Video = Apple

/thread

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

A comparably built MacBook Pro comes in about $1k higher than the Lenovo. What do we get for that premium?

He’s using Windows Adobe Premiere at school. Is the MAC format interchangeable?

Scott

I have a workstation Windows based laptop and wouldn't touch it for video.

Macbook 15" model will better serve him for video. Use his high school email address to save $100 or so. Add an 4 or 8 TB external drive for video storage.

My Macbook pro is a 2014 build, still going strong as I type. It has outlasted several windows laptops, with much more use.

Yes. The spec you described is pretty good, certainly good enough for a student. The key is to have a decent GPU separate from the CPU for video production and graphic applications. The main reason most creative professionals use Macs is that there are more software available and they work more seamlessly with each other.

Great feedback, thanks!

Thoughts on the following specifications?

A bomb proof, easy to use machine that works.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Does the GPU generally align with the graphics card? Or, is a separate GPU an add on? I was sure to select the Nvidia Quadro P2000 4GB graphics card, but don’t see any specs for a GPU on the Lenovo.

Sorry for the basic questions. I just learned what a graphics card does a few hours ago!

Using the price point of the Mac as a benchmark, I could upgrade to a 2TB hard drive and still have room for extras.

Scott

How about gaming?

Not a huge priority for dad, but gaming is a factor to be acknowledged.

Scott

That is the way to go. If you use the student discount, it comes down to $3808. I would suggest getting Apple Care and getting the Pro Apps for $199 so he can get Final Cut Pro and other apple pro apps for a fraction of the cost if you can get his student discount. If you can wait till their back to school sale, you usually get a free pair of Beats headphones on top of the discount for free.

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~Brad

GPU - Graphics Processing Unit - some systems will have integrated graphics, but everything you're looking at is going to have a dedicated GPU.

If he's doing video production it's worth getting a Mac for access to Final Cut (MacOS only). The Adobe suite is basically the same across all operating systems.

FWIW - The base 15" MacBook Pro (with the 1TB SSD upgrade) is more than enough to get started with. There's enough continued advances in hardware (SSDs, GPUs, etc.) and laptops, especially Macs, are effectively non-upgradeable so that unless you're getting paid for your editing time, the cost curve at the very top of the line is heavily in the diminishing returns arena. I'd take the extra 1k and put it towards other equipment and plan on replacing the laptop in 2-3 years anyways.

Edit: unlikely you need the Xeon processors as well. Those are useful in desktops/servers where you want to run more hardware than you could cram into a laptop anyways (e.g., the new Mac Pro can support 1.5TB of RAM)

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback.

Regarding the processor, would Intel's i7 be adequate? Would he even notice any difference between the i7 and Xeon for HS level video work?

Scott

At some point he'll probably want a desktop to do editing on, but to get started an i7 in the MacBook Pro will be more than enough (unless his high school video classes are doing feature length 4k VR works - at that point you're basically talking desktop only or a ton of expensive add-ons for a laptop). I did a bit of ~15 minute 1080p work on a Mac Pro 10 years ago that was probably significantly less powerful than the base 13" MacBook Pro from today.

Xeon chips in laptops are a bit strange as the main things they allow for don't make sense in laptops due to power/size constraints. E.g., Intel allows you to run multiple Xeon processors with outrageous amounts of memory but the physical space to fit 1TB of RAM and 4 CPUs + the associated cooling and batteries would make for a pretty terrible "laptop". There are some specific applications (e.g., ECC memory) but video production doesn't need them.

https://helpx.adobe.com/...em-requirements.html <- recommended CPU is the 7th generation Intel chips - the latest MacBook Pro refresh brought the 9th generation chips up to i9

That's all a really long way of saying the base i7 15" is probably more than enough to get started on. If he's really into it, save the extra 2k for the massive piles of external hard drives he'll end up buying - if he's doing 4k the storage requirements add up really fast.