Which laptop to purchase for smooth usage?

Should I buy mac 16 pro or mac 15

By @shukti30770874rd73

“Mac 15” is a little vague, because there was the old 15" MacBook Pro (Intel), and the new 15" MacBook Air (Apple Silicon). Here is how they break down:

16" M1/M2 MacBook Pro: If you can afford it, this is the best choice for performance in a Mac laptop, and has the most display area for the many panels you will use in video editors. The current version uses the very powerful and efficient M2 Pro/Max processor, but if you are on a budget, the older M1 Pro/Max are still great for video editing, and are available at high discounts and at the Apple Refurbished Store. (I use a 14" M1 Pro MacBook Pro.)

15" M2 MacBook Air: This will work fine, if your video projects are less intensive and rendering times are shorter. Because if your video editing keeps the CPU and GPU maxed out for long periods of time, the Air can get too hot because it has no fan, forcing it to slow down. The Pro can sustain top performance for longer because it has cooling fans.

In all cases, get at least 16GB of unified memory, and enough internal and external storage for all project files, media files, and Media Cache files, plus lots of free space. Make sure your internal/external storage is set up to avoid low free space on the internal SSD, because low free space makes an SSD slow down dramatically.

15" Intel MacBook Pro: Do not buy this. Intel-powered Macs are no longer recommended for the pro video apps you mentioned. Apple Silicon Macs run much faster with far better graphics hardware, and much more efficiently so they run cooler and quieter with less thermal throttling than Intel.

The Adobe applications, Final Cut Pro, and Resolve all run well on any of the Apple Silicon laptops.  I would try to go no lower than 16GB of RAM and 512GB of Flash storage, but depending on your budget increase the RAM, Flash storage and processor option.  An important consideration is how many external display that you would like to connect as well as how much external storage you plan to connect.  The M1 and M2 models support fewer displays and have fewer ports while the Pro, Max, and Ultra support more displays and have more ports.

Specific to Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Resolve, take a close look at using the Apple ProRes CODEC for your source, for your edit, and for exporting your full resolution edit.  In Premiere Pro, this takes advantage of Smart Rendering and in Final Cut Pro and Resolve it is referred to as Optimized Format.  

For starters, I do not recommend buying an Intel-powered MacBook at all nowadays because these models are all completely discontinued and are all more than four years old, and the last 15-inch MacBook Pros all have crummy butterfly-mechanism keyboards that are very prone to failure.

The current MacBooks all use Apple M2 series CPUs except for the very cheapest MacBook Air (which still uses the M2's immediate predecessor M1). Currently, the only 15-inch MacBook available new is the very recently introduced 15-inch MacBook Air. The current 16-inch MacBook Pro uses either an M2 Pro or an M2 Max CPU.

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post if it helps you get responses.

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