This page (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook) suggests I should wait (the say 'neutral').

Any thoughts on this? I currently use a 2013 11" MBA that I quite like but I think Retina would be great and the keyboard too.

Since it feels like nearly every other post in r/mac is "should I buy this Mac now or wait?", perhaps a sticky post to the MacRumors Mac Buyer's Guide (or something else) would be useful?

MacRumors Mac Buyer's Guide

Hi everyone

Thinking about upgrading my old Windows laptop and getting MacBook

I am an online teacher and educational course creator and editor (that was successfully edited on my iPhone, that’s why I want something more powerful). Was thinking between M2A 16/512 vs M3A 16/512 vs M2pro 10 core, 16/512 and M3 pro 11-core, GPU 14 core, 18GB/512GB

At my local store prices for options above are:

M2A — 1400$

M2pro — 1700$

M3A — 1500$

M3 pro — 1900$

I am not a professional videographer and not running huge projects, but still I would like to have some potential for future video editing opportunities and creation of 2D animations for educational purposes

I really would like to hear from experienced people as I don’t want to waste money on unnecessary functions and at the same time I won’t have something underperforming

TIA

Hi, so I have a late 2008 aluminum MacBook (running Yosemite, 2.4 GHz, 2GB DDR3) and I've taken great care of it and it still practically runs like new. It is and will never be as fast as it could be given the RAM and how full the HD is (I am using 200/249 GB), frequently verify/repair disk permissions and erase empty space. I love the machine and it has done me well, but I'm in the market to get a new Mac of some sort and still keep this one.

I'm looking at either getting a new MacBook Pro (13" non-retina) or an iMac (21.5" $1299 option).

I'm looking for non-retina on both.

It blatantly says "do not buy" for the MBP, and says "caution" for the iMac.

I understand why and can see why they say nothing is particularly new, but what are the grounds for saying don't buy or to be cautious? Are they expecting new releases or better upgrades? (I don't really keep up as much as I used to). I am looking for something that's gonna give me another near-10-year stint with less give on performance (and I feel like the iMac wins in that case).

Further, from those who have both, which do you enjoy more? I have never had an iMac but have used them in school for a long time and always loved them. I love the portability I have with my MacBook, but I honestly do not take it anywhere unless I am traveling, but it's not for business or school. It's just to have it in case I want to watch a movie I've downloaded or something. The biggest thing is that I hang out in bed with my MacBook, whereas I'd obviously have to sit at a desk with the iMac, which brings me to my next issue.

I just moved across the US (~3,000 miles) to be with my boyfriend to end the long distance part of our relationship. We're moving back to California next year, where I'm from, but we're driving the whole way back since we used my car to drive all the way here. Would it be stupid to get an iMac and have to transport it like that? It would, inarguably, be so much easier to fold up the MBP and be done with it, but I don't want to let that ONE thing make the decision for me. Also, as it is, we're sharing a room in a shared house and I honestly would have no place to put the iMac. But I have plenty of room at the house back in CA, and we'll be getting an apartment shortly after. I just feel like the iMac would be great there.

Keeping in mind, we're probably only going to take one car moving back, and will have all of his stuff which isn't much, but also a 50" flatscreen. Has anyone moved with an iMac, and what did you do?

Thanks in advance!

Hey all. I'm currently looking at upgrading my mac setup. I'm gonna build a PC for gaming, and get a mac set up for music production and heavy video editing.

I was looking at the Mac Mini, but have settled on getting a Mac Studio.

My question is; should I wait till the end of the year for the M4 chips? or is it worth going in now?

Also, the base model comes with 32gb RAM. I do a lot of heavy work with my iMac (My most recent projects saw a few occasions where the spinning ball made an appearance). Is 32GB RAM solid enough with the M2 chips or will I be better off with more? (My current iMac is a late 2015 core i7 model. 4tb SSD, 32GB Ram)

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

I’m planning to get a 14-inch MacBook Pro.

My usage are mainly programming related to backed development which require running multiple IntelliJ tab along with Docker where I have to run Cassandra, MySQL, Kafka, Elastic search etc sometime all of them simultaneously. Please suggest.

Options I’m considering are: M3 with 16 GB M3 with 24 GB M3 Pro with 18 GB