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Possibly the abyss of materialism!
Honestly looking at your uses, I'm not sure it would even need to be a "pro" model.
The only thing in that list that suggests specific hardware to me, is photo editing - might a big screen be the thing you'd benefit from the most?
So a 16" pro if it must be a pro, or even a 15" Air? That would leave some spare money for the next descent into the abyss of materialism, which in my case would be in about a week or so.
Don't get a maxed out model, that's just an exercise in how much cash you can slip into Tim's pockets. 36gb of ram is not a bad idea, although truthfully you should be fine with 18 for the entirety of the laptop's useful life. I think the spec you picked out is great, I am currently using the full-fat M1 Pro and it's a peach.
But that also begs the question, do you need a pro? If you move around a lot, an air might actually be a better machine for you.
I currently have a 2017 MacBook Pro 15 with Touch Bar. MacOS uses swap despite having 16 gigs of RAM while running PS and Safari, hence the hesitancy. Thanks for the advice!
My GF uses a m2 air and she makes reels for instagram professionally. You may run into some slow downs on the air, but realistically most things that slow it down would slow down a pro as well. It really doesn’t seem like you need a gpu so I’d put most of your money into storage to help the computer last longer.
You don’t need a max for what you are doing at all. An entry level m2 air would still be too much.
Nothing that you've listed is out of the ability of a base model MacBook Air.
Just buy one. Whatever you want to spend. Then stop worrying about whether you chose well and start using it for whatever purpose you bought it for. 16GB should be your baseline on anything with Pro in the title but beyond that it’s up to you how much or little you want to spend.
I think the M3 Pro MacBook Pro would be a great option/machine for you, don’t think too much about not getting the highest end model, you can always get external SSDs and there’s nothing wrong with this machine. You won’t be disappointed with this machine!😁👌💯
External Samsung T7 2TB SSD
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sku/6408301.p?skuId=6408301
Durable/Rugged version
I think the M3 Pro MacBook Pro would be a great option/machine for you, don’t think too much about not getting the highest end model, you can always get external SSDs and there’s nothing wrong with this machine. You won’t be disappointed with this machine!😁👌💯
External Samsung T7 2TB SSD
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sku/6408301.p?skuId=6408301
Durable/Rugged version