I am upgrading my Macbook Pro - which one would you choose?

[arthurzee]

My Macbook Pro is from mid 2015 and it's already struggling with things big time and, as Black Friday is fast approaching, I am thinking to upgrade.

A few of my friends asked if I would consider windows, and said how much cheaper they are, and I am having second thoughts.

Here are the 3, I am considering:

Macbook Pro 15" - i9,32GB RAM, ProVega20, 1TB SSD - £3,834
Lenovo ThinkPad Extreme Gen 2 - i9, 32GB RAM, Nvidia 1650, 1TB SSD + Multi-Touch Screen + Wifi 6 support - £3,096
HP Spectre x360 - i7, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 1650, 1TB SSD + Multi-Touch Screen, Wifi 6 support - £1,799

I am going through a lot of courses now, learning video and graphic editing as well as doing a fair bit of LIVE streaming and will be using some device for NOTE TAKING (OneNote). When I had a little play with Lenovo's touch screen on a laptop, I expected it to be poor, but it was actually good!

An Ipad Pro 11inch is ANOTHER £1,100 on top of a Macbook.

So a top spec Macbook Pro + Ipad Pro would cost me nearly £5,000, what seems absolutely INSANE. No touch screen of WIFI 6 on MACs, that seems just crazy to me in this day and age.

The only reason why I am even considering is because I also have an iWatch & iPhone XR. I don't quite know if I could even control devices and do "screen mirroring" and "Clipboard" between an iphone and a windows laptop or TVs.

Is there anything "pro macs" that I am missing here?

What would you do??

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Unfortunately, I have no experience with PCs, so I can't really compare and comment on them as compared to the MacBook Pro. It really depends more on what you are comfortable with and what types of software you will be using. Macs are used worldwide for most kinds of media creation - photography, graphics, audio, and video. There is a reason they are strongly favored in many of those industries.

That said, you may be able to get by with a lower-end model MacBook Pro, especially if it is for beginning courses in those disciplines. Any MBP should easily handle that. No, you won't be able to do any of the new device collaboration features in Catalina with a PC, such as Sidecar, Continuity Markup and Sketch, Handoff, etc.

What type of live streaming are you looking to do?

As far as notes are concerned, do you want touch screen for handwriting notes, or just a device to tyoe them into? You could use your iPhone for that, or pickup an inexpensive Chromebook and use Google Docs for notes.

C

 

[arthurzee]

Hello and welcome.

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Unfortunately, I have no experience with PCs, so I can't really compare and comment on them as compared to the MacBook Pro. It really depends more on what you are comfortable with and what types of software you will be using. Macs are used worldwide for most kinds of media creation - photography, graphics, audio, and video. There is a reason they are strongly favored in many of those industries.

That said, you may be able to get by with a lower-end model MacBook Pro, especially if it is for beginning courses in those disciplines. Any MBP should easily handle that. No, you won't be able to do any of the new device collaboration features in Catalina with a PC, such as Sidecar, Continuity Markup and Sketch, Handoff, etc.

What type of live streaming are you looking to do?

As far as notes are concerned, do you want touch screen for handwriting notes, or just a device to tyoe them into? You could use your iPhone for that, or pickup an inexpensive Chromebook and use Google Docs for notes.

C

Hello and welcome.

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Unfortunately, I have no experience with PCs, so I can't really compare and comment on them as compared to the MacBook Pro. It really depends more on what you are comfortable with and what types of software you will be using. Macs are used worldwide for most kinds of media creation - photography, graphics, audio, and video. There is a reason they are strongly favored in many of those industries.

That said, you may be able to get by with a lower-end model MacBook Pro, especially if it is for beginning courses in those disciplines. Any MBP should easily handle that. No, you won't be able to do any of the new device collaboration features in Catalina with a PC, such as Sidecar, Continuity Markup and Sketch, Handoff, etc.

What type of live streaming are you looking to do?

As far as notes are concerned, do you want touch screen for handwriting notes, or just a device to tyoe them into? You could use your iPhone for that, or pickup an inexpensive Chromebook and use Google Docs for notes.

C

With the 16" being out now, that surprisingly is a bit cheaper, I think I will be getting a MACBook. Regarding notes, definitely to write notes on the screen, so looks like I will be getting an iPad too

 

[Cory Cooper]

Also, you may not need the full capabilities of an iPad Pro. You can get an iPad with 10.2" screen for half the price of an 11" iPad Pro.

Let us know if you have additional questions.

C