Considering a Macbook Air...

[André BARELIER]

Hello,

I'm a long time windows user.

I currently use an ACER Laptop with 16 GO ram, a 512 GB SSD, AMD Rizen 7, and a Nvidia Ge force 3050.

I often use DxO PL5, Photoshop at the same time, plus a browser.

Works fine for me.

I'm considering buing a Macbook Air M1 with 8GB ram, 256 GO SSD, to replace both my Laptop and my Chromebook.

I appreciate the incredible battery life, the light weight, and performance.

I have some questions:

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

- is it easy to work with an external SDD (the incorporated one is too small)?

- what about performance? My current laptop is able to export a 20 MP image from DxO, using Deep prime, in around 13 seconds. This is very good for me, since my previous laptop took more than 2 minutes for the same task!

Can I expect similar times with the Mac?

Any advice will be appreciated.

André

 

[Greybeard2017]

- is it easy to work with an external SDD (the incorporated one is too small)?

About the same as your current machine.

It depends what you mean by easy and what you will use the storage for - I have Samsung, SanDisk and Rocket SSDs which work fine - certainly fast enough for most photo purposes - but I wouldn't want a dongle hanging off my laptop 100% of the time.

 

[Tom_N]

Hello,

I'm a long time windows user.

I currently use an ACER Laptop with 16 GO ram, a 512 GB SSD, AMD Rizen 7, and a Nvidia Ge force 3050.

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

I doubt it. Adobe recommends at least 16 GB of RAM for Photoshop, alone. On top of that, you would be coming from a laptop that has 32 GB of RAM and a discrete GPU to one where the CPU and GPU share memory.

I think the real question is whether 16 GB (the maximum possible on M1-based Macs) would be enough. (The 14" and 16" MacBook Pros use M1 Pro and Max chips and can be configured with 16, 32, or 64 GB of RAM.)

- is it easy to work with an external SDD (the incorporated one is too small)?

You can order the Air with a 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, or 2 TB internal SSD. It should also be easy to work with an external SSD, whether of the notebook drive or circuit board stick variety.

- what about performance? My current laptop is able to export a 20 MP image from DxO, using Deep prime, in around 13 seconds. This is very good for me, since my previous laptop took more than 2 minutes for the same task!

The integrated GPU in the M1 is stronger than the Intel integrated GPUs it replaced – but I doubt if it is as strong as a NVIDIA GeForce 3050.

For DXO Deep Prime, that might not be the end of the story.

DXO PhotoLab 5 is not yet M1-native, but it offers a choice of acceleration methods. You can do processing using the GPU or the Neural Engine. The Neural Engine path supposedly is much faster, to the point where people are guessing that a M1 that's using the Neural Engine path would perform roughly the same as a M1 Pro using its stronger GPU.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4607320#forum-post-65590260

How the M1's Neural Engine would stack up against a NVIDIA GeForce 3050 for Deep Prime noise reduction, I don't know. The above thread reported processing times of between 7 and 10 seconds for 20 MP RAW files using the Neural Engine path. What I don't know is if there are differences in RAW file types, settings, etc. that would affect the times that you would see with your specific RAW files, settings, and work flow.

Can I expect similar times with the Mac?

Any advice will be appreciated.

André

 

[CAcreeks]

I'm considering buing a Macbook Air M1 with 8GB ram, 256 GO SSD, to replace both my Laptop and my Chromebook. I appreciate the incredible battery life, the light weight, and performance. I have some questions:

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

It's enough for Firefox, PhotoLab 5, and Affinity without any perceptible slow-down. Nor does "memory pressure" turn from yellow to green. But for Photoshop you'll need 16GB.

In practice 256 GB internal storage could be enough for you, if you keep your photos on an external drive. Over time, MacOS doesn't bloat up as much as Windows.

- is it easy to work with an external SDD (the incorporated one is too small)?

Yes. External SSD is nice for me because it can be moved to a different machine. When plugged in an icon appears. Note that the M1 Macbook Air has only two USB-C ports. One of them is power in. So you must choose between external monitor and external SSD, or buy an add-on USB hub as I have done.

- what about performance? My current laptop is able to export a 20 MP image from DxO, using Deep prime, in around 13 seconds. This is very good for me, since my previous laptop took more than 2 minutes for the same task! Can I expect similar times with the Mac?

I just timed a Deep PRIME export of a 20 Mp image from Oly E-M5iii. It took 9.27 seconds.

