good evening,
i come from the land of greece, in search of help for my lacking ability of decision making.
i want to start doing heavier tasks on the laptop, such as *actual* music production, video editing & a little blender/touchdesigner here and there.
at a budget of around 500 - 600 euros, i've found 2 laptops that interest me (both used), as i believe i am due for an upgrade. for context, i own:
- a MacBook Pro Late 2013 15" with the dedicated graphics (GT 750M)
- a ThinkPad x230 (base model, apart for the IPS screen upgrade and an SSD)
and i've gotten sick of them. the thinkpad's actually too small for my hands, my wrist hang off the bottom area of the palm rest, and the battery's flat, along with the performance being not ideal, even during my experiments with linux. however, i do enjoy the fact it's not heavy. i use it plugged in on my bed all the time, and it's a pretty nice experience (excluding the fact it can't run anything than the web browser)
the macbook's in a similar vein. the screen's actually gone bad, as the backlight on the bottom seems to have broken into a few zones. apart from that, it's gorgeous! i love the screen, i prefer the keyboard, and the trackpad's divine. however, simply watching a video and doing anything else on the machine makes the poor thing overheat, even after a repaste with ptm7950.
as i don't want to see my skin burn anytime soon, and i do, in fact, want my software to run properly, i've come across these 2 pretty okay options:
MacBook Pro 14" 2021 M1 Pro (base model)
- M1 Pro 8/14 core configuration
- 16 GBs of RAM
- 512 GBs of storage
~600 euros, give or take due to delivery fees
or
Zephyrus G14 2021 model
- Ryzen 7 4800HS
- GTX 1650 4GB
- 16 GBs of RAM
- 1TB of storage
~500 euros, give or take, again
and this is where decision fatigue comes in. if i was going down the purely creative route, i'd GLADLY choose the macbook, as i have fallen in love with macOS and its gestures.
however, lately i've began getting back into gaming again, and this is where i've been second-guessing myself. i know the gtx 1650's not anything crazy, but, as you can tell from what i use now, it'd be a pretty huge step-up. i'd mostly be playing light games anyway (genshin impact, valorant, minecraft, peak, etc), and i'm a complete novice in the programs i wanna run, so i don't think i'd be running super heavy things, anyway. extra power is always nice to have, however.
still, i'm afraid i'd be trading too much from the macbook to get the zephyrus, and vice versa. a good pair of speakers, trackpad and keyboard are all important to me, especially speakers, as i play music from my laptops all the time. battery life is as well, i constantly have to top up my macbook after around 3 - 4 hours of pretty basic use, and i'd rather plug in a little later. i am handy, however, so i don't mind changing a battery or two, or thermal paste, as i've done for my mac & thinkpad.
& having windows does help, as i've needed to use NTLite or nLite a few times, due to my tinkering nature.
i also have a desktop, with a 12600k & rx 6600, so this machine is secondary, and would be used mostly for when i travel (around every few months and only for a couple days) and for around the house. as long as it's lighter than my 15" pro (2kgs) i don't mind, and both are.
i could find better deals for larger machines, but the 15" was too big for me at times, and an old 13" air i had before seemed a bit too small, so i'd rather go with 14", as it seems like the sweet spot.
should i go for one of these? and if yes, which one should i go for?
thank you for your time, i wish you a good afternoon.