What do I need for my use case out of these options?

[DreamLike]

Hi everyone,

Currently, the only apple product I own is an iPad 9.7 pro from 2016. It is still running very nice but looking at upgrading now.

I need to do the following:

• Yousician with a Rocksmith cable for guitar
• Rocksmith with a Rocksmith cable for guitar
• Research while on the sofa so should not get too hot (from my understanding Macbooks do not get hot do light tasks)
• General media consumption: Netflix, Youtube, Disney, and I use an app on the iPad called Readly for magazines
• Future photo/video editing. I currently do not do any video/photo editing but might need to do the odd video or photo in the future nothing at a professional workflow level
• I have started my learning experience with the guitar only very recently so not sure where that will lead me and if I will need any software I might not even know about at this stage of my journey but will need in the future.

Options that I have (please add any other viable ones). All the below is brand new with a 20% discount code I have access to.

1. Ipad 9th gen and buy a camera connection kit with the Rocksmith cable. I will not be able to do Rocksmith but might not be the end of the world. £240
2. MacBook Air M1, 256gb SSD 8Gb RAM - £736
3. MacBook Air M1 , 256GB SSD 16GB RAM - £1000
4. MacBook Air M2, 256GB SSD 8Gb RAM - £920 (SSD is a concern as it is slow due to 1 single chip?)
5. MacBook Air M2, 256GB SSD 16GB RAM - £1,160 (SSD is a concern as it is slow due to 1 single chip?)
6. Macbook Air Pro 14inch - 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM - £1384
7. Wait a month and see what black Friday and the new MacBook pros do to the market?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated

Thanks!!

 

[Toutou]

Are you talking about Rocksmith+, the new subscription based service? That one, AFAIK, is not available on macOS at all, so no MacBook.

For the non-guitar stuff any of these machines will do, all M1 and M2 machines are snappy and are powerful enough for basically anything on a prosumer level (i.e. if you needed more power for a specific task, you’d already know it). At this point I’d recommend 16 GB RAM, but the rest only really depends on your budget.

 

[tkid]

Rocksmith 2014 (via Steam) broke with the new OS Ventura so if you're looking for hardware for RS 2014 or RS+, you're better off with a Mac on Monterey for RS 2014, or a Windows-based machine for RS+. This, until Ubisoft supports today's MacOS/Apple Silicon.

If RS is not high on your priority list but still want Apple hardware, then prioritize SSD space over RAM for your budget on either M1 or M2.