Advice Needed: MacBook Pro purchase

[gilliang3]

I was planning on buying a 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro base model with 24GB of RAM and 1TB storage.

Then the M5 dropped.

I can get a refurbished M4 model from Apple discounted for $2,159 or else buying the M5 with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage is $2,699.

I’ve never bought a refurbished product before. Are there any downsides to it?

I would mostly be using the laptop for watching videos and browsing but I would also be using the Adobe Creative suite but just for Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. So would 24GB of RAM be enough to run those 3 programs simultaneously without much freezing/slow down? And I assume the M4 base chip is good enough to handle those use case situations? From what I can tell the M5 chip isn't too much of an upgrade over the base M4 chip.

For added context I will be upgrading from an early 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 13-inch with 16GB of RAM and an Intel core i5 processor that I’ve had for like 10 years but is on its last legs.

Any and all advice/suggestions are welcome. I always have a lot of anxiety when it comes to making a large purchase like this so I want to make sure I'm going for the best option.

Thanks in advance!

 

[smirking]

Refurbished is the way to go if the model you want is in stock. A lot of people here will opt for refurbished first. They're as good as new.

If you're getting by on a 16GB Intel MBP, I think it's pretty safe to say you're gonna be free and clear for a long time on a 24GB Silicon MBP. It should be more than fine, with the caveat that without knowing exactly what you're working on, we can't say for sure.

I run Photoshop and Illustrator side by side all the time on 24GB with a lot of programming tools also running at the same time.