Help With MacBook Pro Specification

[Valo]

I've been asked by the wife of a friend to advise her which MacBook Pro she should buy for her husbands Christmas. Her husband is a really keen amateur photographer and will be using the machine principally for this along with typical day to day tasks - Web/Email and MS Office etc.
We are looking at the base model 13" MacBook Pro (Non-TouchBar). I realise that these are not upgradable once purchased, so my questions are:

• Should I advise her to spend the extra £180 for 16GB RAM? - Even though Macs and macOS has great memory mangement. Would it be worth it for photo editing?

• Should she spend the extra £200 for 256GB SSD? - The idea of surviving with a 128GB SSD for photo editing and storage seems silly to me, want to try and minimise his need for external storage.

In the event she can only afford one of those options, which one should it be?

Would anyone be able to recommend a good thunderbolt memory card reader?

 

[MrRockliffe]

4GB is enough for every day computing on a Mac. RAM management on Mac OS is excellent.

8GB is now the minimum so stick with that - it really will be more than enough. A couple of years ago it was the norm on a high end gaming machine, let alone a web browsing device.

256GB would be a worthwhile investment. Again, I found 128GB enough, but I just had to be cautious with what I put on. Plus, the 256GB will be better for longevity, since you won't be filling it up as much.

I did a fair bit of photo editing using iPhoto or whatever it's called now on my 4GB machine. Apps are much better optimised on Mac OS - people are often accustomed to Windows and needing more RAM.

By the time you filled 16GB, the processor would likely be struggling anyhow.

Edit: talking from experience here as someone who owns a maxed out 15 inch model and sees no perceivable performance difference to my 2013 13 inch for everything I used to do.

 

[Feek]

If you only go for one of those, I wouldn't hesitate to do increase the SSD. 128Gb isn't enough.

 

[Valo]

4GB is enough for every day computing on a Mac. RAM management on Mac OS is excellent.

8GB is now the minimum so stick with that - it really will be more than enough. A couple of years ago it was the norm on a high end gaming machine, let alone a web browsing device.

256GB would be a worthwhile investment. Again, I found 128GB enough, but I just had to be cautious with what I put on. Plus, the 256GB will be better for longevity, since you won't be filling it up as much.

I did a fair bit of photo editing using iPhoto or whatever it's called now on my 4GB machine. Apps are much better optimised on Mac OS - people are often accustomed to Windows and needing more RAM.

By the time you filled 16GB, the processor would likely be struggling anyhow.

Edit: talking from experience here as someone who owns a maxed out 15 inch model and sees no perceivable performance difference to my 2013 13 inch for everything I used to do.

Thanks for the reply. I know what you mean about the memory management on macOS, as an iMac owner I've only recently increased the memory on my iMac and that is a late 2013 model which is still perfect for my needs.

If you only go for one of those, I wouldn't hesitate to do increase the SSD. 128Gb isn't enough.

Thanks for the reply Feek. I was leaning towards the 256GB SSD upgrade due to his photo work over the RAM, due to the optimisation of macOS and it's memory management. I agree with you by the time macOS and other apps are installed a 128GB SSD it doesn't really leave a great deal of usable space going forward.

Any one able to recommend a good Thunderbolt memory card reader?

 

[ajf]

What software does he use for his photography?
I’ve got a mid 2014 macbook pro with 8gb ram and if using both Lightroom and Photoshop it does hit the memory ceiling.
If you can afford the £180 then i would get the 16gb option purely for future proofing if nothing else.

 

[MrRockliffe]

If you've got any benchmarking suites you want me to try, I can run them on the mac and check out memory usage?

 

[Deleted member 138126]

For a lot of people a laptop is a very personal choice. I'd say the main piece of advice is that she needs to buy the laptop as close to Christmas as possible, so that the guy has a chance to return it within the 14 day period if he seriously disagrees with his wife's choices.

 

[GeX]

If you only go for one of those, I wouldn't hesitate to do increase the SSD. 128Gb isn't enough.

this.

 

[welshboy]

For a lot of people a laptop is a very personal choice. I'd say the main piece of advice is that she needs to buy the laptop as close to Christmas as possible, so that the guy has a chance to return it within the 14 day period if he seriously disagrees with his wife's choices.

Apple usually extend the period for Christmas purchases,
Long as it’s purchased from the
25th nov the return will be around mid-late Jan.
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/10/apple-2017-holiday-return-policy/

 

[Valo]

What software does he use for his photography?
I’ve got a mid 2014 macbook pro with 8gb ram and if using both Lightroom and Photoshop it does hit the memory ceiling.
If you can afford the £180 then i would get the 16gb option purely for future proofing if nothing else.

I'm almost certain its Lightroom and Photoshop. That was my concern about the RAM when I wrote the first post, I know how memory hungry Photoshop and Lightroom can be.
So with 8GB it would run fine but possibly hit the memory ceiling, but 16GB would give better performance and future proofing.

If you've got any benchmarking suites you want me to try, I can run them on the mac and check out memory usage?

Thanks for the kind offer but I think I'm ok for the minute. However I could come back to you

Apple usually extend the period for Christmas purchases,
Long as it’s purchased from the
25th nov the return will be around mid-late Jan.
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/10/apple-2017-holiday-return-policy/

I had also seen that over on MacRumors. Hopefully it shouldn't come to that

Anyone able to recommend a thunderbolt memory card reader rather than having to resort to dongles?

I would generally purchase AppleCare at the time of purchase when I buy my own products. Whats the deal with buying it separately at a later date?

 

[Feek]

I would generally purchase AppleCare at the time of purchase when I buy my own products. Whats the deal with buying it separately at a later date?

I managed to pick it up for my MacBook from eBay for a very good price recently. They don't appear very often though although there's been a few recently and that may have driven the price down. If you can't get it within the first year, you can always just buy from Apple right before the one year deadline.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

I managed to pick it up for my MacBook from eBay for a very good price recently. They don't appear very often though although there's been a few recently and that may have driven the price down. If you can't get it within the first year, you can always just buy from Apple right before the one year deadline.

Do you remember how much you paid? The cheapest I'm seeing at the moment are £140. This is for a MacBook 12".

 

[Feek]

It was about £120, that's the best price I'd seen in a year - I think retail from Apple is £220 so it's a decent saving. The part number is MF126ZM/A and it's good for the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

It was about £120, that's the best price I'd seen in a year - I think retail from Apple is £220 so it's a decent saving. The part number is MF126ZM/A and it's good for the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

Cheers... it sounds like £140 isn’t too bad then.

 

[Valo]

Has anyone had any experience with these types of USB-C / USB-A (3.1) and SD/Micro SD Card adapters? If so can anyone recommend a particular one, as something like this would be perfect for my friends needs?

 

[vila]

Has anyone had any experience with these types of USB-C / USB-A (3.1) and SD/Micro SD Card adapters? If so can anyone recommend a particular one, as something like this would be perfect for my friends needs?

Do you research - I'm not familiar with them but some models caused problems with the MacBook Pros knocking out the wifi for some reason.