Selecting the ideal laptop for photography isn't just about choosing a portable computer; it's about finding a versatile tool that enhances your artistic and processing capabilities without becoming a financial burden. This excellent video review takes a look at the MacBook Air M3 for photographers.
Coming to you from Bobby Tonelli, this insightful video explores the potential of the MacBook Air M3 as a pivotal tool for photographers. Tonelli tests the fully decked out 13-inch model, equipped with 24 GB of unified memory and a top-tier processor consisting of an 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine. Costing around $2,299, he examines whether this configuration offers a tangible improvement for image editing tasks using demanding software, such as Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. Tonelli underscores the importance of opting for a model with higher unified memory, especially for those who do not limit their applications to Apple's optimized software suite.
Furthermore, Tonelli details the MacBook Air M3's elegance in handling both large image files from 100-megapixel medium format cameras and video editing with software like Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve. Despite its fanless design, which might introduce some performance throttling, the efficiency of the M3 chip makes it a competent machine for the intended user base. Interestingly, Tonelli also discusses the next tier up – the MacBook Pro M3 model, which includes better thermal management and additional features like an SD card slot, advocating for it if budget permits. The video aptly highlights why investing in higher specs from the start extends the laptop's viability and user satisfaction in the long haul. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Tonelli.
From the moment you need to use SSL the performance will go down due to a hardware bug. The M1 and M2 are worse of than the M3.
SSL is an older technology that contains some security flaws. Transport Layer Security (TLS) is the upgraded version of SSL that fixes existing SSL vulnerabilities.
If you are immersed in the Apple world and need a new laptop, go for it. When Apple would no longer support my 27 in, 32 gb ram retina display iMac with an OS upgrade, I told Apple "see ya" and switched back to a high end PC system and haven't looked back. There are other options than MacBooks and many at lower cost.
My MacBook Pro is from mid-2015 and runs the latest Sonoma operating system and has 16GB RAM. I bought it cheaply refurbished directly from Apple (25% of the original price). Even though it's getting on in years, I can process my 100 MB files very well with the current version of Capture One, it runs the latest Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign or the Affinity V2 Suite. Admittedly, I don't do any video editing on this machine, but everything else runs like clockwork.
I would never go back to an MS based system. It would be like putting a Mercedes-Benz engine in a Doge RAM. Why would I want to do that?
Battery life, silence, slightly better performance than my desktop PC - that’s why I sold my soul to Apple.
If I had it my way, I'd have a M3 + native Windows 10.
Pro series with more ports, card reader and less thermal throttling is probably better idea. Though, it totally depends on what kind of photographer you are.
These SEO driven headlines get more hilarious and sad by the day. At least one of the editors described why he has to do them so I get that part.
Anyways short answer is no. Long answer is obviously it's not so this headline is ridiculous the best laptop for photographers question obviously comes with criteria specific to the type of photographer. So while these posts can be informative the ultimately fail the readers because they're asking questions that is being implied is correct but it's obviously incorrect. Trolling is another term that applies here.
For example. What if you're a photographer that also uses after effects? Or premiere? Or davinci?
Oh is that a different case? It's too early in the morning to make jokes about these silly posts :) Everybody have a good day.
Noooo. It is not. At least not if you get the base model. But then if you don't get the base model you'll be spending at least $400 more on ram that cost less than a third of that in the real world.
At that point you might as well just buy a premium windows pc with a dedicated GPU, more ffective cooling systems, More I/O ports, and uprgradability as well.
The macbook air won't be an awful performer but apples staunch stance on not providing more than 8gb of ram on a premium product that you can't upgrade will always hold apple and their base model computers back imo. Especially if you're shooting super resolution cameras. 8gb of ram just won't cut it. You'll need 16gb at a minimum.
isn't the air supposed to be apples premium business laptop anyway? Like a lenovo but prettier.
Apple isn't the only offender here lenovo, Dell, and HP do the same crap too just not as pricey.
I will say at least a couple of positives about mac.
•Search function on mac OS is amazeballs.
•battery life on macbooks. Also amazeballs.
•Track pads on macbooks. Super amazeballs.
•M processors are fast as hell but they get bottle necked by the shortage of ram.
The bigger issue I find is that Adobe software runs terribly on windows. I'm always shocked at how much worse the experience is on my Windows machine compared to my MacBook. 10x more bugs, way more sluggish, crashes, etc. I'm at a point where I refuse to edit on Windows because I don't want to deal with the tire fire that is Photoshop on Windows. Thats all Adobe's fault though, not Microsoft's; stuff like DaVinci runs beautifully on either OS.
Yes I absolutely agree. I'm glad someone else recognizes it. I used to use Lightroom religiously until it went full CC and after that it just became god awful. I payed for CC and it was immediately clear how satanically slow and buggy Adobe products became on Windows. I canceled my sub the day I got it. I then used older versions of Photoshop and Lightroom until it didn't support the newer cameras I bought, at which point I moved completely to Affinity photo and Capture One. I have not had any problems since. Light room was the worst offender for me. I could not get more than 10 or so images into editing before it got as slow as cold molasses flowing uphill on a mid winters day. I would constantly have to manually close Lightroom through the task manager and restart it just to clear out the cache so It would operate in any capacity. But again I could only get about 10 photos in before it slowed to a crawl once more. Photoshop would regularly not change tools when using short cuts. I had to click on the tool icons to switch tools often which slowed down my work flow. Then while making selections with the Polygonal lasso it would just stop placing point down forcing me to have restart the program and restart my selection all over again. I think the issue is adobes refusal to optimize their crappy software manager. it's the worst part of all of their products. I have used Premier lightly and I had similar problems. Switched to Davinci free version and never had an issue. It seems adobe prefers developing for mac os indeed while leaving windows user with their butts in the wind. Everything else I use on windows works great.
Air is entry level line. Pro is supposed to be premium.
If you're paying $1k or more for an "entry" level product it better have more than 8gb of ram. The mac mini makes way more sense to only have 8gb of ram. The Air not so much.