wjones8637 Loc: Burleson, TX

I have an old (mid 2012 MacBook Pro) that is acting up in addition to being painfully slow. I will definitely replace it with an Apple product. I am currently considering either a fully loaded Macmini or a high end 17" Macbook Air. The Macmini will require the purchase of a monitor and I will most likely decide to purchase one to compliment the Macbook Air.

I am looking for comments from others that use either of these machines about compatibility with software, especially Adobe products.

Thank you in advance for your input.

Bill

John Matthews Loc: Wasilla, Alaska

I don’t believe there is any Apple 17 inch laptop at this time. I think the biggest Mac air is 15 inches. I have owned Apple computers since the early 90’s (also PC’s). I really like the ergonomics/speed and build quality of my 14 inch M1 MAC Pro. The 16 inch Pro will certainly give you more screen real estate.

wjones8637 Loc: Burleson, TX

Thanks, you are correct, the mba screen is 15”. I would like to get another mbp, but current budget says to stay close to 2k.

Bret P Loc: California

Do you mean a brand-new Mac from Apple?
Any new Mac will be MUCH faster than your old one. Mine is.
I have an M1 Macbook Air, my wife has my old 2011 Macbook air and I have a 16" M2 Macbook Pro Max supplied by my work.

All work great with Adobe and MS Office, but you will need latest versions to get best speed with the new Apple chips. As long as you have an Adobe Creative Cloud version, you'll be fine.

There is no 17" Macbook Air (13" or 15").
But any new Air is fine, Pro even better. For laptops the bigger-screen models are also more capable. The non-pro laptop models only can have one external display without buying a special hub and software, but you only want one monitor...

If you don't want it to be portable, or to it take on trips, or sit in your easy-chair with it, then a Mini will give you more bang for your buck, especially if you will get a monitor for either one.

The Mini doesn't come with a keyboard or a mouse, so you'll need a keyboard and mouse. But it does support 2 monitors and has more ports than a laptop, including ethernet.

Get as much memory and storage as you can!

jccash Loc: Longwood, Florida

lesdmd Loc: Middleton Wi via N.Y.C. & Cleveland

I purchased a loaded mini with a new 27” monitor specifically because I love creating Photoshop composites. It is fabulous. I do not take much video, nor do I play games on the computer, so I was able to take advantage of the Apple recommendation regarding the number of cores. There were a couple of plugins that had to be set to work with the Apple Silicon chip; and that is not obvious until you try to boot them up. The fix is very simple and does nothing that I can see to impair their function. Transfer of data and set up was a breeze. The latest operating system has many advantages.
You will pay for speed and memory, but there are no substitutes.

MrBob Loc: lookout Mtn. NE Alabama

If you do not need portability I can highly recommend an iMac 24 which I just purchased for my wife. I myself have an iMac 27 but when and if I replace, it will be a 24 with a version of the M chip. Within your budget and REALLY fast.

flyguy Loc: Las Cruces, New Mexico

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I think the better choice would be either the 13" or 15" MacBook Air with a 27" monitor. (There is no 17" Mac made these days. There is a very expensive 16" MacBook PRO line, but unless you're producing records or broadcast video or movies, it's overkill!)

I have a 13" 2020 M1 MacBook Air and an LG monitor. It is extremely responsive and runs circles around even the most tricked out of those mid-2012 MacBook Pros (we know, because our twins had two of them with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSDs in them!)

If I were buying today, I'd get the 15" M2 MacBook Air. I would get at least 16GB memory and 512 GB storage (I'd get 1TB if you plan to keep this a while). The base models of the M2 series have slow SSD performance which can be a hindrance when rendering lots of images all at once.

Key attributes of the MacBook Air:

Light weight
Completely noise free
Ridiculously LONG battery life
Enough power to churn through photo rendering, even in Adobe products
Enough power to edit 4K videos
Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 connectivity for 40Gbps data movements

Key annoyance:

The M2 MacBook Air has ONLY a MagSafe 3 power port, a headphone/microphone jack, and a pair of independently controlled Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports. It has no SD card slot or Ethernet port or HDMI port. You have to have a hub, a dock, or several dongles to connect external devices.

