Laptop Jungle: Which one?

[Sceneshifter]

Hello all,

I'm a long time apple user but since having a family and business, I completely lost track of following the updates as obsessively as I did before. I really appreciate your inputs on the below.

Now, last MacBook (Pro) I have is an aluminium one at 13 inch (perfect size for me), bought mid 2012, I believe at around USD 1199 at the time. The one where you have a DVD drive, mag safe, still plenty of ports. Please let me know if more information is needed to identify it. I have since changed the harddrive (the spinning disk type) cable and also have upgraded the ram. Rest is pretty much unchanged. It is getting old, as it is now more than 5 years old.

I'm now running a small business, and I want to buy a new laptop as I'm afraid the 2012 one is going to need too much TLC to get up to speed again. So I checked the online store, and I'm completely lost..

When I look at the 'Macbook' now, it looks like the MacBook Air from back then (which was USD 999 if I remember that correct).

So simple question: If I want a capable laptop, that can also handle RAW pics & Lightroom nicely, which model am I to look at nowadays? I also do video editing occasionally for promotional vids. The prices (I'm in Europe) have changed so dramatically that I don't even know which one is supposed to be the upgraded model of the one I have. I feel terribly old, lol.

I think I'm looking at the MacBook Pro, 13 inch. That I think is where I'm at. But then, I notice not all are the same. There is one with and one without touch bar. Is one the 'old' model and one the 'new' model? I see there are other differences to the specs, but just trying to understand if this means that any MacBook pro that doesn't have the touchbar yet is basically outdated/old.

I noticed the baseline Pro comes with 128 GB SSD, quite disappointing to see if I'm being honest.. Can the SSD and/or RAM still be user replaced like on the one I have?

Sorry if I seem confused, I am, and would like to purchase the laptop still before the end of this year. I'm in no real hurry, except it would be great if I can still buy/book it this calendar year.

I see the buyer's guide says 'buy now' for the MacBook pro, is this for the touchbar, or across the line?
Should we expect to see an bump or upgrade before the new year?

Many thanks, you guys always gave the best insights.

Very best

 

[andy9l]

Understandable.

To put it very concisely and somewhat crudely, pick your most important factor from the left:

Budget = MacBook Air
Portability = 12" MacBook
Expandability = 13" MacBook Pro
Power = 15" MacBook Pro

With regards to the Touch Bar and Non-Touch Bar MacBook Pros, they are both equally new and relevant. The one without Touch Bar is slightly cheaper, naturally, and offers slightly worse performance if you put it under serious stress. Unlikely you'll notice that given your work load, though.

In terms of a recommendation, I think you're bang on the money already. I would suggest a 13" MacBook Pro *without* Touch Bar.

This gives you portability, sustainable power, and expandability to use multiple external devices all at once.

You cannot upgrade RAM or SSD after purchase, so ensure you buy enough. Storage is easy for you to calculate, RAM is a little more tricky...

To figure out if you have enough RAM, use your Mac as normal for a period of time. Now load up 'Activity Monitor' and check the 'Memory' tab. Look at the graph in the lower left. If it's orange or red, you would benefit from more RAM. If you're green, more RAM would be largely pointless.

Hope that helps you out a bit.

Also, be sure to check Apple refurb page. You could pick up a 2016/2017 model for a very decent saving. They have all kinds of configurations on there. You might just need a bit of patience for your desired config to pop up

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Andy91 has pretty mush put it as succinctly as possible.

The MacBook is all about portability and computing on the move with no need for ports or peripherals.
The air is just kept around as apples budget portable it is a great little machine but the screen is pretty poor by comparison to everything else (I would only buy this if budget was my main criteria retina screens are a pleasure to use in comparison)

The 13 inch pro is your everyday business laptop it'll pretty much do everything you need. Unless you are using it for lots of video editing 4k etc then the non touch bar with better battery is probably your best bet.

If you need power the 15 inch is the only way to go.

For you the non touch bar MBP with 256gb ssd or 512gb ssd and 8gb of ram should be great for another 5 years that would be my suggestion. As said above no after market upgrades possible anymore chips soldered to the logic board for the purposes of stability and portability have been adopted in much of the ultra portables market. For this reason good insurance or applecare is a must.

refurbs arrive as new sans posh box and are a great way to save a few hundred $ on a new mac.