The best affordable computer for photo editing is an Apple

Sounds like a great choice. Without a screen and keyboard, what in your opinion is the ideal configuration and approximately how much would that cost? Is the SSD drive you mention also from Apple?

I am about to make a new purchase and I would actually like more in-depth info on this subject, also about combining it with the docking station.

Good morning Elja, can this choice also be combined with an Eizo monitor . At the moment I also work with a reasonably fast 64-bit Windows PC, but I indeed notice that edits often don't work well together. Another question: Apple is somewhat different from a PC ... is that quick to learn ? I work with a large-format printer and ICC profiles, that doesn't cause any problems I assume ? Regards, Gerard

Hello Elja. I am very satisfied with this post, because I am about to buy a new computer. Of course there is a lot to see and read on the internet, but still it is not that simple. I have read that the Mac mini 4 only has 16GB of RAM. Is this enough for editing in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Henri wrote on Tuesday 24 February 2026 at 13:10  | reply

Hello Elja,

Last August I switched from Windows (10) to a Mac Studio M4.
It is a fact that the Mac is MUCH faster in Photoshop/ARC than Windows, but I still have some reservations about it;

After 30 years of Windows (Starting with Windows '95 with Photoshop 4), it takes a lot of getting used to MacOS.
And in some respects MacOS is downright inferior to Windows. In particular, the "Finder" is a rudimentary contraption that is barely workable. Just try quickly to 'cut and paste' a file to another folder or from one external SSD to another: hopeless! You only get the choice "move to bin". There is not much more to choose from.
You simply miss the layout with the folder on the left and its contents on the right, so you can then easily move things by dragging or cutting & pasting. You really need to have several "Finder" windows open at the same time to be able to work with it at all.

I also regularly get lost in the "Finder".
When you have a Back-up on a NAS, you obviously work with folders that have the same name on multiple drives. The "Finder" often shows no info about the root of the folder, so you don't know whether you are in the folder on your Mac or in the folder with the same name on the NAS, or in the Back-up on the second external SSD.
I also expected not to have to deal with crashes and such anymore on a Mac: after all, Apple knows which components are in their hardware and so they can test everything extensively?
Well, I have news: I still have crashes and other problems every week.....

Also, for example, selecting text in Apple's version of 'notepad' is a disaster. Sometimes nothing happens when you try to select text and you have to 'position' several times to select a piece of text. I often run into this because I first type the titles that I am going to use in Bridge for my photos into Note to check for spelling errors. I have already tried several mice, unfortunately without success.
And I have a whole list of other annoyances, but I will spare you those: these are the worst.

As for the speed of the PC, despite the ample 64GB of RAM: I have had that experience too. Much too late I found out that the PC is much faster with 2 sticks of 32GB on the motherboard than with 4 sticks of 16GB. Apparently it is a technical problem with how Windows handles working memory. I removed 2 sticks and my PC is now faster with 32GB of working memory than with the 64GB that was in it before.....

I myself have been using a MacMini M4 since November last year as a successor to my iMac. The 16 GB of memory is more than sufficient for photo editing, probably in the longer term as well. For storage I went with 512 GB, also because a lot of old junk had to be transferred from my previous Mac. I moved my photo libraries to a 2TB SSD drive/card (Samsung) that found a home in a hub from Satechi that fits nicely under the Mac Mini and suits me very well, partly because of the additional connection options (SD cards, etc.). Quite a bit of weighing and considering preceded the purchase in order to find the most ideal combination of components. I bought the hub on sale and found the 2TB via Tweakers.

I also find Finder a piece of junk. I've been using Commander One for file management for years. You don't have any of the problems with Finder you mentioned with Commander One. Affordable and effective.

Why buy an Apple when you can't change anything about it afterwards? Apple works with fixed configurations that you can't change yourself anymore. I certainly don't want to claim that Apple is bad, but I still prefer to build my own PC. You can then make it as expensive as you want.

I don't have a Mac myself, but I do have an Iphone and Ipad.
What is not unimportant is the difference in service between Apple and Microsoft. The latter is no longer what it used to be and you can no longer raise problems by phone. Fortunately, you still can with Apple and they help where necessary remotely. For me, this would be a reason to switch to a Mac, and then just take the 'unfamiliar little things' as mentioned by others for granted.

Hi Ilja, just like Ada, I would also like to buy a new Windows desktop and I am curious about the required specs.
But your comment about 2 systems side by side and the price of 600 also really appeals to me. Seems ideal to me to use the Apple only for photography and avoid all the Apple annoyances for other things by simply continuing to do the rest on my Windows computer ( which is still perfectly suitable for that). Can you also connect 2 computers to a Dell monitor and can you use one wireless keyboard and mouse on 2 systems or do you really have to set everything up completely and

And that's how it is. And not to forget (and that's been the case for years): Apple works, always. In an exceptional case, restart your Mac. macOS is an official clone of Unix. You can't get more stable than that at home

Hello!
I also have a Mac with an M1, and now I have a MacBook Air with an M4 alongside it, and it is indeed incredibly fast, also in Lr. Also super handy, and with various external storage systems. Works great

Good morning Elja,

So you can expand the number of connections of a standard Apple mini m4 by means of a hub, create an SD card reader, and 2 USB type 2 connections, which I really need. But I also read that you can install extra internal storage in this hub. So suppose you buy an Apple with a 256TB SSD hard drive, and for your hub you buy another 256TB internal SSD hard drive. Do you suddenly have 512TB of internal SSD storage, sounds good and I think cheaper than upgrading the Apple mini m4 from 256 SSD to 512 SSD storage. But how does making backups via Apple Timemachine work?, does Apple make a backup of the 2 x 256TB SSD storage, or only of the SSD present in the Apple mini M4?

Kind regards,

Peter Rinkel

when it comes to docking stations, there are better choices than the one in the article. I had one like that and switched to a Caldigit. The Caldigit uses Thunderbolt, so it’s nice and fast. I connected an external M.2 SSD to it, which provides fast external storage.
The Caldigit is quite pricey, but you notice that in the quality and speed.

A docking station is actually a must if you work more extensively (read: do more than just read emails and browse the web)