To solve this issue, I use a: https://www.charjenpro.com/products/ultimatedock

…which is small enough to go anywhere, and provides:

> HDMI 4K/60fps video (I use this on the road to connect to video projectors, TVs in hotels, etc.)
> Gigabit Ethernet (I use this at home)
> Two USB 3.2 ports @ 10Gbps
> Headphone jack (higher fidelity digital to analog conversion than the built-in jack on the computer)
> Power delivery input for laptop charging up to 100W (I use this with the 30-Watt charger for my Air when on the road)
> High throughput SD/Micro SD 4.0 UHS I/II readers (for my SDXC cards from my camera)

I like my M1 Air because it can go anywhere. Yes the screen is small, but the 27" 4K LG monitor solves that nicely. This LG 27UP850-W 27” UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS Monitor doubles as a power supply to charge the computer battery, and small hub for my wired keyboard. It comes with a tilt/swivel stand and can be used vertically for writing (great for authors!).

ALL THAT SAID, the M3 models are not too far off. There are likely some Macs coming this Fall or next Spring. If you want the rumor mill, along with some phenomenally in-depth reviews and comparisons, search YouTube's MaxTech channel, and all the other review channels will show up in your YouTube feed.

neillaubenthal

As another said…the Air is 15, not 17. That said…performance wise both it and the loaded mini are pretty comparable in speed…and since you’re getting a monitor either way you can use it with either…so the real question for you comes down to whether the difference in price (if any, I did not check) is worth the pirtabilitynaspect of having both a laptop and desktop in one machine. I use LR C on my 14 MBP…and while it works it isn’t optimum so I do a catalog on travel and export/import it into my Studio desktop with Studio display when I get home. I’ve also done LR on my wife’s 13 MB Air and again it works…but I would not want to do all my PP on either…I did consider just the MBP and a monitor when I got it…but my Studio is on all the time anyway for print server, file server, backups, home automation, etc…and while I considered the MBP and a mini instead of the Studio the M1 mini at the time was underpowered compared to the albeit more expensive Studio but budget wasn’t much of a consideration for me.

Given your situation…I would go with the MBA and a monitor unless having an always on desktop is attractive to ypu…which for most will not be true probably.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I have a similar 2012, and I replaced the HDD with an SSD. Unfortunately, the keybord started retiring. I have an external kbd that works well. A couple of years ago, I bought an M.1 iMac. I got it with 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD. It runs fine.

Look onlin for reviews and comparisons.

There is an awful lot of good stuff on YouTube. See the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=which+apple+mac+to+buy

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I hesitate to enter the discussion because I was not an Apple guy. Although I started with an Apple ][ I switched to PCs when the Mac came out because Apple didn't offer the peripherals I needed. So I was on PCs for 40 years but my wife (an Apple girl) gave me a MacBook Pro M1 for Christmas 2021. It is now my primary computer.

The new M1 chip is noticeably faster than any old computer I have used and although there are distinct differences between the PC and Mac platforms, the new computer does (almost) everything I need to do (although it is hard to give up some of the Windows-only software I got used to, and which don't work quite the same using Parallels).

My wife got a 13" Mac Air M2 for Christmas '22 and it has made a big difference for her. For one thing the battery life is probably 5 times longer than her old Air. The M1 and M2 chips make a big difference in power use. The integrated design makes everything work faster.

The one thing that is a disadvantage of the new silicon is that since it's fully integrated, there is no option to upgrade anything later. You have to predict what you will need 5 or more years from now and get it now. That includes the hard drive (now all SSD). It can't be upgraded. The only thing you can do there is get an external drive for your data and use the internal one for your programs.

But if you're an Apple guy I highly recommend the new silicon.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

[quote=DirtFarmer]I hesitate to enter the discussion because I was not an Apple guy. Although I started with an Apple ][ I switched to PCs when the Mac came out because Apple didn't offer the peripherals I needed. So I was on PCs for 40 years but my wife (an Apple girl) gave me a MacBook Pro M1 for Christmas 2021. It is now my primary computer.

The new M1 chip is noticeably faster than any old computer I have used and although there are distinct differences between the PC and Mac platforms, the new computer does (almost) everything I need to do (although it is hard to give up some of the Windows-only software I got used to, and which don't work quite the same using Parallels).

My wife got a 13" Mac Air M2 for Christmas '22 and it has made a big difference for her. For one thing the battery life is probably 5 times longer than her old Air. The M1 and M2 chips make a big difference in power use. The integrated design makes everything work faster.

The one thing that is a disadvantage of the new silicon is that since it's fully integrated, there is no option to upgrade anything later. You have to predict what you will need 5 or more years from now and get it now. That includes the hard drive (now all SSD). It can't be upgraded. The only thing you can do there is get an external drive for your data and use the internal one for your programs.

But if you're an Apple guy I highly recommend the new silicon.[/quote]

That's a good assessment. I used to be an upgrader... I'd buy a midrange unit and max it out when memory and drive prices tanked.

Alas, that's in the past. The new Macs are "as you buy them" for the life of the product. The good news about that is that reliability has gone up!