Thanks! I actually saw that Costco had it for $1750 yesterday and went ahead and ordered one. They have a really good (and long) return policy so I figured I would buy it and see how it goes. Gonna work on what will be a longer family Vacation video of a recent trip to Disneyland and see how the base model handles things. Gonna also plug it into my monitors and run it like a desktop to see how I like that way of working as well.Your rationale sounds good, but I suggest you go for the 1TB SSD. MacOS pretty effortlessly uses Swap so you will want to have a lot of free space after installing apps, media, and files. Also, hanging an external drive from your laptop is awkward when not sitting at a desk. Having 1TB will help it feel like a self-contained computer.
Here is the base 14" for $250 off.
Deals: Apple's 14-Inch MacBook Pro Available for Record Low Price of $1,749.99 ($249 Off)
Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 8-core CPU, 512GB) has returned to its previous all-time low price of $1,749.99, down from...www.macrumors.com
I wasn't able to get 1TB on this sale model but I'll see how I do with 512 and go from there. Bad thing is, only base models are typically on sale (That I have seen) so upgrading just about anything is gonna cost me a bit should I need to.