Hello! I'm looking for some buying advice from you lovely people.
A bit about me and my use:
I'm a music producer (Ableton) and amateur photographer (UK based) and use my laptop as my personal and occasional work computer (I am a researcher and writer so use a lot of pdfs, browser tabs). I also enjoy playing simple games. My music production was initially rather light, with smaller arrangements and only a few VSTs and external synths, it has since expanded to more complex arrangements, and my photo editing has become a little more complex.
My current laptop is an early 2015 13-inch mbp, 2.9ghz i5 with 16gb ram and 512gb ssd. This laptop has served me well, but I work my laptops hard and this now has multiple problems beyond chugging with my current workflow, including a dodgy fan, one blown speaker (I don't know how), and an unusually slow ssd. It's four and a half years old and I'm getting ready to upgrade. At the time of purchase this laptop was around £1350 with student discount, and I'm aware that if I want something new and equivalent or better then I'm going to have to fork out, but I'd rather not spend much north of £2k.
What I know for certain is that I need 16gb of ram minimum again, and 512 ssd minimum, but mainly that the dual core 28w processor has been the main bottleneck to my music production as I'm now using more complex sets of effects, software instruments and arrangements. So a minimum quad core processor is required, six cores would be great, and I imagine 8 cores would be both overkill and unaffordable.
A few more details:
I'm happy to buy new, refurbished or lightly used. I'm happy to buy the 2016-2019 models, knowing the sacrifice of ports, keyboard changes etc, but would prefer 2018/2019. I like the 13 inch form factor, but a bigger screen and slightly higher weight would be fine and actually probably preferably for music production and photos etc. A lower end dedicated graphics card would be nice for light gaming and could help aspects of my music production/photo editing depending on the use case. I am a lifelong mac user, I like macos, and I'm deep in the ecosystem so a pc is off the table. I'm happy to wait a few months for the right machine to come along or drop in price, but I'd rather not wait another year.
My options as far as I can tell if I were to buy now:
Firstly, my dad will be looking to upgrade his laptop soon, presumably when the new 16 inch is released. This laptop is a 2017 15 inch macbook pro, 2.9ghz, 16gb ram, 560, 2tb ssd. I imagine he would do a me a relatively decent deal on it, around £1500 or so which is good considering the storage size, but I'm also aware that it's a bit older and keyboard issues seems to me present on those later models.
Secondly, I am aware that a new 16 inch mbp will potentially be arriving quite soon, and this could mean a 14 inch MBP could be coming next year, and would consider waiting for this if it comes with decent processor specs, and potentially lower level dedicated graphics (one can dream). This screen size to body ratio sounds ideal to me.
Sorry about the very detailed information! It's a big purchase for me so any good advice would be much appreciated, thank you!
A bit about me and my use:
I'm a music producer (Ableton) and amateur photographer (UK based) and use my laptop as my personal and occasional work computer (I am a researcher and writer so use a lot of pdfs, browser tabs). I also enjoy playing simple games. My music production was initially rather light, with smaller arrangements and only a few VSTs and external synths, it has since expanded to more complex arrangements, and my photo editing has become a little more complex.
My current laptop is an early 2015 13-inch mbp, 2.9ghz i5 with 16gb ram and 512gb ssd. This laptop has served me well, but I work my laptops hard and this now has multiple problems beyond chugging with my current workflow, including a dodgy fan, one blown speaker (I don't know how), and an unusually slow ssd. It's four and a half years old and I'm getting ready to upgrade. At the time of purchase this laptop was around £1350 with student discount, and I'm aware that if I want something new and equivalent or better then I'm going to have to fork out, but I'd rather not spend much north of £2k.
What I know for certain is that I need 16gb of ram minimum again, and 512 ssd minimum, but mainly that the dual core 28w processor has been the main bottleneck to my music production as I'm now using more complex sets of effects, software instruments and arrangements. So a minimum quad core processor is required, six cores would be great, and I imagine 8 cores would be both overkill and unaffordable.
A few more details:
I'm happy to buy new, refurbished or lightly used. I'm happy to buy the 2016-2019 models, knowing the sacrifice of ports, keyboard changes etc, but would prefer 2018/2019. I like the 13 inch form factor, but a bigger screen and slightly higher weight would be fine and actually probably preferably for music production and photos etc. A lower end dedicated graphics card would be nice for light gaming and could help aspects of my music production/photo editing depending on the use case. I am a lifelong mac user, I like macos, and I'm deep in the ecosystem so a pc is off the table. I'm happy to wait a few months for the right machine to come along or drop in price, but I'd rather not wait another year.
My options as far as I can tell if I were to buy now:
- MBP 13 inch (2019) 1.4ghz, 16gb ram, 512ssd - new but maybe not that much of a jump over my current laptop with a 15w processor
- MBP 15 inch (2018/2019) 2.2ghz/2.6ghz, 16gb ram, upgraded 512ssd, 555x/560x - lightly used or refurbished - probably around 2k
- MBP 15 inch (2016/2017) any config with 512ssd+, possibly cheaper but more reliability issues and wear.
Firstly, my dad will be looking to upgrade his laptop soon, presumably when the new 16 inch is released. This laptop is a 2017 15 inch macbook pro, 2.9ghz, 16gb ram, 560, 2tb ssd. I imagine he would do a me a relatively decent deal on it, around £1500 or so which is good considering the storage size, but I'm also aware that it's a bit older and keyboard issues seems to me present on those later models.
Secondly, I am aware that a new 16 inch mbp will potentially be arriving quite soon, and this could mean a 14 inch MBP could be coming next year, and would consider waiting for this if it comes with decent processor specs, and potentially lower level dedicated graphics (one can dream). This screen size to body ratio sounds ideal to me.
Sorry about the very detailed information! It's a big purchase for me so any good advice would be much appreciated, thank you!
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