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Best Macbook for graphic design?

Hello, so I'm in a huge debate between a Macbook Air 15in M3 (2023)and Macbook Pro 14 in M3 (2023), of which of the two laptops do you recommend me to get for graphic design (Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign)? Both have MacOS Sonoma, 16GB of ram, Hard disk of 20GB, and GPU of AMD, but reading the opinions of others makes this decision gravely difficult so I want to hear from the Apple to see what they think. So please let me know which of the laptops is great for graphic design that can last long, or if there is a better laptop that I did not mention, please provide (Not be a laptop of 16in or more).


Thank you for your time in advance,

Posted on Jul 21, 2024 11:51 AM

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3 replies

Jul 21, 2024 2:24 PM in response to diego-2004

diego-2004 wrote:

Hello, so I'm in a huge debate between a Macbook Air 15in M3 (2023)and Macbook Pro 14 in M3 (2023), of which of the two laptops do you recommend me to get for graphic design (Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign)? Both have MacOS Sonoma, 16GB of ram, Hard disk of 20GB, and GPU of AMD


Note:


  • Neither of these Macs have hard disks. They both SSDs that are much faster than any hard disk.
  • Both of those Macs come with a minimum of 256 GB (not 20 GB) of SSD space. Just a wild guess, but if you're running those applications and using your Mac on the go, you probably want more. (There are some very small external SSDs that are cheaper per GB than the Apple ones, but even those would be a bit less convenient than the built-in one.)
  • Neither of these Macs have AMD GPUs. The GPU is part of the Apple Silicon chip. That chip is also known as a System-on-Chip (SoC) because so many different processing functions are integrated onto it.

Jul 21, 2024 2:39 PM in response to diego-2004

diego-2004 wrote:

if there is a better laptop that I did not mention, please provide (Not be a laptop of 16in or more).


14" M3 MacBook Pro with a M3 Pro or M3 Max chip.


  • Third USB-C (Thunderbolt) expansion port
  • Proper support for two (M3 Pro) or more (M3 Max) external displays
  • More GPU cores
  • Better CPU performance on lengthy batch jobs that can make good use of multiple CPU cores.
  • Ability to support larger amounts of RAM


Even a previous-generation 14" MacBook Pro with a M2 Pro or M2 Max chip might make sense, if Apple had one with the configuration you wanted in the Certified Refurbished store – and the price was right. (M3-series chips have some improvements over M2-series ones, but if you're comparing a base M3 chip to a M2 Pro or Max chip, see of the comparisons are going to come out more favorably for the latter.)

Best Macbook for graphic design?

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