New Macbook Advice

[Guest]

Wondering what kinda of laptop I should get

Macbook Air or Pro

On my current laptop I do video editing at 1080P 30FPS in Final Cut, Minecraft and some other Mac supported games when I'm not at my Windows desktop

But thats about my baseline. Sometimes I plug my laptop into my monitor and edit on that.

I also use Clip Studio Paint to draw or make thumbnails and might use the laptop over USB to record with audacity

Also general internet things and web browsing

What kinda of specs should I get?

i know the M4 is super powerful, but 16GB is enough right? 
I'd like to go for the 15" Air but if I have to I could stretch to a 14" Pro

 

 

 

My current laptop is a 2015 Macbook Pro 15" with the i7-4770HQ, 16GB DDR3 and the Iris Pro 5200 graphics

[Haswellx86]

Honestly I feel like the real value comes in the Pro lineup of Apple. Both, the non pro MacBooks and the iPhones don't feel good enough for the price as compared to the competitors. In the MacBook, the pro series gives you actual cooling fans, better display (including 120 Hz), and of course faster processor and all.

 

RAM depends on your usage. 16 GB is baseline nowadays. If you do heavy editing you might require more. You have the same amount of RAM right now, so you might know if you require more or not.

[jaslion]

Hows the performancr on the current mac? If still good just wait a bit till the refurbs of the m4 come in.

 

16gb of ram is good enough and unless you could get a good deal on a higher ram slightly older unit or future refurb id say dont bother getting more immediatly

[Guest]

2 hours ago, jaslion said:

Hows the performancr on the current mac? If still good just wait a bit till the refurbs of the m4 come in.

 

16gb of ram is good enough and unless you could get a good deal on a higher ram slightly older unit or future refurb id say dont bother getting more immediatly

The performance was fine, the reason I was upgrading was because the fucked battery that wouldn't charge and needed to be plugged in or it would just be dead. At bestbuy they had a M4 Air 15 inch, 16gb, and 512gb on sale for under $1200 so I snagged that!

[Commodus]

On 8/2/2025 at 5:01 PM, KodokuSusie said:

The performance was fine, the reason I was upgrading was because the fucked battery that wouldn't charge and needed to be plugged in or it would just be dead. At bestbuy they had a M4 Air 15 inch, 16gb, and 512gb on sale for under $1200 so I snagged that!

Sounds great, honestly. While the Pro is nice, realistically the M4 Air is plenty if you aren't involved in heavy-duty audiovisual editing or demanding games. For you screen size is more important than anything.

[Guest]

23 hours ago, Commodus said:

Sounds great, honestly. While the Pro is nice, realistically the M4 Air is plenty if you aren't involved in heavy-duty audiovisual editing or demanding games. For you screen size is more important than anything.

Yeah. I've been either playing Minecraft, Terraria, or using a browser. And I've started making a video last night with using Audacity and Final Cut but it works amazing. I'm happy I got this 15.6 inch screen instead of the like 14.2 inches. Cause when I've had the bottom of the laptop get hot it wasn't too bad and it was like hours after Minecraft or something. But oh man this laptop is amazing! The screen, the trackpad is so much better, I can play Minecraft at like 3240x2138 or whatever it is at 60FPS with settings bumped up. The battery life! I used my old laptop for a couple minutes yesterday to test out something and it's crazy how good a 10 year leap is