Buy? What? Wait? Help

[zerostarr]

Hi, i currently have an early 2011 macbook pro with 2,2 i7, 256 SSD and 8gb of ram.

I am a digital marketing manager and photographer, and also a music producer (i run a record label and i have tracks out played by the likes of David Guetta, but this is unfortunatley not my main job)

Latley my computer is becoming older, resolution is too low compared to the pics i shoot (canon 6D MKII) and latest Lightroom and PS are running very slow or crashing if i'm working on big files. Plus my logic board has been already replaced twice due to the infamous AMD failure.

I really like the 27 iMac, and i belive i'll be ok with the base model with SSD and self upgrading RAM (i dont work more than 100 raw pics on lightroom per time and i use photoshop mostly for fine tuning the pics and to create designs) but i also belive i like to have a laptop and work from everywhere, so probably the best solution for me would be to get a macbook pro and a 4K display, but this looks like not the best moment to get a MBP looking at all the various issues.

So my options are:

upgrade my current 2011 to 16gb of ram and 1tb ssd and wait

buy a refurb 13 MBP from 2017/2018 (for about 1400€ on a third party store)

buy a refurbished macmini from the apple store, upgrade the ram and buy a 4k display that i'll keep for my next laptop, then sell the macmini for the new 2019 MBP

build a desktop PC, very good components, for about 1500€

Get the iMac and keep the 2011 MBP (after upgrading it)

Any help /advice?

 

[kohlson]

In short, I think you need to up your game as far as computers go. From the perspective of a personal brand, using a visibly and functionally outdated laptop can't be helping. So I would not suggest putting anything more into the current MBP.
I recommend a new laptop with a 4K display. I know there has been lots of reported issues. My daughter has a 2016 and it's been in for service a couple of times. AppleCare covered it. But in 2+ years it's otherwise been OK. And I think they've gotten better since then. I vote for option 2 - refurb.