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My bro has asked if it’s possible to find a decent Mac laptop for £400 - £500 max, I’m a Mac user myself but my MacBook unibody is now 9 yrs old yet still working perfectly fine for my needs (2.4ghz 8gb ram 960 gb ssd). A few years ago I could prob have advised on the merits of MacBook Air/macboook/MacBook Pro but I’m a bit out of the loop with the new processors and their capabilities.
I imagine he’s not after any serious processing power but he’d like something decent enough to mess about with his latest interest in photography, considering he’s been using a 9 yr old acer budget laptop I guess anything would be an improvement so what spec or model should I be looking for and is there any resellers I should be searching for a bargain, to be honest the closer to £400 the better but he could stretch to £500.
Cheers peeps,
He could probably find a decent enough Air (assuming he doesn’t want max processor performace) or an older MBP. My wifes 2012 MBP is just fine and as an older model we have upgradede RAM and added an SSD. Both of these things you can’t do with a newer machine.
BTW messing about with photograghy is often processor / RAM intensive although if he’s jist starting out maybe he is not into bug RAW file photo edits
Cheers jambalaya, I was initially considering the best specced air I could find but wasn’t sure if it would be up to much but after reading a few bench test reports in the last few mins it appears even a lowly model would piss all over my ageing MacBook, but then again ultimate portability is low on his requirements so perhaps a MBP would suit him better as it’s easier to upgrade the ram/ssd as required. As for bug raw file photo edits?"..........that is so far down the line of future possibilities it’s into the realms of alchemy, I’ve only recently lent him my lumix tz90 to take out on his wanderings so I imagine raw processing power and multi layered photoshop imaging capabilities are quite low on his needs at the moment, all he needs is something that works time and time again without the hassle he has at the moment. I’ve not had one single issue with my ageing MacBook over the previous 9years and it has never sat down on me despite being abused in many clubs/outdoor festivals over the years - to be honest I’d much rather he bought a Mac as I have practically no working knowledge of windows OP past the XP era,
Do your homework if you’re thinking of going for the Air. ISTR that there was a massive spec bump a few years back - prior to that they were a bit slow and unwieldy.
Like you, I’m on an old MBP (12 in) upgraded for max RAM & SSD and it’s really fine as far as performance goes. I wish it was a bit lighter though. If not worried about portability then a used MBP seems like a no brainer.
I am just decommissioning a 9 year old 15" MBP. Its been in daily use. Got a couple of issues but works fine and condition is good. Drop me an email if interested, don't want much for it.
An air would not be the right platform for photography IMO, better looking at MB/MBP