Which Macbook would best suit my needs?

[jesslouise]

I'm looking at transitioning from a windows to a mac and have been doing a lot of research on which model would suit me best. I'm mainly investing in a mac for the video/photo editing programs and as a student I also have a limited budget. I want something that can easily run programs such as premiere pro and photoshop but won't cost thousands. I'm currently looking at the macbook pro with the 2.7GHz Processor, 128 GB Storage, and 8GB RAM, as it is the cheapest option and I would be able to use an external hard drive to hold all of my extra files, which would be significantly cheaper than paying for more internal storage. My current laptop is only 2GHz and has 4GB RAM so I feel like this would be a good upgrade. Is it worth paying more to upgrade my RAM or processor or would this model do me fine?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Well to be honest premiere pro and photoshop will use as much as you throw at them but if you are doing minor editing then iMovie or photos or pixelmator are free or cheap and may well do what you need.

If editing and rendering hour long 4K video from a dslr it may be a big issue, needing quad core processors or even a dGPU for best fastest results, if editing video and photos from your iPhone it'll be fine.

Again ram needs will depend on what you are doing with your programs and how many you have running at the same time.

 

[Hellhammer]

Are you editing photos/videos professionally or is it merely a hobby? What sort of files are you editing? Like is it multi-source 4K video and +25MB RAW photos, or something much lighter? Any MBP can run Premiere Pro and Photoshop just fine, but your usage and files will determine which Mac is the most suitable.

 

[maflynn]

128 GB Storage

I would avoid that option as you'll quickly run out of room, especially dealing with photo and video editing.

I don't do any video editing, so I can only offer my uneducated opinion and offer that a if you're doing anything intensive, then a quad core computer (15" MBP) may be the best option.

 

[Tomorrow]

A 128 Gb SSD will fill up pretty fast, even if you use an external drive. It's worth the extra money to invest in a 256. Otherwise I think you're on the right track.

 

[mountain]

Video and Photo editing will require a lot of RAM. I think your best bet is getting a refurbished Dell XPS (Windows) if you want the best performance for your buck and 128GB is not going to cut it.

 

[marioman38]

Be sure to check out the refurb store or other retailers such as BHPhotovideo.com to save more cash. You'll want to avoid 128GB that's like buying a 16GB iPhone these days! Base processor and base RAM you will be just fine with on a budget! Getting a task done in 2 minutes instead of 2 minutes and 10 seconds won't matter if your spending time and money with external HDDs and then having backups of your work on those HDDS. Best buy has been having $150+ discounts on Mac lately too.

 

[jesslouise]

Well to be honest premiere pro and photoshop will use as much as you throw at them but if you are doing minor editing then iMovie or photos or pixelmator are free or cheap and may well do what you need.

If editing and rendering hour long 4K video from a dslr it may be a big issue, needing quad core processors or even a dGPU for best fastest results, if editing video and photos from your iPhone it'll be fine.

Again ram needs will depend on what you are doing with your programs and how many you have running at the same time.

Thanks for your reply. I think this model should be okay for me as I film on a DSLR but don't use 4k and my current laptop only has 4gb RAM and a 2GHz processor, so anything is an improvement!
[doublepost=1466532239][/doublepost]

Be sure to check out the refurb store or other retailers such as BHPhotovideo.com to save more cash. You'll want to avoid 128GB that's like buying a 16GB iPhone these days! Base processor and base RAM you will be just fine with on a budget! Getting a task done in 2 minutes instead of 2 minutes and 10 seconds won't matter if your spending time and money with external HDDs and then having backups of your work on those HDDS. Best buy has been having $150+ discounts on Mac lately too.

Thanks for your reply! I'm thinking of getting the 128GB model and buying an external harddrive to store videos etc. on just to save on money
[doublepost=1466532336][/doublepost]

Are you editing photos/videos professionally or is it merely a hobby? What sort of files are you editing? Like is it multi-source 4K video and +25MB RAW photos, or something much lighter? Any MBP can run Premiere Pro and Photoshop just fine, but your usage and files will determine which Mac is the most suitable.

I edit videos/photos only as a hobby at the moment so I don't need anything too powerful as I'm currently not using 4k for videos or anything like that.
[doublepost=1466532388][/doublepost]

I would avoid that option as you'll quickly run out of room, especially dealing with photo and video editing.

I don't do any video editing, so I can only offer my uneducated opinion and offer that a if you're doing anything intensive, then a quad core computer (15" MBP) may be the best option.

Would this option be okay if I'm also using an external hard drive to store videos/photos on?