So, I’m looking for a new machine to use for my business that needs to be able to handle the normal web surfing, Office 365 apps (heavy Excel), Autocad, photoshop, illustrator, some coding, plus run PowerBI via Parallels or Rosetta. I know many will say “Dude just get a pc” but with everything in me I don’t want too. I prefer a Mac that much. Plus when I really need windows I run it in boot camp on my 27” iMac. So, my question is, for that use case will a 15” Air cut the mustard or do I need a 16” Pro of some vintage to handle PBI, Etc??? Thanks folks!
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Is it tough enough? M2 Air vs M_ Pro
- Thread starter Airch
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What you need to pick is in this order.
1. How much RAM do you need.
2. How much storage do you need.
3. What size of screen do you want.
Answer above all yourself, and I believe the ideal machine is right there with you. Oh umm if you are heavy into excel, I suggest against using Mac as primary platform, unless your work doesn’t involve VBA too much.
1. How much RAM do you need.
2. How much storage do you need.
3. What size of screen do you want.
Answer above all yourself, and I believe the ideal machine is right there with you. Oh umm if you are heavy into excel, I suggest against using Mac as primary platform, unless your work doesn’t involve VBA too much.
I will shoot for 24gb+ ram
2tb
15 or 16
I don’t use vba or macros much, instead power query and lots of formulas, which when a file hits 500k or 1M rows has brought some gaming laptops I used before to their knees. That said I’ll most likely focus on PBI desktop moving forward for much of that work. Also might as well throw in that Revit may be on the list of titles too.
You are best served with an M3 Max 16” MacBook Pro Imo. Active cooling can also help maintain high performance state longer.
I think the Pro chip would be better. Active cooling alone makes it worth it. Especially since you're using autocad, photoshop, and such.
Plus, you can find M1 Pros for less than an M2 air with equivalent specs on the Apple refurbished store.
Plus, you can find M1 Pros for less than an M2 air with equivalent specs on the Apple refurbished store.
For the same money you can get m3 pro 14 inch with 2TB and 18 gigs. I think id be tempted by that.
I run Photoshop and Lightroom on a M2 Air, 16 Gig 1TB. It runs just fine. I also run some Windows applications that are not available on the native MacOS. I use Parallels and have no issues. The only possible issue is that Windows on Parallels is an ARM version. Your Windows software may not like ARM for some reason.
I run Excel, Word and Powerpoint, the native MacOS apps. I have some large and complicated spreadsheets with hidden sheets, named references in the hidden sheets, workspace calculations for drop down selections, formatting changes based on other columns, multiple calculations and column concatenation references. It runs just fine.
I would think a M2 Air, 13" or 15", connected to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse, would be an excellent combination for your use. I also think an M3 Pro would be an excellent choice. It's your money, not mine. Ignore the propeller heads that think the more memory you throw at a situation, the better it the machine will run.
Have you tried 4k footage from an iPhone in Final Cut on your machine. I’m curious how that is
I don't use Final Cut. I use DaVince Resolve (Free). It works just fine. Of course my videos are short, less than 5 minutes mostly. I also use the Blackmagic Design video app (Free) rather than the native IOS photo/video app. Using an iPhone 15 Pro.
I don't do a lot of heavy editing, as in multiple tracks on the video timeline. A one hour video with many timeline tracks and multiple overlaps may be a different story. For people that get into that type of heavy editing they know what they need and probably have the money and resources to get a heavily spec'ed machine.
What does tax my machine is when I export a thousand or so photos from Lightroom with multiple edits and changes to the base image that must be applied by Lightroom. The CPU will get to about 75% and stay there for several minutes. The machine will get warm. And in fairness, doing the same thing on my Windows systems (64 Gig, Intel I9, water cooled), will also get the cooling fans spinning faster and the time is about the same. I never really timed it as that time is used for a bathroom break.
I do find that file operations in Lightroom are much faster on the M2 Air. Deleting 3K photographs takes about 30 seconds on my Windows system whereas the MacOS system takes about 5 seconds. Different file system and not so much CPU or memory issues.
Sounds good. I’m just eyeing one up and I do Lightroom for personal use and I rarely export.. but I might do 20 max to send the fav pics to my wife of the kids etc and they are basic edits.
My video usage is basic family edits, few cuts , text, transitions and music which will be no longer than 20 mins.
Based on your experience, an air should be more than adequate for me. A pro would be nice for the memory card slot but it’s no biggy to import via usbc cable
That is how I import my photos from the camera memory card into Lightroom. I have a high speed Lexar Memory Card for which I have a high speed reader from Anker via USB-C. I can import 3K images (what I take at a football game) into Lightroom on the M2 Air in a couple of minutes.
Out of those 3K images I usually select 100-150 images and export those twice, once with a watermark for public facing, without the watermark for a private website. I have to apply exposure correction (I shoot totally manual), white balance correction and cropping to all the images. I also export to a website so a couple of clients can select images they want for publication. The M2 Air handles that nicely.
I sometimes work on the images when I am traveling on the team bus returning from a game. The 13" M2 Air fits well in that environment. The M2 Air is lighter than the MacPro and that weight does get significant over time.
I think a M2 Air for your needs would be more than adequate. I opted for the 16 Gig of memory and the 1 TB storage. I needed the extra storage and the 16 Gig with 1 TB was available at the Apple Store. I probably would have opted for 16 Gig regardless of what was available due to the additional memory bandwidth with 16 Gig.
Well thanks for the additions folks. I think the two determining factors here will be Revit (and what it takes for rendering) and PowerBI desktop as it is only on Windows. I may think about getting the Air, and if it doesn’t pan out, turn it over to the family and move on to a Pro….
Wow that’s a lot.. looks like a pro is in your future after all.. I’ve been seeing some bargains on M1 Max so worth keeping an eye out.Alright I found what’s required for Revit to kick a55 and take names in 2023.![80085592a421561a76eeaaabb563a98c.jpg]()
Your biggest issue is choosing the correct amount of RAM.
Autocad, Lightroom and Photoshop can use an enormous amount of RAM depending on your usage. When you add a Windows virtual machine and Excel-spreadsheets with 1 million rows, I wouldn't be surprised if you need 32Gb of RAM. Especially if you run them all at the same time.
Can you even get an Air with 32Gb of RAM?
I run all three of those apps many times without issue using 16 gig of ram. Photoshop and Lightroom, and W11 running under a virtual machine. Memory used is about 11 gig with zero swap file. Images in Lightroom don't take a lot of space as they are thumbnails. Photoshop can use a lot of memory with large images and multiple layers. Even then memory will be swapped and is barely noticeable.
16 Gig works just fine. If needed, the virtual machine can just be unloaded as working in PS and LR generally the VM is not needed.
Ok so it looks like my determining factor will be Revit due to its requirements for high performance. Today, I’d honestly never buy anything with as little as 16gb. The air’s 24gb option would be minimum. I also tend to “future proof”. I mean I’ve had my mini since 2013 for Pete’s sake!
It sounds like the Pro is really what you need based on the Revit requirements. Good call on future proofing too - might as well get something that can handle your needs down the road. Out of curiosity, have you considered getting a refurb direct from Apple? They often have pretty good deals on the Pros and it's still under warranty. Something to potentially save a few bucks while getting the horsepower you need!
Yes. Both my mini and iMac were refurbs. I’ve been a little hesitant to do the same with a MacBook though due to not knowing the battery condition before ordering. Right now OWC has new loaded M1 Pros and Max’ for sale but I’m concerned I’d be missing out on my opportunity to future proof for as long as possible….