So the time is come to probably replace my computer.
Prior to this time, I have always purchased Power Macs. They have great expandability both in terms of memory and adding drives. I have a habit of pushing my computers to their limits in terms of memory. I pile on tons of background apps, I open tons of apps, endless tabs and windows, etc. That’s just how I use my machine. So boosting the memory on my computers has always been important, Because if I don’t I am sentenced to staring at spinning balls forever. And I intend to be doing lots of work with video in the near future, which demands power and responsiveness.
However it looks as though affordable modern Macs are confined to iMacs and MacBooks, neither of which are terribly expandable memory wise. But they are modern, and presumably the other components, such as the more powerful CPUs, Compensate for the limited memory and allow for speedier and more responsive operations.
So, Mac people, what are your experiences and opinions about modern Mac computers the best choices for someone concerned with speed and responsiveness and the ability to work with video and lots of applications without choking the system? Any information you want to throw in that could be useful in my ultimate decision is welcome.(I also want to be able to work with a big display…You can still hook up laptop Macs to an external display can’t you?)
Oh, and by “modern” I mean all the Macs built in roughly the last four years.
I bought the 21 inch iMac last year. I opted for the fusion drive.
I am a tabby person also. Never shut down, just put it in sleep mode. I have seen the spinning beach ball a few times. And when I do, I do a restart and it goes away.
I’ve got a Mac Mini which is my main desktop computer. It’s probably about four years old now. Specs-wise, it was roughly equivalent to a Macbook Pro at the time (I think). I’ve done music production and photo editing on it with no problems. I did specify as much memory as possible and and SSD, which makes a big difference.
The memory is soldered-in these days, so it’s important to get as much as you’ll ever need.
I just wanted to chime in that I am in a similar situation as that of the OP. I’ve been using Macs since 1986, starting with the Mac 512K at the computer lab my freshman year in college. I have since owned just three Mac desktop computers, getting about a decade out each one:
[ul]
[li]Mac IIsi (1991)[/li][li]Power Mac G4 (2000)[/li][li]Mac Pro (2008)[/li][/ul]
Each time I have extended the life of my Macs by upgrading the hard drive and memory. This was particularly easy with the last two models, in which I could just slide in a larger hard drive next to the old one.
Now my current Mac Pro (early 2008) is stuck at OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). It does not support any newer Mac OS’s. The support status for El Capitan is: “Security updates and printer drivers only. Extended support to end this year, and iTunes support ends in next year.”
I hear that a new Mac Pro model is supposed to be coming out later this year or next year. (I’m not particularly impressed with the currently cylindrical version.) I’ve been trying to decide if I can hold out until this happens, or just get an iMac or a Mac Mini.
All I know is I’m going to hate being in your shoes in a few years, and am holding on to my '14-'15 era MBAir and MBPro like grim death, because Apple has decided it hates power users.
What do you get these days when you’re looking for a power user’s laptop from Apple?
> No more dual graphics cards.
> No more gpu-accelerated calculation possible
> Hard cap of 16gb ram
> Everything everywhere is soldered with nothing upgradeable
What do we get in return? Oh, it’s 5 microns thinner and you get a useless “touchbar” that everyone hates.
You’re not in much better shoes with a desktop, as Apple has discontinued the Pro. In theory they’re working on another, but with their recent decisions I fully expect it to be essentially specced as a mac mini of yesteryear with zero upgradeability and poor heat handling - but it will LOOK like some awesome 5-dimensional sculpture of crystal planes and glowing lights. And that makes up for it, right guys?
Has anyone else here found a decent non-windows, non-Apple power user laptop that harks back to the glory days of MBpros? I’m fine with any flavor of linux, but the hardware has to be 'nix friendly (hard) and ideally with decent battery life and under 4 pounds (harder).
I’m a Mac user, and as far as I can tell, the upgrade path for Macs these days is to buy a new one, then sell the old one on craigslist.
This isn’t as bad as it sounds. Yeah, you do end up paying a bit more since you’re not just upgrading the memory/HDD, you’re also upgrading all the other components. But the upside is you get all new stuff. And the older ones hold their value very well, so it’s fairly economically efficient.
Depends on what you call affordable. The iMac is a great choice. I’m on a late 2014 with 32 Gb of memory, and I can’t believe that I’m on a late 2014. I mean, seriously, before this computer, I would have wanted to replace in in 2016 already.