I am looking for a Macbook. My workload will be browsing, officeworks (Word, Excel), Photo editing and light Video editing. Which one should i go for? I want to atleast keep it for 5-6 Years.

  1. Macbook Air M2 (16 GB Ram) 512 GB
  2. Macbook Pro M3 (8 GB Ram) 512GB
  • TeraBaap365@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Air with 16gb out of these two but if possible I would go for M1 Mac pro 16gb/512gb from Amazon or refurbished from Apple Store (they are almost brand new).

    That 8GB will work but pushing it day and day out will hurt in future and you won’t need the fan from Pro based on your usage. I’ve had my m1 air base for 3 years and it worked great and got me through grad school as well but now with just 5 tabs on Firefox it starts feeling laggy and uses swap right away. Now I got a Mac mini with 24gb for extensive dev work!

    You’ll be happy with either but make the right choice so you don’t have to buy a new one in a few years. Hope this helped!

  • spezisaknobgoblin@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    M2 with 16GB is better.

    8GB of RAM, no matter how much Apple likes to say otherwise, is not the equivalent of 16GB on PC and 8GB is barely enough to run a web browser + a random program.

    8GB is the bare minimum you want for casual use. You need/want more for photo and video editing.

    • Rhodysurf@alien.topB
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      That price makes no sense…. I have a 16 gb 1 TB MacBook Air and it cost like 1799

      • SwamiYeet@alien.topB
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I spent a similar amount on my MacBook Pro 14, 512gb.

        I personally believe that the better speakers, display and webcam make up for the additional cost. But then again I don’t have the need for that much storage.

    • HBK-HBC@alien.topB
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      My friend runs Ableton with dozens of plugins on a 8GB M1 Air. Yes it struggles from time to time, but for light work it’s more than plenty.

  • FriedChicken_Chips12@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Officeworks has the best deals ever. Will always buy macs from them from now on. Depends on what u want. Apple is shit for the way they price it, a fan is great for performance and future proofing but so is ram. Idk, ur choice, I would get the MacBook Pro, because it has better everything than the Air, however if you do ram intensive tasks then I would consider a refurb M1 14 pro

  • badger_flakes@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    If you value a slight boost to portability and no fans/noise the air. If you value some extra ports and a higher refresh rate the pro.

    I use my MacBook more heavily than you and I chose the m2 air, for what it’s worth

  • BadPronunciation@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    As a final Cut Pro editor, please get the 16gb. My 8gb macbook air is always using about 8gb of swap. There’s also small lag when switching between apps