Purchase advice

[nrvna76]

I’ve asked on here before what computer for my wife to run her photography business. Small business, just her as the photographer.

The verdict back then was an iMac. I had been holding out for a better refresh, but now I wonder what the best investment for her is. She doesn’t have a lot of cash to reinvest in the business.

Today she is using an HP envy x360 15.6” core I5 2.3ghz with a 1tb hdd/sdd and 12gb Ram.

A base spec 27” iMac gets to near $2k with tax. Would you choose that, or an older iMac and invest in some external storage to keep the computer from getting bogged down with raw photos?

 

[chscag]

I believe I would still choose a new iMac. Better graphics, large 27" retina display, and even with the basic configuration of an i5 plenty of speed. Storage should be a consideration and if she can afford it, go with a 1TB SSD or at least 512GB. If it's for her photography business, the machine is a business expense and can probably be depreciated on her next tax return. Either that or continue to use the HP which by the way is a pretty good machine even if it does run Windows.

 

[Dutch60]

I would choose an older iMac. Base model with Apple is..well, just that...base (and probably to show that Macs do not have to be expensive). You can have a much more complete iMac from several years ago for the same money.

 

[nrvna76]

I believe I would still choose a new iMac. Better graphics, large 27" retina display, and even with the basic configuration of an i5 plenty of speed. Storage should be a consideration and if she can afford it, go with a 1TB SSD or at least 512GB. If it's for her photography business, the machine is a business expense and can probably be depreciated on her next tax return. Either that or continue to use the HP which by the way is a pretty good machine even if it does run Windows.

It has been a good machine. It was just what we had when she started the business, wasn’t a specific purchase, but it is starting to get pretty laggy on her. When she first loads in a photo shoot, and as she switches between photos in Lightroom. I am not sure what part of that is the machine being too loaded up with photos, I have to go check her storage.