MacBook Pro pros/cons

[2muchinfo]

My tech consultant is no longer available, so I hope you guys can help. I need to get a new machine for the work I do for a non-profit, so need to be a good steward of $$. Basic office needs (Word, Excel, Quickbooks), tiny bit of Illustrator and Photoshop, plus some small, short video projects. Our existing machine is an 11" early 2014 Air, but only 128 GB Flash storage and I'm dangerously full.
Looking at refurbished machines and will purchase Apple Care.

Is newer better? Or is older OK if you get more? I don't want to buy something that will be outdated too soon. (I'd hope we can live with this next machine for another 4-6 years+) I'm trying to stay at or under $2K

I'm OK with a 13" and I think I could add a monitor if I really need to see it larger. But a 15" could be nice. Or should I be looking at somehow upgrading the machine we have?

Am I better off with:
A) 2017
15.4-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display; 2880-by-1800 native resolution at 220 pixels per inch
16GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 onboard memory
512GB PCIe-based onboard SSD1
720p FaceTime HD Camera
Radeon Pro 555 with 2GB of GDDR5 memory
or
B) 2019
13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display with IPS technology; 2560-by-1600 native resolution at 227 pixels per inch
8GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 onboard memory
512GB SSD
720p FaceTime HD camera
Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655

 

[anpaman]

The 2017 was better because photoshop need a lot of ram and it has bigger screen also vga card for video projects.

 

[leman]

If I understand correctly, you are not going to do any complex photo or movie editing. In that case it doesn’t really matter. Another option is a MacBook Air, although the 13” pro offers more bang per buck.

 

[maflynn]

Is newer better?

The general consensus is that newer is better - at least that's what the commercials tell me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't want to buy something that will be outdated too soon.

Then getting a machine that was just released this year as opposed to 2 1/2 years ago is the best option.

(I'd hope we can live with this next machine for another 4-6 years+)

Given the issues with the butterfly keyboard particularly with the 2017 model, I would avoid them.

 

[Kantry123]

get the 2019, any older model i will avoid because of flawed Keyboard design.

 

[2muchinfo]

So I have one more option. I have a MacBook Pro 17-inch, Mid-2010 available for free (4gb 1067 MHz DDR3, Intel HD Graphics 288 MB, 500GB SATA Disk).
I think I understand it is limited to OS 10.13.6, but I have all the software I want to run right now and don't plan on purchasing new for a while (I am a slowwww adopter and limited on budget).
Could this get me doing what I need for another year or so? (Basic office needs (Word, Excel, Quickbooks), tiny bit of Illustrator and Photoshop, plus some small, short video projects, like 3 minutes and under)

 

[anpaman]

If you currently have MacBook Pro 17 inch Mid 2010 there aren't need purchasing new one.

Later you could upgrade ram and SSD.