Hey, I'm wondering if anyone can help my with choosing which 2019 MBP to get.
Firstly, I definitely want a 15" as I already have a 13" and find it too small to do a lot of things on, so I'm def upgrading the size.
Secondly, budget wise I'm willing to spend the amount I need to do to be the right solution, but I'm likewise not looking to blow money without reason.
Usage wise, apart from standard browsing/watching things etc, which could be handled by any machine, I'm looking to do the following.
- Edit podcasts that could reach around 4 hours length, these will have both audio recorded separately (4 tracks), plus video also recorded. (Audio could be recorded to the laptop but will prob be recorded to a separate device)
The audio will only be processed to sound decent on devices, i.e. nothing too crazy just cleaned up, normalised, bit of compression etc. The video will be one camera/shot and probably continuous, i.e. apart from titles, some basic colour correction etc there won't really be much done to it.
- Edit short video clips of max 30 minutes. These will probably again be a single camera continuous doco style shot with titles and basic/limited processing/cc.
-> These will prob be edited in FCP and shot on a Panasonic GH5 or S1 (to cope with the long record time). Probably in 1080p 10-bit, maybe 8-bit and edited in that codec for speed.
- Edit personal video projects. This will be your short film type things, entirely for fun/love of the craft. I'm planning on using a Panasonic GH5/S1 for this too. Personally I like 4:3 (big Andrea Arnold fan), which on the GH5 (not sure about S1) means 4k HLG h.265. I'm expecting to have to convert this to ProRes before editing, editing with ProRes, and then exporting to H.264.
- Editing a decent (but not crazy) number of photos in Lightroom and perhaps Photoshop. I use two cameras, a Leica M9 and Ricoh GR II, 18mp and 16mp respectively, so nothing too crazy. These will need batch import, perhaps batch basic looks then individual tweaks to the better photos.
- App designing (no coding), where I'll use Photoshop or Sketch to design app pages, sometimes having as many as 30 retina pages in a doc at a time with files around 250mb but also exceeding this.
- Creation of short videos for social, circa 30s-1m. Nothing too crazy content wise but could use lots of effects and other 'crazy' things to get people's attention! Resolution won't be high though.
My current thinking is that the basic, more expensive, 2019 model (aka the 512gb/560x one) default one will be fine.
Although I expect the Vega 20 upgrade could be useful for the video editing. Extra RAM would be nice although I don't think it's a must. Extra storage, again, would be sweet but realistically I'll have to use lots of external SSD's (prob Samsung T5's) anyway so I think 512GB is fine.
So I'm thinking basic + maybe vega 20 should see me alright.
The other alternative is just getting a 2018 refurb, perhaps the 2018 i7/512/560X standard one.
Can anyone help me out with some wisdom please? Thank you so much!
Firstly, I definitely want a 15" as I already have a 13" and find it too small to do a lot of things on, so I'm def upgrading the size.
Secondly, budget wise I'm willing to spend the amount I need to do to be the right solution, but I'm likewise not looking to blow money without reason.
Usage wise, apart from standard browsing/watching things etc, which could be handled by any machine, I'm looking to do the following.
- Edit podcasts that could reach around 4 hours length, these will have both audio recorded separately (4 tracks), plus video also recorded. (Audio could be recorded to the laptop but will prob be recorded to a separate device)
The audio will only be processed to sound decent on devices, i.e. nothing too crazy just cleaned up, normalised, bit of compression etc. The video will be one camera/shot and probably continuous, i.e. apart from titles, some basic colour correction etc there won't really be much done to it.
- Edit short video clips of max 30 minutes. These will probably again be a single camera continuous doco style shot with titles and basic/limited processing/cc.
-> These will prob be edited in FCP and shot on a Panasonic GH5 or S1 (to cope with the long record time). Probably in 1080p 10-bit, maybe 8-bit and edited in that codec for speed.
- Edit personal video projects. This will be your short film type things, entirely for fun/love of the craft. I'm planning on using a Panasonic GH5/S1 for this too. Personally I like 4:3 (big Andrea Arnold fan), which on the GH5 (not sure about S1) means 4k HLG h.265. I'm expecting to have to convert this to ProRes before editing, editing with ProRes, and then exporting to H.264.
- Editing a decent (but not crazy) number of photos in Lightroom and perhaps Photoshop. I use two cameras, a Leica M9 and Ricoh GR II, 18mp and 16mp respectively, so nothing too crazy. These will need batch import, perhaps batch basic looks then individual tweaks to the better photos.
- App designing (no coding), where I'll use Photoshop or Sketch to design app pages, sometimes having as many as 30 retina pages in a doc at a time with files around 250mb but also exceeding this.
- Creation of short videos for social, circa 30s-1m. Nothing too crazy content wise but could use lots of effects and other 'crazy' things to get people's attention! Resolution won't be high though.
My current thinking is that the basic, more expensive, 2019 model (aka the 512gb/560x one) default one will be fine.
Although I expect the Vega 20 upgrade could be useful for the video editing. Extra RAM would be nice although I don't think it's a must. Extra storage, again, would be sweet but realistically I'll have to use lots of external SSD's (prob Samsung T5's) anyway so I think 512GB is fine.
So I'm thinking basic + maybe vega 20 should see me alright.
The other alternative is just getting a 2018 refurb, perhaps the 2018 i7/512/560X standard one.
Can anyone help me out with some wisdom please? Thank you so much!
