Which Mac?

Vita

Vita

Vita

Soldato
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I’m after some advice on which Mac to buy. I’ve had Macs in the past all be it in notebook format. I’m wanting a Mac as I’m in the Apple ecosystem / iPhone /iPad etc.

It will be used for general web browsing/documents/spreadsheets. Though I’m wanting to also use it for photoshop/video editing and learning to code. I’ve tried to leave the Apple eco system but always get drawn back. Currently have a Microsoft SurfaceLaptop 2.

In the past I’ve had the following;

Early 2011 MBP 15
2017 MBP 13
2018 MBA
2018 MB

Now, I’ve been drawn to the iMacs but I have no clue about them. I’ve decided maybe a desktop machine is better for me as my notebooks hardly went out the house if ever.

I want a machine which will last me 7 years at least.

I don’t mind refurbished or second hand devices so I can cater my budget but I’m just unsure on where to go and what I would need to fill my requirements.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.
 
The range is pretty solid in terms of iMacs but be aware there's probably a design refresh due. Everyone keeps banging on about the bezels :) So if the 7 year thing is important then I'd probably wait on the refresh.

Go for a unit with an SSD drive in it natively, avoid the fusion drives. Also, upgrade the RAM yourself as it's far cheaper.

Without a budget it's a bit hard to guide but I will say the current i9 is an absolute flier of a machine. Outperforms my iMac Pro for this like video exporting and the like. It's not as scalable as the pro and doesn't have as good connectivity, but it's still a great machine.

I'd still probably wait for the refresh anyway tbh, epecially if you want the machine for that long an ownership cycle.
 
Sorry budget around £1700 max.

I’m guessing the intel onboard graphics are not good for video rendering/photoshop work?
 
The onboard graphics on the mini even struggle with a 4k screen never mind editing tbh. These are my videos - just so we're clear - but you can see the performance of the top spec 6 core i7 Mac Mini here. The i9 iMac is here. Mac Mini with the Blackmagic eGPU here.

The 1700GBP budget would take you to the base-spec 27" unit at retail, but you'll generally find some good deals on the refurb store. 27" refurbs are here. You could buy a cheaper one and use some of your budget for third-party RAM and perhaps an external boot SSD?

The base Mac Mini is pretty capable bar the graphics being crap. At 800 quid for 128Gb SSD though, not sure I could bring myself to hit the button on that? Use the extra budget for screen/keyboard (if you don't have them already), RAM upgrade and some external storage?

It's difficult for me to be entirely objective tbh, as I get most of them to play with anyway.
 
MacRS4 said:
The onboard graphics on the mini even struggle with a 4k screen never mind editing tbh. These are my videos - just so we're clear - but you can see the performance of the top spec 6 core i7 Mac Mini here. The i9 iMac is here. Mac Mini with the Blackmagic eGPU here.

The 1700GBP budget would take you to the base-spec 27" unit at retail, but you'll generally find some good deals on the refurb store. 27" refurbs are here. You could buy a cheaper one and use some of your budget for third-party RAM and perhaps an external boot SSD?

The base Mac Mini is pretty capable bar the graphics being crap. At 800 quid for 128Gb SSD though, not sure I could bring myself to hit the button on that? Use the extra budget for screen/keyboard (if you don't have them already), RAM upgrade and some external storage?

It's difficult for me to be entirely objective tbh, as I get most of them to play with anyway.
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I'm looking at a mac mini later in the year. Would the onboard gpu be good enough to drive a 4k monior for regular desktop use? I'm talking photo viewing, internet browsing and the like.
 
Sorry, completely missed this. Like I say it's hard for me to be objective because the 2018 i7 minis I have are sat next to an iMac Pro and an i9 MBP.

For viewing and consumption I think it's probably absolutely fine. I think doing video processing or photo editing would be a bit painful. Just on the way out, I'll see if I can grab a video that shows what I mean.
 
Playing devils advocate here, but considered buying or building a desktop PC? I’ve just built a Ryzen desktop for £1400 and it outperforms everything in its price bracket from Apple twice over.
 
