Help me choose which laptop I should get!

snakeholesnakehole
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware

Hi all,


I’m looking to buy either a Macbook Pro w/ Touchbar (2018) or the Macbook Air (2018). A bit about me is that I’m a current high school student and I need a laptop for classes, basic web browsing, and watching YouTube, etc. However, besides simple tasks, I plan to create YouTube videos in the future; not any 4k film or anything special. Just filming with a camera like the Canon G7X or others like that. I want to learn how to edit and make videos with Final Cut Pro X in the future (once I get the hang of it), but my first priority is being a student (just incase I don’t follow through with filming/editing).


*These are the specs I want for each laptop:


Macbook Air:

  • 8/16 GB RAM

  • 128 GB SSD (I won’t need extra storage because I’ll keep my videos on an external hard drive)

  • Cost: $1149 (w/ 8 GB RAM) or $1349 (w/ 16 GB RAM)


Macbook Pro w/ Touchbar:

  • 8 GB RAM

  • 256 GB SSD

  • Cost: $1699


*Discount because I’m a student


My main concerns:

  1. I already know the Macbook Air is an amazing laptop for simple things, but I’m worried it’s not going to work as fast when I’m editing/exporting/rendering on Final Cut Pro X. If I decide to get it, will it work fine on Final Cut? The pros to the con for me are its portability (significantly lighter than the Pro) and its battery life, which I need because I’m a student and I’ll be carrying the laptop around everywhere. However, the con is that it doesn’t have the exceptional level of performance and processing speed that the Pro w/ Touchbar has (because of its quad-core processor).


  1. Should I get 8GB or 16GB of RAM on the Macbook Air (if it’s the best option)? I understand that it already is quite fast, but I want it to perform well under Final Cut as well. Will it be worth investing money in extra RAM?


TLDR; I’m a “broke” high school student looking for a great computer that will last me a long time. Besides normal tasks like writing essays, listening to music, watching YouTube, I also love filming videos and editing them (not anything crazy like 4k footage though). My main editing software is Final Cut Pro.

Should I get the 2018 Macbook Air or the 2018 Macbook Pro w/ Touchbar?

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