 16GB of RAM (for the future) and with the 128GB SSD (it is possibly to replace with SSD drives from OWC but later on this year.

So ssd can be upgraded, maxed out memory would help to sell it and CPU does not really matter.