How to Choose 2021 Macbook Pro Options

[jason.siegel]

Is there some way for a non-professional to know, based on need, what specs are appropriate for their (upcoming) 2021 Macbook Pro? For example, aside from cost, how should I know if I should upgrade cores? How should I know if I should upgrade RAM?

I have a 2016 Macbook that is unusably slow, and I don't want to ever be in this position again so would like to future-proof. That said, I'm not doing 3d modeling and only rarely would do 4k video editing.

Clearly these will be very fast computers. Still, is there any guidance to figure out what specs to get?

 

[Nbd1790]

From the sound of it, you would be more than okay with baseline specs. Even if you were to purchase the current Air & Pro offerings, you would have a substantial increase in power and would be future proofed. The M1 processors were an enormous leap from previous Intel offerings, let alone the model you're currently using.

Storage might be the most important thing for you to consider. Regardless of what the machine is capable of, maxing out storage or getting close to it (always have 15% of your hard drive free generally speaking) - can cause the computer to get substantially slower.

Most creative professionals are raving about the current M1 chip paired with 16gb of RAM (and claiming their workflow is extremely snappy). So, I'd say stick with an 8 core M1 and 16gb of RAM - unless you want to splurge on something more expensive from the refresh we're getting on Monday - although it seems this won't necessarily make a huge difference for casual use.