If you were toting just your Mac Studio to and from work (the 8 lb. one), what would be your “dream case” and what would work on a budget?
I am looking for one for someone else (who doesn’t think they need wheels, I think wheels would be nice).
On the budget side, there’s a Jack Boss Hard Case, 13.6 x 11.4 x 6 Inch Portable Weather Waterproof Protective Camera Case with customizable internal foam available on one of the big box sites for just under $40 (U.S.). Looks like a Pelican case.
We have someone at work who hauls their studio back and forth from work and has all the other peripherals in two places, so it doesn’t really need to expand to hold those things.
There are lots of travel cases for Mac Mini and Studio systems on Amazon. Mine is probably a no-name outfit. The brand is Packmini, but I doubt that’s exactly a household name.
Mine is about twice the size it needs to be for the Mini, which provides room in an internal pocket for an Apple keyboard. My expansion docking gizmo also fits along with necessary cables.
A $70 portable display gives me a nice way to carry the Mini on trips.
As to why I would do such a thing, I’m a nerd. Why wouldn’t I?
This actually just came up at work; we make videos for live events so we’ve run into the issue of filming and rendering on site. Usually these events have a custom screen design for the stage, so it’s like a 10k+ pixel wide video file (or files) we need to render. We got a nearly maxed out M3 Ultra last year and looking to take to an event for the first time in a few months, we’re getting new foam for a Pelican case so it will be a custom fit. Pelican will be a carry on.
@rkaplan … I was involved in the purchase process and started there(!). Because the computer wasn’t going to move around, our tech dept. suggested I go for a more powerful solution.
Our graphic artist does a lot of video rendering; so we went w/ a “nearly maxed out M3”… configuration, probably similar to what @dustying mentioned.
THEN, they started to treat it like a laptop (not as frequently toted around; but still enough back-and-forth to warrant using something other than the original box).
I do the same “gear aging”! … Took a brand new Canon R5 on a bragworthy trip several years ago and put blue painter’s masking tape on the lens shield, as if it had been broken, some green duct tape to “fix” a non-existing light leak, where SLRs could sometimes have problems (even though this is a mirrorless camera), etc.
A friend who is an awesome photographer (and their family has a commercial photography business) was aghast that I would do such a thing and sent a photo to their family.
I was most active as a photographer back in the film days. I had two Nikons (F3 & FE) with motor drives. The FE was my “sacrificial” camera, and was the one that was rewarded with two or three visits to Nikon pro repair in Georgia. It got strapped to the outside of cars & planes, etc. and had to ride around in the trunk of my car year round.
The best thing I found to protect it was a cheap styrofoam cooler like you would find at bait & tackle shops. That, and a cool pack, saved it from lens melting heat in the summer. And the foam would dent and absorb the bouncing around.
