Help with decision to buy MacBook Pro With retina?

[Arjuna216]

Hello members,

I've been reading through your forum & was hoping to get help with a decision I need to make. I have already read a few of your threads about the mac vs pc question, but was hoping to get more perspective for my specific situation.

Up to this point I have always been a PC user. However, I am now going to be doing some simple video editing work. No feature film stuff; just Youtube videos (longest probably 30-40 minutes in length). I will be working with green screens; audio overlaying; etc... But that is about the extent of it.

All my friends are telling me to go to Mac, especially since it has HDMI port for direct camera hookup; Imovie already installed, which they have said is fairly easy to use, directly uploads to youtube, has greenscreen software, etc...

Now, if I go mac do you advise me to upgrade to 16 GB Memory? Or will the 8GB with an external hard drive for saving videos be sufficient for what I am looking to do? What about the amount of flash storage?

Finally, in your expert opinions is it worth it to splurge & switch to mac - $1299 entry level with i5 processor (cost is more to upgrade memory, & external hard drive)
When I can get a PC Laptop with an Intel i7 processor, 1 TB Hard drive, for around $800? (I will probably have to buy video editor software. So another 100-200 will need to be added. However, even with that I will still be saving around $300-400.)

I'm in school so of course cost is important to me. However, if mac is much better for creative projects & what I am looking to do, easier to use, faster, then I won't mind spending the extra money.

Any info, opinions, & advice would be greatly appreciated.

THANK YOU!

 

[Pieterr]

All my friends are telling me to go to Mac, ...

Any info, opinions, & advice would be greatly appreciated.

Go sit together with one of these friends who actually has a Mac, and let him/her demonstrate it to you. Or go to an Apple Premium Reseller or Apple Store. And decide for yourself if you think it is worth the money.

 

[Arjuna216]

Go sit together with one of these friends who actually has a Mac, and let him/her demonstrate it to you. Or go to an Apple Premium Reseller or Apple Store. And decide for yourself if you think it is worth the money.

I was sincerely asking for help with my decision as the nearest Apple store in 2 hours from me & the friends that I was commenting about were my good friends from high school who are in different cities.

However, I saw the Macbook Pro in a local Best Buy & while the employee spoke highly about it he wasn't able to demonstrate it that well, didn't do any video-editing himself, and the only model they sell in the entry level version.

Therefore, if you wish to be helpful perhaps you can give me some advice on how much memory to go with, or if 8GB with external hard drive will be sufficient, if I choice the MacBook Pro. And if it is worth the premium price if the only type of video editing I will be doing is for YouTube & not amateur/pro films.

 

[Pieterr]

Therefore, if you wish to be helpful perhaps you can give me some advice on how much memory to go with, or if 8GB with external hard drive will be sufficient, if I choice the MacBook Pro. And if it is worth the premium price if the only type of video editing I will be doing is for YouTube & not amateur/pro films.

There is one thing that has always been true as long as we have (personal) computers: you can never have too much RAM. So there are always good arguments to tell someone that 16GB is better (and more futureproof) than 8GB memory. Things have changed lately, in the sense that you cannot upgrade the memory later since it is soldered now in the MacBooks.

From another perspective: I've done quite some (amateur) movie editing myself on systems with as low as 2GB of memory.

To summarize: 8GB is enough now to do youtube amateur video editing.

 

[IowaLynn]

I was sincerely asking for help with my decision as the nearest Apple store in 2 hours from me & the friends that I was commenting about were my good friends from high school who are in different cities.

However, I saw the Macbook Pro in a local Best Buy & while the employee spoke highly about it he wasn't able to demonstrate it that well, didn't do any video-editing himself, and the only model they sell in the entry level version.

Therefore, if you wish to be helpful perhaps you can give me some advice on how much memory to go with, or if 8GB with external hard drive will be sufficient, if I choice the MacBook Pro. And if it is worth the premium price if the only type of video editing I will be doing is for YouTube & not amateur/pro films.

You get through Apple Education for less.

I would look in the $2,000 market, Mac or PC. looking at ASUS or MSI gaming system -

Intel Core i7-4710HQ (2.5GHz, 6MB Cache)
12GB DDR3L 1600 MHz
1TB 7200RPM Hard Drive, 128GB M.2 Solid-State Drive
17.3-inch Full HD eDP Anti-glare Screen; NVIDIA Geforce GTX970M with 6GB GDDR5 VRAM

$1700

M.2 or PCIe 4x SSD - Apple is quickly putting faster SSDs in systems. But not the "best" i5/i7 and

 

[Arjuna216]

Thank you!

Thank you both for the replies. I truly appreciate your advice & help.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^You may want to start posting in the correct thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/90/

Lou