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We generally recommend getting either a Mac Mini or a Mac Macbook Pro . The Mac studio is only being released on March 18 2022 and expected to be buggy the first few months14" or bigger. The larger Macbook Pro models come with additional Thunderbolt ports, HDMI ports, extra compatibility software and mag-safe charging ports, which are far less likely to break if you trip over the charging cord.
We do not recommend the Macbook Air or the 13" Macbook Pro models. They only come with 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, meaning you cannot use a charger, mouse and keyboard all at the same time. They also have serious compatibility issues with most projectors if you are giving presentations.
We do not recommend the iMac at this time. The 27" iMac as of March 2022 is "discontinued", meaning anything being still sold is likely hardware that was "returned" due to issues. The 24" as a recent redesign (still buggy and unless specified, comes without Ethernet ports).
Please note NONE of the cheaper macs are up-gradable due to everything being soldered onto the logic board. Meaning if you buy a mac with 8 GB of RAM and find out you need 16 GB of RAM to run the base OS and Microsoft office at the same time, you will have to buy a new computer.
While many pieces of software will now run natively on M1 or M2 Chips macs or via Rosetta emulation software, that is not the same as ALL software, especially older software aimed at industry.
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RAM - 16 Gigs
Drive - 512 GB Flash/SSD Storage
The reason for the 16 Gig Memory is to allow for performance for the long run of 3 to 5 year operational use.
Computers with only 8 GB of RAM on the newest Mac OS have been reporting slowness and crashes, especially when RAM intensive software like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud is used.
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256 Gig will not be sufficient for long term usage if the base OS is using over half of that from the first day.
Space requirements for the base OS have doubled with every recent OS. Mojave only required 4 GB. Monterey released in 2021 needs 26 GB minimum and to up to 44 GB with some models.
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