The M1 Macbook Air is probably the best value laptop on the market today.

 

[André BARELIER]

Thank you guys for your valuable information.

It seems I'll need at least 16 GO of RAM, which comes at a cost. Add the softwares I'll have to re-buy to get a Mac version, a hub to connect a card reader, additional SSD, etc.

Hum...It's not easy to decide.

Anyway, thanks again. I'll come back to tell you what I've decided.

 

[CAcreeks]

It seems I'll need at least 16 GO of RAM, which comes at a cost. Add the softwares I'll have to re-buy to get a Mac version, a hub to connect a card reader, additional SSD, etc.

Aha, GO = giga octets. Which is more accurate than gigabytes. (Sorry to sound like an old guy, but I once worked on a computer with 6-bit bytes.)

Anyway, thanks again. I'll come back to tell you what I've decided.

DxO license terms say:

You can activate your DxO PhotoLab software on 2 computers (macOS and/or Windows) with the ESSENTIAL edition, and on 3 computers with the ELITE edition.

I'm not sure about Photoshop.

 

[André BARELIER]

It seems I'll need at least 16 GO of RAM, which comes at a cost. Add the softwares I'll have to re-buy to get a Mac version, a hub to connect a card reader, additional SSD, etc.

Aha, GO = giga octets. Which is more accurate than gigabytes. (Sorry to sound like an old guy, but I once worked on a computer with 6-bit bytes.)

Anyway, thanks again. I'll come back to tell you what I've decided.

DxO license terms say:

You can activate your DxO PhotoLab software on 2 computers (macOS and/or Windows) with the ESSENTIAL edition, and on 3 computers with the ELITE edition.

I'm not sure about Photoshop.

Thanks. Yes, I have the Elite edition, and I knew I can activate my licence on 3 computers, but I did not know that it could be either mac or windows. Good to know. Thanks!

 

[lightandaprayer]

Andre, you can save some money if you buy a refurbished Mac. In the U.S. 15% seems to be the minimum discount. In the past I have come across larger discounts but they may have been on discontinued models.

Refurb Tracker links to the online Apple Store in France via the Country dropdown menu. It is my go-to resource for buying Apple refurb products because it saves me a lot of time. . . On average it takes a week before I wind up with the Mac model I want.

On Refurb Tracker you can specify the amount of RAM as well as other specs to find exactly what you want. You receive an email message when your desired Mac shows up in the store. Popular models can go fast so it pays to take advantage of email on your smartphone to be able to react as soon as one becomes available.

Macs with upgraded specs regularly show up as refurbs. It may take a little longer but it's a lot better than visiting the online refurb store every day.

Refurbs have the same warranty and 14-day return option as brand new Macs. They also qualify for an extended AppleCare warranty. (Of course, I only know what applies to U.S. products and it may be different in other countries.)

I've personally had a fair amount of experience buying refurbs as well as seeing what friends/clients wound up getting. Now I always buy refurbished unless I find a better deal elsewhere on a new Mac. For example, Amazon recently had the stock M1 MBA for $850, the same price I paid for a refurb several months ago.

 

[André BARELIER]

Andre, you can save some money if you buy a refurbished Mac. In the U.S. 15% seems to be the minimum discount. In the past I have come across larger discounts but they may have been on discontinued models.

Refurb Tracker links to the online Apple Store in France via the Country dropdown menu. It is my go-to resource for buying Apple refurb products because it saves me a lot of time. . . On average it takes a week before I wind up with the Mac model I want.

On Refurb Tracker you can specify the amount of RAM as well as other specs to find exactly what you want. You receive an email message when your desired Mac shows up in the store. Popular models can go fast so it pays to take advantage of email on your smartphone to be able to react as soon as one becomes available.

Macs with upgraded specs regularly show up as refurbs. It may take a little longer but it's a lot better than visiting the online refurb store every day.

Refurbs have the same warranty and 14-day return option as brand new Macs. They also qualify for an extended AppleCare warranty. (Of course, I only know what applies to U.S. products and it may be different in other countries.)

I've personally had a fair amount of experience buying refurbs as well as seeing what friends/clients wound up getting. Now I always buy refurbished unless I find a better deal elsewhere on a new Mac. For example, Amazon recently had the stock M1 MBA for $850, the same price I paid for a refurb several months ago.

Thank you. I didn't know about this site. I signed up. Now waiting...,

 

[Jeff Wahaus]

Hello,

I'm a long time windows user.

