Mac laptop to be used just for the photo app

Unless you get a laptop that allows the user to add RAM you should get a minimum of 8 GB of RAM at the time of purchase, 16 if the budget allows. Photos does a fair amount of background processing that can take up a lot of resources None of the Apple laptops have RAM that can be added by the user so you need to order what you need up front.

Also get the largest SSD drive your budget will allow. As rreinhardt93 mentioned, 500 GB should be the minimum.

If you want as much portability as possible the MacBook Air is a good choice. My wife got one for teaching and it's very nice: 16 RAM and 500 GB SSD.

Remember get as much on it as possible at the time of purchase as you can't go back and add later on.

If you want to use the laptop for photos, you will need to be able to plug in more than one disk drive, because sooner or later the internal drive will not suffice. You will need at least two USB ports to plug in an external data drive plus a backup drive. Older MacBook Pro models have at least two USB ports plus a card reader slot, newer models only one port where you need to connect an adapter for all kinds of external devices. You may want to check, if you are better off with an older, refurbished Mac with many ports than a new model with only one port and always an expensive adapter sticking out.

Dear gbellus76,

Thanks for reaching out for support to decide on your new purchase.

Memory or RAM is the computer's ability to multi-task. When an application is in use, it is read from the Long-Term Storage (Hard Drive) to the Short-Term Storage (Memory or RAM). Since you will be using it for basic Photo Editing and Arranging, the default 4GB or 8GB of Memory/RAM will be sufficient.

For the amount of storage you will need for your hard drive, depends on the amount of photos that you have. If you anticipate to store them locally, I recommend you get a Hard Drive of at least 500GB or more.