Buying a Mac
Feb 2025
You want a shiny new Mac! But decision, decisions! Here's a guide to help you decide.
The most important advise we can give is remember that most apple products are very hard or impossible to upgrade AFTER you purchase them. The main exception is the desktop Mac Pro, which has this built in mind.
Remember once you've purchased there's very little wiggle room to "upgrade". The best you can do is add external devices to the setup. This is useful for storage and also for graphics cards. External Graphics cards are expensive so don't rely on that as an upgrade option.
So what do you do? Plan!!!
Ask yourself these questions;
- Do I need a desktop or laptop?
- If I want a laptop do I want a light weight unit, something portable?
- Will I use this device with software that needs a-lot of RAM or CPU?
What do I buy? The guide lines
When I'm asked about purchasing computers, people want a definitive answer and I always give them these guide lines
- Set your budget
- Max Ram
- The best CPU you can afford
- Don't worry about the storage you can always delete stuff or put it onto external storage
Max Ram
Never go with the base offering's from Apple website. 8GB of ram does not cut it in the modern day. Now with Apple Intelligence features increasingly being introduce this is ever more important.
16GB of Ram should be the minimum purchased. Ram is linked to the processor purchased, you may find that you can increase this further (Or not), playing around with the processor and ram on the purchasing page will aid in this.
CPU
While it's always nice to have the best processor money can buy the cost can sky rocket. Play around with the configurations and try to avoid the lowest CPU option as that can usually be an older generation of motherboard used with a newer chip or some other limitation.
Also bear in mind the more powerful the CPU the longer that computer will last you. Your investing in the future of that machine and it helps to keep it running for longer if it's more powerful
Storage
Storing files on the computer is almost an afterthought. Personal experience has taught me that 512GB of storage is plenty, if I fill that up it's time for a spring clean.
Set your budget
The great thing about the Apple store is the ability to play around with the options to get a running total of the cost. When a new laptop or desktop comes out I like to go on the store and max out everything just to see how expensive everything can get.
It's not all just for fun, through all my jobs I have purchased hundreds of laptops and use the Apple store to work out a blend of CPU Ram and storage for budge purposes.
Same for you. Find your best blend on the website and play around.
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