I currently use an ACER Laptop with 16 GO ram, a 512 GB SSD, AMD Rizen 7, and a Nvidia Ge force 3050.

I often use DxO PL5, Photoshop at the same time, plus a browser.

Works fine for me.

I'm considering buing a Macbook Air M1 with 8GB ram, 256 GO SSD, to replace both my Laptop and my Chromebook.

I appreciate the incredible battery life, the light weight, and performance.

I have some questions:

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

Yes, it should work fine. I just loaded up Photoshop and opened three 20MP images and Activity Monitor was showing Photoshop using 1.9GB of memory.

With only 8GB you can expect the OS to need and swap memory to SSD when you're running several memory hungry apps at the same time but that typically happens so fast you unlikely to notice. Also, the M1 architecture isn't as memory hungry as the Intel/AMD machines so 8GB on an M1 machine is more comparable to 16GB on a Wintel platform.

- is it easy to work with an external SDD (the incorporated one is too small)?

Yes, it's super simple. Just plug in the SSD drive and start using it. Although, I would recommend formatting it to APFS as long as you don't need to be able to read it from a non-apple computer. External SSD's are typically not as fast as the internal SSD but still much faster than a Hard Drive. The cost savings is significant. Internal SSD storage is $400/TB and external SSD storage costs around $100-$150/TB.

- what about performance? My current laptop is able to export a 20 MP image from DxO, using Deep prime, in around 13 seconds. This is very good for me, since my previous laptop took more than 2 minutes for the same task!

Expect it to be significantly faster when running M1 native apps and about the same to slightly faster when running apps that haven't been converted yet.

 

[André BARELIER]

Hello,

I'm a long time windows user.

I currently use an ACER Laptop with 16 GO ram, a 512 GB SSD, AMD Rizen 7, and a Nvidia Ge force 3050.

I often use DxO PL5, Photoshop at the same time, plus a browser.

Works fine for me.

I'm considering buing a Macbook Air M1 with 8GB ram, 256 GO SSD, to replace both my Laptop and my Chromebook.

I appreciate the incredible battery life, the light weight, and performance.

I have some questions:

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

Yes, it should work fine. I just loaded up Photoshop and opened three 20MP images and Activity Monitor was showing Photoshop using 1.9GB of memory.

With only 8GB you can expect the OS to need and swap memory to SSD when you're running several memory hungry apps at the same time but that typically happens so fast you unlikely to notice. Also, the M1 architecture isn't as memory hungry as the Intel/AMD machines so 8GB on an M1 machine is more comparable to 16GB on a Wintel platform.

That's good news!

- is it easy to work with an external SDD (the incorporated one is too small)?

Yes, it's super simple. Just plug in the SSD drive and start using it. Although, I would recommend formatting it to APFS as long as you don't need to be able to read it from a non-apple computer. External SSD's are typically not as fast as the internal SSD but still much faster than a Hard Drive. The cost savings is significant. Internal SSD storage is $400/TB and external SSD storage costs around $100-$150/TB.

OK

- what about performance? My current laptop is able to export a 20 MP image from DxO, using Deep prime, in around 13 seconds. This is very good for me, since my previous laptop took more than 2 minutes for the same task!

Expect it to be significantly faster when running M1 native apps and about the same to slightly faster when running apps that haven't been converted yet.

Nice.

I'vce just finished repacking the ACER, which I'll return tomorrow. It's working fine, but the fans are very noisy as soon as you use demanding apps, like DxO Deep Prime.

My daughter and son-in-law both use Macs. Perfectly silent, and it's amazing how long the batteries last. That's a game changing.

Thank you very much Jeff for taking the time to respond.

 

[Hifromhere]

I have a refurbished M1 MacBook Air 16 GB RAM and it runs DXO DeepPrime, TopazLabs DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI, all extremely well..... fast, silent and a wonderful transition from Windows.

Good luck!

 

[André BARELIER]

I have a refurbished M1 MacBook Air 16 GB RAM and it runs DXO DeepPrime, TopazLabs DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI, all extremely well..... fast, silent and a wonderful transition from Windows.

Good luck!

That's what I'm looking for, but it's very difficult to find one here!

That said, I'm not in a hurry. My old ACER laptop still works fine, albeit it's very slow when using Deep Prime.

Thank you for the info!

 

[lightandaprayer]

That's what I'm looking for, but it's very difficult to find one here!

That said, I'm not in a hurry. My old ACER laptop still works fine, albeit it's very slow when using Deep Prime.