Vita said:
I’m after some advice on which Mac to buy. I’ve had Macs in the past all be it in notebook format. I’m wanting a Mac as I’m in the Apple ecosystem / iPhone /iPad etc.

It will be used for general web browsing/documents/spreadsheets. Though I’m wanting to also use it for photoshop/video editing and learning to code. I’ve tried to leave the Apple eco system but always get drawn back. Currently have a Microsoft SurfaceLaptop 2.

In the past I’ve had the following;

Early 2011 MBP 15
2017 MBP 13
2018 MBA
2018 MB

Now, I’ve been drawn to the iMacs but I have no clue about them. I’ve decided maybe a desktop machine is better for me as my notebooks hardly went out the house if ever.

I want a machine which will last me 7 years at least.

I don’t mind refurbished or second hand devices so I can cater my budget but I’m just unsure on where to go and what I would need to fill my requirements.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.
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7 years is unrealistic. Not only is performance improvement increasing at an ever faster rate, you've also a track record of not being able to keep a device for 7 years during a period when performance improvements were slower. Don't take it personally, just an observation. I tried to do something similar in 2015, when I got a 27" 5k i5 iMac. At the end of 2018 I ended up upgrading the Fusion drive to a much larger SSD, and then at the end of 2019 upgraded to a new i9 iMac. In short, the chances of you keeping this device and being happy with it for 7 years are remote.

Photo editing will be fine on most up to date Apple devices, unless you're editing medium format or the latest Sony. But video editing will just bring some systems to a crawl. 7 years ago 4k wasn't really a common thing- today it captured by the majority of mobile phones. Some cameras, and even a mobile or two, are now going higher. 8k will be commonly attainable in a couple of years. You will need some serious, serious horse power in your system to keep on top of all those increases for a whole 7 years.

I, like you, am invested into the Apple ecosystem. Maybe consider making an extra incremental upgrade during the 7 years and staying in budget still?
 
I kept my 2011 iMac for six years as I bought the absolute top CPU that was available at the time. I had two of them, sold one on here for a steal and a friend has the other. He used it daily and I’ve used it since he had it and it’s absolutely fine, perfectly usable and doesn’t struggle with anything he throws at it.
Admittedly it’s two OS versions out of date now but apart from that, zero issues.

I only got rid of it because I had some cash in my pocket following a redundancy. I do think a seven year life expectancy is reasonable.
 
Personally I don't see the point in an iMac. Might as well just get a laptop and connect it to a monitor if required IMO.

Spec wise I'd just buy an entry level MacBook Air 13" if you only need it for basic tasks. The new one has a lovely retina display and thunderbolt 3 support which makes it easy to connect to a docking station and external storage if required.

Also, I know there's always something better just around the corner, but I'd consider waiting until Apple refresh the current 13" air/pro models with the new keyboard they have on the 16" model. It's much improved over the current butterfly rubbish! Also I suspect we'll see a MacBook air refresh with 10th generation Intel CPUs soon as well.
 
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MacRS4 said:
The performance on the new MBA is appalling - I had one, sent it back, it was terrible.
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Surprised to hear that. I don't have first hand experience but I've used Windows laptops with similar specs and they've been fine for everything other than gaming?

Guess it depends what you're doing on it though.
 
The 2k plus macbook pro thing i got in last year throttles its little demented heart out when tasked with anything even half remotely near a decent cpu load.
Hate to think how bad it would be when video editing, and this was the lowly quad.
 
silvagti said:
Surprised to hear that. I don't have first hand experience but I've used Windows laptops with similar specs and they've been fine for everything other than gaming?

Guess it depends what you're doing on it though.
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Have a look here for my review on it. Just look at the benchmarks - they're terrible. It's a Y series processor don't forget. I simply cannot imagine using it for video or photo editing.
 
imac - super hard to service because the screen is thin and crack very easily and difficult to ship when you want to sell it.

i would get new MacBook pro 16" because it uses scissor-switch.
 
i wouldn't get the new MacBook air. the heatsink is crap and the fan doesn't reach the heatsink so is likely to throttle.
 
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