I have $11k to play with - most of which will end up going towards car expenses. I have to spend like $3000 of it before the end of the year for reasons I won't elaborate on. So it's this, or putting money into the Porsche, and I can't use the Porsche during the winter so it would lack the gratification I'm seeking to do so.
I used to be a professional photographer (www.bradgillette.net) and during the process became really good at Photoshop.
Then I stopped working, my computer got old (2013 i7 iMac), and I couldn't edit in Photoshop anymore because my computer was too slow. I don't know if I'm going to be able to become a professional photographer again, or if it's just going to be a hobby, but I'm worried I've lost a lot of my skills from lack of use. I feel like having a new, more powerful computer will inspire me to get back into it. In the meantime I've gotten really good at nailing shots in-camera and doing very minor editing, basically limited to what I could do in a physical color darkroom. That said, my images could always be improved with Photoshop.
I bought my current computer, a 2020 M1 MacBook Air, a couple years ago to do normal computer things and minor editing with my old camera (Canon 5D mkII) but now I have a new camera (Canon 5R) that produces much larger file sizes and it's too slow to run Photoshop to any useful extent and using Lightroom is painful.
I also want to get back into video production.
Should I dump $3500 into a laptop that could do everything I could ask of it, even though I don't have the income stream to support it at the time, and use it for practice? Or should I look at cheaper options like around $2500. I feel like if I don't spend the extra $1000 it'll come to bite me in the butt in the future.
This post is brought to you by weed, adderall, and lack of sleep thinking about this darn computer.
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Ill tell you the same thing I say to marketing. Get a proper desktop with all the bells and whistles you want. Windows is better but if you want limited choice and no access to business netwoks then use the Mac.
If you really want something to travel get a cheap laptop and remote into your work horse PC.
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Doesn't totally apply to Macs because the desktop ones haven't been refreshed yet but even then they share all the same chips expect the Ultra which is desktop exclusive.
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That just seems like more of a reason to stay on PC. I see what theyre going for but this feels like the RISC era all over again.
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