New Laptop or Tower?

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Using a macbook pro, configurations:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz

I am a professional photographer who uses Lightroom and Photoshop 85% of the time. I am also on the road two weeks a month at events.

My current machine is grinding to a halt every time I need to get some work done so it's time for a new work horse.

I am juggling between a tower and a laptop. I’d like a tower but need to justify the business cost and if so, which one.

With all the options I am a bit lost and to save time and days searching online I was hoping that others might be able to provide a little insight.

Larry Rosa
 
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Your Mac's Specs
09 MBP 8GB ram 500GB HD OS 10.9 32B iPad 4 32GB iPhone 5 iOs7 2TB TC Apple TV3
The fact that you stated half your time is spent on the road would seem to necessitate the Laptop unless you can wait to do all your work when you get back home. The new
MBP's especially the 15 is more than capable of running most anything out there.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
2019 iMac 27"; 2020 M1 MacBook Air; macOS up-to-date... always.
While a new Mac, whether it's a laptop or desktop, would certainly be an improvement over what you have, it'd be a lot cheaper to simply figure out what's wrong with the one you have now. Offhand, I'd say you have a problem with the hard drive. If you'd like to troubleshoot, read on…

First thing to try is checking the SMART status. Disk Utility will show the status, and it can be checked by Onyx. For a more comprehensive analysis of the SMART status, I recommend SMART Utility. It has a free trial and will check for early signs of drive failure. It can jump the gun a little with its warnings from what I've read, but most other tools warn late. At the minimum, SMART Utility will give you a better idea of the drive's health.

If the SMART status checks out, you should consider defragging the drive. The best defragger easily is iDefrag. They have a free trial that you can use to get an idea of how fragmented you may be. For the type of work you do, it's highly likely you will benefit from it. Read this guide to maintenance and troubleshooting if you want more information:
OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting
 
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I would also consider getting the "tower" and offloading your data from your MBP to the new machine. That way you have the processing power at home to do everything you need. Once all data is transferred maybe rebuilding (reinstalling) the MBP would help it to speed things up again and make it good enough to still use on the road.
 
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2011 27in iMac i5 3.1GHz, AMD 6970, iPhone 4, Wi-Fi iPad 2
The fact that you stated half your time is spent on the road would seem to necessitate the Laptop unless you can wait to do all your work when you get back home. The new
MBP's especially the 15 is more than capable of running most anything out there.

I agree. The MBP 15 is a pretty powerful machine even at stock. That said I personally have the iMac 27in 3.1GHz i5 and AMD 6970m and the thing handles almost everything I throw at it. Best idea- go to an Apple Store, try using both and see if the MBP will do what you need as it will solve both issues.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
MBP 17" 2011, 2.3GHz Intel Quad-Core i7, 8GB RAM, MacMini 2011, 2.7GHz Intel Dual-Core i7, 8GB RAM
While not a pro, I have racked up just short of 75000 shots on my 1DMkII and even my HP C2Duo would not "grind to a halt" processing photos. HD video was another story. I have the 2011 17" MBP with best processor and full ram and even booting into Win7 for Vegas, it is taking the video like a champ - compiling the same film in a fraction of the time of the HP. 30 min video with some color work and processing took 35 mins and change on the HP, takes 10 mins and change on the MBP.

Now, if you get a tower or iMac, get 2 SSD's, the most amt of RAM that will fit, and make sure your Pshop scratch disk is something other than a) where your files are and b) where your OS is.

If you are running LightRoom and Photoshop at the same time - close Lightroom.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
2011 13' Macbook Pro i5
Go for the 15 inch Macbook pro. Our chart below shows some geekbench scores (It's a test that tests the total processing capabilities from CPU to Ram.)
To put things into perspective, your Macbook would score ~3150, my 2011 13 inch would score ~6050, the 15 well, I think you can see where it goes. :)
The 15 scores quite close to the new iMacs.
Leaderboardblack-8.jpg
 
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New MBP is what you need. SNB processor is going to give you a performance boost (as the chart states above) and you'll be able to do your work anywhere you would like.

I couldn't ever see me getting a desktop for anything. Of course, I'm a college student but I love being able to do anything, anywhere and hooking a monitor up when I get home.
 

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