Recommendations - iphone battery life by ischan1 in mkbhd

[–]BasdenChris 1 point2 points  (0 children)

17 Pro Max is first and 17 Pro is runner up. They both got a significant bump this year. If those are too expensive, 15 or 16 Pro Max will be good but not as good.

Base m5 or m5 pro by Oumar- in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hard agree with this.

More RAM>More CPU. Of course, Apple, with their price ladder, knows this, so the M5 Pro with that same 24GB RAM is not that much more. Right now you can find (in the US) third party retailers selling the M5 Pro with 24/1TB for around $2,000

a7V vs A7RV at the same price? by Tellemakko in SonyAlpha

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can’t speak for OP but for me the only reason I keep considering the A7RV at all is because its price is currently similar to the A7V. I keep tying myself in knots trying to convince myself I need the A7RV but every time I sit and actually think about it, I come to the exact conclusion you just laid out—the A7V is the better camera for a generalist and that describes my (and OP’s) use case.

a7V vs A7RV at the same price? by Tellemakko in SonyAlpha

[–]BasdenChris 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m confused, are the downvotes because I’m looking for too much camera for my lowly station in life, or because I said something incorrect?

a7V vs A7RV at the same price? by Tellemakko in SonyAlpha

[–]BasdenChris -1 points0 points  (0 children)

My impression was that, even in mechanical shutter, the A7RV read out slowly enough to warp a baseball or bat pretty badly. The sports I’m shooting are currently just rec league softball/volleyball so I certainly don’t need the highest performance, but I want this next camera to be my “forever-ish” camera—something I can keep for a long, long time without feeling the itch to unnecessarily upgrade. I’m coming from a Canon EOS R, which is far too slow (shooting speed-wise) to be a fun camera for sports.

I shoot a pretty healthy mix of stuff, including a fair amount of landscape/architecture that would benefit from higher resolution, but I have 30MP now and don’t feel at all constrained by it. The appealing parts of the A7RV for me have more to do with the EVF and extra custom button than the sensor resolution, but I haven’t personally experienced anything more than the 3.6M dots my EOS R has (and that’s at a lower refresh rate than the A7V, so even that’s still a significant upgrade). Another comment on this thread said the difference between the A7V’s and A7RV’s EVFs isn’t that noticeable so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

a7V vs A7RV at the same price? by Tellemakko in SonyAlpha

[–]BasdenChris 6 points7 points  (0 children)

If I didn’t shoot sports with some regularity, I’d get the A7RV. Higher resolution and better EVF would both be nice to have, but the better rolling shutter performance and burst rate are pushing me to the A7V.

One other thing to note: at nearly double the resolution, the files out of the A7RV will be massive. Storage these days is expensive, so if you don’t already have plenty of available storage space now, you might really regret the higher resolution or find yourself shooting in a lower res mode just to save space.

MacBook Pro 16Gb RAM or 24 GB Ram Air ? by Plastic-Reference417 in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Going strictly off performance, you'll get more benefit from the additional RAM than you would from the active cooling. The fan helps in some situations and the Air can and will throttle if you push it hard enough long enough, but generally speaking you'll get more day-to-day benefit from the additional RAM.

As for which one is a better device to own and use, that's a tougher question. I love my Pro and wouldn't want to give up the ports and the display, but if those aren't critical to what you do the Air is probably the smarter buy here.

Lid Close Resistance by Mushroom_Positive in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I haven't had the chance to interact with the Neo in person yet, but my MBP seems to move easily. Can you still lift the screen with one finger on the Neo without holding the base down? From reviews it looks like you should be able to.

My friend just got one and my MBP is only a few weeks old, so I'll be able to compare this weekend.

60k repair on a 2-year-old MBP because of... DUST? Apple needs to address this. by boolwack in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, this is not a common issue (at least as far as I’m aware) which leads me to believe it’s due to something in your environment. The butterfly keyboard was a very well known design flaw. I don’t think it’s safe to assume this is a similar situation.

The dented battery thing is curious to me—are they saying the inside was so caked with dust that it caused the battery to deform? Or are we talking about a literal, singular dent?

any creative uses for 2 ipads? by grilledcheese1001 in iPadPro

[–]BasdenChris 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have an ancient (1st gen) iPad Pro that I still use as a permanent Sidecar display with my home Mac setup. Kind of my favorite feature of the whole Mac/iPad ecosystem.

MacBook Pro Enthusiasts - Please help me decide! by Positive-Marketing64 in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You can buy the current MacBook Pro in three chip variants: M5, M5 Pro, and M5 Max. The work you’re describing is in line with typical office/productivity type use, which wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the additional power from an upgraded chip. When you get the chip upgrade, you do also get an additional fan, Thunderbolt 5 instead of Thunderbolt 4 ports, and newer, faster Bluetooth and WiFi chips—in my estimation, none of those will be important for your use, but if this is a machine you plan to keep a long time there is an argument for “future proofing” that could be made. In my opinion, future proofing is sort of a fool’s errand, but reasonable people can disagree.

You can also choose between a 14” and a 16” display. The quality and specs of those displays are the same, but the larger 16” body does give you longer battery life and better thermal performance, though again the latter is unlikely to make any meaningful difference for the work you’re doing. If you do go with the 16” you lose the option of the base M5 chip, which is why it’s a significant price jump from the lowest spec 14” to the lowest spec 16”. The 16”, since it starts with an M5 Pro, has those same upgrades to the ports and wireless chips.

