Needs vs. future - photography - assistance appreciated

[Littup2018]

Hi everyone,

I've been going back and forth. Had a 2009 Macbook Pro, that is now retired. For two years, replaced it with a 2nd hand Lenovo Thinkpad T420s, however the graphic card broke on me three days ago. Now I'm looking to return to Apple.

Currently, I'm building up my business as an animal photographer. I don't know if it'll take off, but photography is a big part of my day to day work with a computer.

What my computer needs, aside from mobilty and 15":
- Photoshop CC, InDesign CC and Lightroom Classic CC
- Handle 30MB RAW files and 200MB PSD files easily
- Probably handle some light video editing in the future

Basically, I think any Macbook Pro with any CPU, 16 GB ram and 512 GB SSD should be suitable.

BUT... now there's my but:
Those things are not upgradeable. If I spend that money, I expect it to last a few years.
And when it comes to "future proofing", I don't know how to approach the middle ground between a sensible choice and saving money.

Would I need a bigger CPU? I think 32 GB ram should be in there. 512 GB SSD should probably still be fine, since I store everything on two external SSDs. How about an updated graphic card? I'm really confused.

And then I go back to a refurbished Macbook Pro from May 2015 with retina display for 1.909,00 €:
2.2 GHz Quad-Core i7, Intel Iris Pro Graphics, 16 GB ram, 256 GB SSD - but those things would be upgradeable, yes?

I keep runing in a circle and I need a reality check from people who are more informed about Apple's Macbook Pros.

Any advice on what's really necessary for my needs, what makes sense for durability and what is only nice to have, is so appreciated!

 

[840quadra]

FWIW I was in a similar spot back in 2015 for my photography based business. At the time I prchaced a midrange i7 MBP with AMD graphics. To this day, it is still a reasonably quick machine that has a great display, and is still plenty fast.

For quite a bit of my work (usually time critical for magazine and promotion of venues I shoot at), I now use an iPad Pro and a few different applications that support batch processing / editing.

YMMV, but I would say a midrange 15” MBP with AMD graphics will do you well for a long time, and have decent resale value when you are done with it.

 

[Littup2018]

YMMV, but I would say a midrange 15” MBP with AMD graphics will do you well for a long time, and have decent resale value when you are done with it.

Thank you for your reply!

In this case, I'm looking at the following configuration:

Hardware: 2,6 GHz 6‑Core Intel Core i7, Radeon Pro 560X mit 4 GB GDDR5 Grafikspeicher, 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 Arbeitsspeicher, 512 GB SSD

 

[840quadra]

Thank you for your reply!

In this case, I'm looking at the following configuration:

Hardware: 2,6 GHz 6‑Core Intel Core i7, Radeon Pro 560X mit 4 GB GDDR5 Grafikspeicher, 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 Arbeitsspeicher, 512 GB SSD

I am envious, that is a great system with lots of future proof potential. Definitely don’t ignore the refurbished or resale market if you don’t want to spend Max dollars on a brand new system.

 

[shaunp]

I went back to a Thinkpad to a Mac, mainly because of RAM limitations in the MBP. I went for a P51 (now the P52) because of the 4K matte screen, built-in colour calibrator and massive flexibility in the configuration. Now these aren't exactly on the light side, but there is always the X1 Carbon Extreme, which is and it doesn't have the issues the MBP has.

I'm not anti-Apple, Mac OS is the best out there, but Apple laptops simply aren't that good any more compared to the competition. And I also do not want to guess what I will need over the next 3-4 years in terms of RAM and storage when I buy it. I'd rather upgrade later.