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MacBook Specs for AI Tools and Heavy G Sheets Usage: Recommendations Needed

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Hey everyone! 👋 I’m Barney, co-founder and COO of The Natural Love Company - we’re a sustainable and approachable adult intimacy e-commerce brand. We operate from Europe but serve primarily US customers. I lead a small but growing team and use TalkTastic extensively for Slack communications, along with managing supplier and reseller emails daily. Quick question for the more tech-savvy folks here: I’m shopping for a new MacBook (my current one is showing its age after 7 years). Given that I’m heavily invested in AI tools, including TalkTastic, and typically run multiple browser tabs, and a heavy G Sheets user, what specs should I prioritize? While my setup is primarily desk-based (connected to a 36-inch LG Ultrawide monitor), I still value the flexibility of a laptop for travel and location changes. Thanks in advance for any insights! Looking forward to reading more of your intros above. Kudos to the team here!

3 comments

Matt Mireles
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Welcome Barney, great to have you here! The Natural Love Company sounds cool - I'm actually an angel investor in Unbound, if you're familiar with them. Love that you're using TalkTastic extensively, that's awesome. Regarding your MacBook question, I'd definitely prioritize maxing out the RAM - get at least 24GB. That's probably the most important spec for running multiple AI tools and browser tabs smoothly. I'd recommend going for the 15-inch M3 MacBook Air or 14-inch MacBook Pro. I've got the M2 MacBook Air and it's really light - I freaking love that thing. The previous gen MacBook Pros were super heavy so I wouldn't recommend those. Haven't picked up the new generations yet, really curious about their weight. If you want to go bananas, another option to consider is getting a dedicated Mac Mini. The new ones look pretty sick - they're running M4 chips. Haven't tried them personally, but they look awesome. You could get the M4 Pro chip, pair that with a MacBook Air and max out the RAM if you really want to go all out. Apple is always very happy to take all of your money!
Matt Mireles
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One thing that really surprised me is that the Max and Ultra chips consistently outperform the base models, even across multiple generations. It's not just about going from M1 to M2 to M3 to M4 - the tier of chip (base vs Pro vs Max vs Ultra) actually makes a huge difference in performance. We can clearly see this in our latency data.
Leslie Barry
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+1 for the 15 inch Macbook air.
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