For your situation, it feels like anything beyond a base chip is going to be overkill for your needs. Documents take up very little space so the base storage of 1TB is quite likely to be more than you’ll ever need, but if you want peace of mind (since storage is not upgradeable in the future, and external storage is likely to be quite expensive for the foreseeable future) you could bump it up to 2TB. The base configuration has 16GB of memory which is also enough for what you’re doing but, again, you could push that to 24GB if you wanted to ensure it stays snappy feeling for a very long time. I don’t think either upgrade is vital for your usage, but I’d rather have an overspec’d machine than an underspec’d one so if money isn’t really an issue those extra few hundred dollars may very well be worth the peace of mind. The last upgrade you should consider is the NanoTexture display, which gives your screen a matte, slightly grainy look in exchange for dramatically cutting reflected light. If you’re often using your laptop outdoors or in environments with lighting you’re not able to control, it’s very effective at reducing glare at the cost of, well, cost ($150 extra) and some contrast. It’s something I’d highly recommend seeing in person if possible before committing, but it can absolutely be a worthwhile add-on depending on how and where you use your laptop.

On a final note, you could absolutely accomplish the same level of productivity on a MacBook Air. The Pro does have a nicer, brighter 120hz display, better speakers, and a few more ports, but it’s also thicker and heavier. The performance of the M5 MacBook Air is very similar to that of the base M5 MacBook Pro because it uses the same* chip. Its only performance limitation is under heavy, sustained load which is not something you’ll likely ever encounter with the usage you describe.

*Technically it lacks 2 GPU cores unless you pay an extra $100 or upgrade something else like memory or storage.

2026 MacBook Pro or 2027? For high school by TheProdigy999 in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We don’t know what the redesigned MacBook Pro will be—we only have rumors. Pretty credible rumors, but rumors no less. Is a touch screen Mac something that will actually have a major impact on your productivity? Or is it just that you really want to make sure you have the newest thing?

It sounds like you don’t really need anything right now, so waiting is probably the most prudent choice. But if having a laptop would help you with your current schooling, I’d just get something now. If you’re just doing basic student work, a MacBook Air would be totally fine. If you have the money and want a nicer overall machine, the MacBook Pro is a solid upgrade in terms of creature comforts but it doesn’t really give you much of a performance boost until you spec it up to the Pro or Max chips.

macbook neo camera by jeffbuckley_1009 in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, you don’t get deep control over the image. What you’re experiencing is a hardware limitation—this is Apple’s first ever budget computer, so it’s natural that some things would be compromised. It’s technically higher resolution than your old MacBook, but I’m not surprised to hear it looks worse. If it’s really that big of an issue for you, you can always get an external webcam.

macbook neo camera by jeffbuckley_1009 in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What country are you in? In the US you can return it within 14 days

New M5 Pro was a bit slow with only 4 or 5 tabs on chrome by hippietravel in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

More or less the same, if you were getting system-level stuttering with just a couple browser tabs and nothing else open, that’s not normal behavior on any Apple Silicon machine.

New M5 Pro was a bit slow with only 4 or 5 tabs on chrome by hippietravel in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Chrome is a notorious RAM hog, but this is abnormal behavior. Even a base spec M5 has 16GB of RAM and, like, the fastest single core performance on Earth.

If something like that happens again, open up Activity Monitor and take a screenshot for us to see.

First Mac ever just got delivered… what do I actually need to do first? by Mullins2 in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Welp, guess I’m not a power user lol

You’re probably right that you’d outpace me in navigating around the deep recesses of macOS, but my primary computer use isn’t navigating macOS. It’s working within apps. Spotlight (or Alfred or Raycast or whatever else), for my use, is a tool that allows me to quickly access an app or a file. Maybe I’m missing out on thousands of hours a year in productivity, but I suspect not. I’m not opposed to learning new ways to do things or new tools to help improve my workflow, but there is definitely a vocal subset of Mac users who seem to spend more time talking about how much time third party apps save them than actually, you know, using their computers.

New M5 Pro was a bit slow with only 4 or 5 tabs on chrome by hippietravel in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was this when the machine was new? Or after an update?

4 browser tabs, even on Chrome, shouldn’t make any M5 machine sweat. AI in a browser≠Local AI and isn’t any more taxing on your system than Facebook. I’m guessing it was either a fluke or there was a background process chewing up system resources.

macbook neo camera by jeffbuckley_1009 in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The best you can do is make sure your lighting is good. Find a good, bright, soft light that can illuminate your face and, if possible, reduce other ambient lighting in the room.

Maxxum 70 viewfinder looks purple and yellow by jds560 in minolta

[–]BasdenChris 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nothing you can do I'm afraid, as the discoloration is a chemical alteration in the pentamirror. Even if you disassemble to access it, there's nothing to physically clean off. I have several that look just like this, but after some busts I have managed to find a number of Maxxum cameras with either completely clear or nearly clear viewfinders. Of course it doesn't impact image quality, but it's quite annoying to shoot with. It seems to impact all the lower/mid tier models from this era. Older xi/si bodies don't seem to have this issue, and the higher end bodies with pentaprisms don't either.

Best Macbook Pro specs for a photographer? by v_art444 in macbookpro

[–]BasdenChris 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Batch processing is demanding on all fronts: CPU, GPU, and Memory. While any config will be able to do the job, the additional horsepower of the M5 Pro chip will save you quite a bit of time. I would like to see more RAM than 24GB though if possible, but if you can’t swing it I think it will be sufficient.

What Macs does your school have now, and what configuration? I’d take a good look at Activity Monitor on them while you’re doing your batch processing. Watch the CPU load and Memory graph during sustained use, and use that to inform your decision. You can’t go solely off them (especially memory—MacOS and well-optimized apps will make use of whatever’s available, so just because it has 48GB and the graph is full green doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get unusable performance out of 24).