It's great that you aren't in a hurry because in my experience it will take longer to snag a 16GB MBA than an 8GB stock model.

In the past I was also looking for Macs with upgraded RAM or larger SSDs. It took less than 2 weeks to find what I was looking for. . .

No doubt things are different where you live. But 16GB MBAs aren't nonexistent in France and people return Macs for all kinds of reasons. If you remain patient and react quickly when the email arrives, eventually you will most likely be successful.

I just had a thought: Is it possible to track Apple Store refurbs in neighboring countries? Are there any barriers to buying from them if they are in the EU? As long as the country is in the "eurozone," the only barrier should be language and that is easily addressed in 2022.

If the refurbished stock varies from country to country, shopping at different outlets would increase the odds of getting what you want sooner than later.

ImTranslator Excellent free translation extension covering more than 90 languages for Firefox, Chrome and other web browsers. Unfortunately, Safari isn't on the list.

 

[Ergo607]

I just had a thought: Is it possible to track Apple Store refurbs in neighboring countries? Are there any barriers to buying from them if they are in the EU? As long as the country is in the "eurozone," the only barrier should be language and that is easily addressed in 2022.

If the refurbished stock varies from country to country, shopping at different outlets would increase the odds of getting what you want sooner than later.

ImTranslator Excellent free translation extension covering more than 90 languages for Firefox, Chrome and other web browsers. Unfortunately, Safari isn't on the list.

First, there are things to consider: France (and Belgium) use Azerty, while the rest use Qwerty. However, even between the Qwerty variants, there is a difference (allowing for special characters that only exist in any given language.) You can set the keyboard to any layout you like and eventually you get used to it, but it is a pain nonetheless (speaking from experience.). Then different countries use different power outlets, so (maybe) you will have to get a different adapter.

And then there is the next hurdle to overcome: apple has a website for each country (ie. apple.fr, apple.de, apple.co.uk), which lets one buy stuff, but will only ship it to the country one is browsing. So, unless you have a middle person who is willing to help you out, it's quite difficult.

 

[Saint 112]

Hello,

I'm a long time windows user.

I am a long time Mac user (since 1987) and I bought a first generation 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, MacBook Air M1 a year ago.

I currently use an ACER Laptop with 16 GO ram, a 512 GB SSD, AMD Rizen 7, and a Nvidia Ge force 3050.

I often use DxO PL5, Photoshop at the same time, plus a browser.

Works fine for me.

Although I am macmaniac it makes little sense to me to buy a new computer if the one you currently have works fine, and on top of that with the hassle of shifting to a different environment.

I have some questions:

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

There seems to be a consensus that 16GB is the minimum.

A 256GB SSD is too small too. Mac OS makes a heavy use of virtual memory so you need to leave a big chunk of free space on the internal SSD for the VM to work well.

- is it easy to work with an external SDD (the incorporated one is too small)?

I work with DxO PL with my pics on a USB-C external SSD and I see no lag when opening folders and applying corrections. You could go for a Thunderbolt drive but it's still very expensive. Photo editing is a moderately demanding task for a computer, not like pro video or music editing that needs a lot of space and a lot of speed.

- what about performance? My current laptop is able to export a 20 MP image from DxO, using Deep prime, in around 13 seconds. This is very good for me, since my previous laptop took more than 2 minutes for the same task!

Can I expect similar times with the Mac?

I didn't make the measurements.

Nick

 

[André BARELIER]

Hello,

I'm a long time windows user.

I am a long time Mac user (since 1987) and I bought a first generation 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, MacBook Air M1 a year ago.

I currently use an ACER Laptop with 16 GO ram, a 512 GB SSD, AMD Rizen 7, and a Nvidia Ge force 3050.

I often use DxO PL5, Photoshop at the same time, plus a browser.

Works fine for me.

Although I am macmaniac it makes little sense to me to buy a new computer if the one you currently have works fine, and on top of that with the hassle of shifting to a different environment

The one I currently use works fine, but it has 2 differences with a Mac:

- it's heavier and noisier. My daughter and son in law both use Macs. They use their computers in a very different way than I do: they take their macs anywhere, without bothering about battery life.

The MBA is completely silent, with an outstanding battery life, and is very light. (the MBP too, even with its fan).

I have some questions:

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

There seems to be a consensus that 16GB is the minimum.

