Best Mac for My (Construction) Business

[zachlegomaniac]

Hi. I hate to admit it, but I really don't know much about Macs so I need some advice on which one would best suit my needs. I started an Ecological Restoration business five years ago and brought my 2014 Mac Mini and 2013 MacBook Pro (the best computer I've ever owned) with me. When the 2013 started to slow drastically a few years ago I purchased the 2019 MacBook Air (base model) to tide me over for a few years as an inexpensive alternative until we had more cashflow.

I don't really do any heavy lifting with the machine. I use the MS Office Suite (lots of spreadsheets and word processing), many of the stock Mac apps, PDF Editor (for contract editing and construction docs), Slack, Stack (takeoffs), Quickbooks and Dropbox. The Air is a little sluggish all around, but where it really gets hung up is with construction plan sets (drawings). It takes forever and a day for Preview or PDF Editor to render them. That creates the biggest bottleneck in my workflow everyday.

My business partner has the 2021 16" MacBook Pro and it's a beast and I love the screen size. Granted, he does a lot more estimating than I do, which requires the power. I don't know if I should look into that or if it would simply be overkill for my needs. I feel like I got what I paid for when I grabbed the Air on sale for $899. I didn't expect it to fit my needs forever. I definitely need a laptop, though, because I spend most of my time traveling. Any advice would be welcome. Thank you.

[Also, I love Mac OS and am heavily entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, but have noticed a lot of others in the industry using ThinkPads. I really don't know why, but they're everywhere (I suppose it couldn't hurt to ask the next person I encounter using one). If anyone works in the industry and has some insight into this I'd be interested to hear about it. I'm not adverse to using a PC if it has a clear advantage for what I do, but I am currently most comfortable with Apple computers.]

 

[Fishrrman]

2021 MacBook Pro 14" (base model).
On sale right now at amazon for $250 off list price:

2021 Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch, M1 Pro chip with 8‑core CPU and 14‑core GPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - Space Gray

The new MacBook Pro delivers game-changing performance for pro users. With the powerful M1 Pro to supercharge pro-level workflows while getting amazing battery life. And with an immersive 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display and an array of pro ports, you can do more than ever with MacBook Pro.

www.amazon.com

 

[Darkseth]

Maybe the M1 Macbook Air is already more than enough, if it's not about the size?
Base model should work, but the upgrade to 16gb Ram and maybe 512gb SSD might be worth it.

Do NOT Mistake it for beeing slow, just because your 2019 model was slow. These 2 Macbook Airs are WORLDS apart.
Even tho the latest Macbook Air m1 doesn't even have a Fan (your 2019 Model has a fan that's not connected to the cooler, but still provides airflow), it's several times faster while staying silent AND cooler.

Check this for example: https://nanoreview.net/en/laptop-compare/apple-macbook-air-m1-2020-vs-apple-macbook-air-2019
800 Single Core points went up to 1500+ in Cinebench R23, Multicore went up from <1600 up to 7500+.
A single M1 High Performance Core is as fast as your entire 2019 Macbook Air, and there's 4 of them plus 4 efficient Cores that handle background Tasks.

The 2018 - early 2020 Macbook Air had a bad cooling Design, and inefficient + very low Performance Intel Chips included, so even light Tasks could get them to 100°C and make them throttle.
The M1 Macbook Air is a whole other dimension there.

Or you could say, the M1 Air is much closer to the 16" Macbook Pro 2021, than it is to your current 2019 Macbook Air.

 

[zachlegomaniac]

Thank you, @Fishrrman and @Darkseth , for your replies. I'm going to look into both computers. I'm just hoping that the next one I buy lasts for more than a few years, but it sounds like even the M1 MacBook Air new will be light years ahead of where my 2019 MBA was when it was brand new so it should carry me quite a bit longer. If I'm mistaken please let me know.

I wish I could get a larger screen, without as much power, because my needs obviously don't call for something like the base 2021 16" MBP. The 13" screen is just too small for me to work on when I'm not at a monitor, but a concession on my part needs to be made.

Intersting you mention the cooling design. This thing always sounds like it's about to take off into space except when I'm just browsing the web.