A 256GB SSD is too small too. Mac OS makes a heavy use of virtual memory so you need to leave a big chunk of free space on the internal SSD for the VM to work well.

Thank you for the info. 16 GB + 512 GO SSD adds to the price, even if I buy refurbished...

- is it easy to work with an external SDD (the incorporated one is too small)?

I work with DxO PL with my pics on a USB-C external SSD and I see no lag when opening folders and applying corrections. You could go for a Thunderbolt drive but it's still very expensive. Photo editing is a moderately demanding task for a computer, not like pro video or music editing that needs a lot of space and a lot of speed.

I'm a musician too, and use my computer for music editing. So, I need power and space.

- what about performance? My current laptop is able to export a 20 MP image from DxO, using Deep prime, in around 13 seconds. This is very good for me, since my previous laptop took more than 2 minutes for the same task!

Can I expect similar times with the Mac?

I didn't make the measurements.

Nick

Thank you Nick.

--
André

 

[Jeff Wahaus]

I have some questions:

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

There seems to be a consensus that 16GB is the minimum.

A 256GB SSD is too small too. Mac OS makes a heavy use of virtual memory so you need to leave a big chunk of free space on the internal SSD for the VM to work well.

Thank you for the info. 16 GB + 512 GO SSD adds to the price, even if I buy refurbished...

I have to disagree that "16GB is the minimum", for most people running with 8GB of RAM on a M1 based Mac is adequate. Also, if you keep your apps on the internal SSD and your data on an external SSD then a 256GB internal SSD is also adequate.

Here is a well written article that talks about that very issue: https://macexpertguide.com/m1-macbook-air-8gb-vs-16gb-ram/

I know there is a tendency in human nature to think that more is better but what is the point of having more RAM or SSD space if it is rarely every used? Especially considering the additional cost involved. Of course it all depends on your individual use case for the computer but typical photo, video, and music editing tasks can be done on a 8/256 GB machine with no significant difference in speed and a substantial savings in cost.

 

[André BARELIER]

I have some questions:

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

There seems to be a consensus that 16GB is the minimum.

A 256GB SSD is too small too. Mac OS makes a heavy use of virtual memory so you need to leave a big chunk of free space on the internal SSD for the VM to work well.

Thank you for the info. 16 GB + 512 GO SSD adds to the price, even if I buy refurbished...

I have to disagree that "16GB is the minimum", for most people running with 8GB of RAM on a M1 based Mac is adequate. Also, if you keep your apps on the internal SSD and your data on an external SSD then a 256GB internal SSD is also adequate.

Here is a well written article that talks about that very issue: https://macexpertguide.com/m1-macbook-air-8gb-vs-16gb-ram/

I know there is a tendency in human nature to think that more is better but what is the point of having more RAM or SSD space if it is rarely every used? Especially considering the additional cost involved. Of course it all depends on your individual use case for the computer but typical photo, video, and music editing tasks can be done on a 8/256 GB machine with no significant difference in speed and a substantial savings in cost.

Ah. I read the article. Very interesting, since I seldom run that many apps at the same time!

Thanks!

 

[Greybeard2017]

I have some questions:

- is 8 GB ram enough to run DxO and Photoshop at the same time?

There seems to be a consensus that 16GB is the minimum.

A 256GB SSD is too small too. Mac OS makes a heavy use of virtual memory so you need to leave a big chunk of free space on the internal SSD for the VM to work well.

Thank you for the info. 16 GB + 512 GO SSD adds to the price, even if I buy refurbished...

I have to disagree that "16GB is the minimum", for most people running with 8GB of RAM on a M1 based Mac is adequate. Also, if you keep your apps on the internal SSD and your data on an external SSD then a 256GB internal SSD is also adequate.

Here is a well written article that talks about that very issue: https://macexpertguide.com/m1-macbook-air-8gb-vs-16gb-ram/

I know there is a tendency in human nature to think that more is better but what is the point of having more RAM or SSD space if it is rarely every used? Especially considering the additional cost involved. Of course it all depends on your individual use case for the computer but typical photo, video, and music editing tasks can be done on a 8/256 GB machine with no significant difference in speed and a substantial savings in cost.

If DXO is anything remotely like LR then if you combine it with Photoshop and perhaps a web browser with a few tabs open then you are definitely going to be using more than 8GB of memory.

I wouldn't want to have to shuffle all my data onto an external SSD and haul it around all the time - its one thing to have your images on external storage but to try and keep under 256GB for all data is going to be a challenge - or at least it would for me.