Also, I will certainly upgrade SSD and RAM. I naively bought the base model MBA in 2019 and having 128 GB SSD quickly came back to haunt me. It really wasn't a well thought out purchase, but it did get me through the few years I needed it to.

 

[wilberforce]

I deal with a lot of construction drawings, and like to be able to flip through a set by holding down the down arrow, in which case each sheet has to render in about 1/4 second. My typical dwg set is about 400 22x34 sheets, in a 100MB pdf file.
On my 2020 i7 iMac, and on my base 14" MBP M1 Pro, Preview cannot quite keep up, and each page renders in about 1/2 second, but the rendering time depends on the dwg content, compression and resolution.

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is faster (and more accurate) than Preview, and will just about keep up with holding the down arrow down on my 2020 iMac, and on my base 14" MBP M1 Pro it is very fast, and I can flip through and render 400 dwgs in about 1 minute. Still not quite fast enough for me, I would like even faster, i.e., ideally I would like zero lag or hesitation between pages.

Hope this helps. YMMV. Note that heavily compressed pdfs take much longer to render.

btw, the 27" 5K iMac screen is wonderful for reading dwgs full page (and thus so would the new 27" Studio display.)
The 14" screen on the MBP is very high resolution and is OK for reading dwgs full page when full screen, if you have sharp eyes. I would suggest the 16" for this purpose, it would be much better.

 

[zachlegomaniac]

I deal with a lot of construction drawings, and like to be able to flip through a set by holding down the down arrow, in which case each sheet has to render in about 1/4 second. My typical dwg set is about 400 22x34 sheets, in a 100MB pdf file.
On my 2020 i7 iMac, and on my base 14" MBP M1 Pro, Preview cannot quite keep up, and each page renders in about 1/2 second, but the rendering time depends on the dwg content, compression and resolution.

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is faster (and more accurate) than Preview, and will just about keep up with holding the down arrow down on my 2020 iMac, and on my base 14" MBP M1 Pro it is very fast, and I can flip through and render 400 dwgs in about 1 minute. Still not quite fast enough for me, I would like even faster, i.e., ideally I would like zero lag or hesitation between pages.

Hope this helps. YMMV. Note that heavily compressed pdfs take much longer to render.

btw, the 27" 5K iMac screen is wonderful for reading dwgs full page (and thus so would the new 27" Studio display.)
The 14" screen on the MBP is very high resolution and is OK for reading dwgs full page when full screen, if you have sharp eyes. I would suggest the 16" for this purpose, it would be much better.

Thank you. This is exactly the information I needed. My business partner has the 16” 2021 MBP and says it’s incredible.

Right now I can stare at a black and white checkered screen waiting for the drawing to completely render for probably 20+ seconds (haven’t timed it, but it feels like forever). When it finally does I discern if the information I need is even on the page and then start from the top again! Fortunately, my partner’s the one pouring over drawings regularly, but if I’m writing a proposal or contract, and need to refer to the drawings, it’s a painful process.

We travel heavily so I need a laptop. I didn’t want to overspend on a 16” configuration if a lesser computer was up to the task. I have 27” monitors at home, the office and at the shop so I can just pop it open and work. One usually has a drawing open and a second (if present) has a spreadsheet and/or word processor, specs, slack, etc.

I have been looking into portable monitors (for hotel rooms), but I need to see some before purchase. I’d love to buy a Studio Display as a dedicated office monitor, but it’s not in the budget this year.

It would probably be wise for me to just bring a thumbnail drive to the Apple Store (if they’d allow it). I’m going to try Acrobat this Monday. Again, I appreciate your insight.

 

[wilberforce]

It would probably be wise for me to just bring a thumbnail drive to the Apple Store (if they’d allow it). I’m going to try Acrobat this Monday. Again, I appreciate your insight.

Rendering may be throttled by reading from the thumb drive. I find it a bit slower when reading directly from a thumb drive, but not too bad.

 

[wilberforce]

Fortunately, my partner’s the one pouring over drawings regularly, but if I’m writing a proposal or contract, and need to refer to the drawings, it’s a painful process.

If you are preparing bids or contracts based on dwgs, I suggest use Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) not Preview. Sometimes I have found Preview does not completely render all dwg annotations. Sometimes some quantities and dimensions are completely missing in Preview. You can set it so Reader is the default app for pdfs