Retina 13" MBP v.s. 13" Air as dev machine | Hacker News Reader

Retina 13" MBP v.s. 13" Air as dev machine

2 pointszensavona15 comments

I'm tossing up between the two and I am hoping someone who owns one can shed some light.

Right now I have a '10 15" MBP (1400x900).

Here are my pros vs cons.

rMBP pros: - hdmi out - 2x thunderbolt - retina - more CPU

rMBP cons: - lower 'native' resolution (screen space) - bigger/less aesthetic - more expensive (not a major concern)

Air pros: - thinner/lighter, more aesthetic - higher 'native' resolution - cheaper

Air cons: - less cpu - no hdmi - only one thunderbolt

It's primary uses are development and music production, for what I do and the difference we are talking of, the power difference isn't a dealbreaker - here are some questions/concerns:

- with the MBP, if I run at a scaled resolution (maybe 1440x900) for more screen real estate, will it lag? I am thinking of the 2.5GHz model. - is there any noticeable battery difference between them? - I do a fair amount of travel so weight is a consideration, but afaik the difference is less than 400g between them - the Air just /feels/ so much smaller because of the thickness - is there anything I have no considered?

Another unrelated thing: are thunderbolt hard drives /that/ much faster in real usage than USB 3.0?

Thanks, and if I've missed anything let me know

Honestly I have the MBP Pro Retina and it isn't like "ZOMG!" compared to the Air. It is a great overall machine, and I chose it because I was able to get it at a slight discount, but I'm pretty sure I would have been fine with the similarly sized Air. If I did get the Air, I'd get the 8GB ram model.

What type of development do you do? Is it memory intensive enough that MBP vs Air would make a difference? For me it did, so MBP + ram upgrade helped a lot.

Both choices would have 8GB anyway (not memory intensive enough to warrant 16GB, anyway)

Mainly Ruby/Go development.

I do audio production too and 16GB RAM are honestly not enough.. Soundfonts take many many Gigabytes of RAM. I don't know how much memory is optimal for Logic though, I use Cubase.

Interesting point to note, thanks (I use Ableton/Logic primarily) I've never had issue with my current pro (8GB)

I wanted my next Notebook to be a Macbook Pro 13" with the highest specs available. But it comes with 8GB only, the 15" has soldered 16GB RAM and a soldered 750GB SSD. These were the reasons I cannot buy it.

I wanted 32GB RAM or more, it's soo cheap!

And I want the option to replace my HDD with a faster one.

.. isn't WWDC soon?

Wait for the product refresh, if you can!

Only music production and general development?

What kind of development?

Example: Do you work on experiments that sucks up all resources of a computer? Like for example benchmarking, OpenCL/Cuda, CG, Game-Development or running a Network of many Virtual Machines?

If you don't do such work, then go with the Air 8GB. Otherwise wait for the next Pro, I heard rumors that it's going to be lighter.

Why does it need to be a Mac? Can't it be a high-end Ultrabook whose CPU and GPU are compatible with Hackintosh.

It doesn't /have/ to be a Mac, but the only ultrabooks I've seen which compare to Apple hardware are the Lenovo X1 Carbon and the Chromebook Pixel, both are comparatively priced anyway.

Mainly Ruby/Go (web/server) development. If I'm doing anything super intensive it will probably be remote anyway

The Lenovo Helix looks quite awesome. Which screen size do you prefer? I can do a quick look for you.

I've had a look at it, thanks for the suggestion - right now I think I'd rather stick with Apple hardware though (just personal taste in design), besides, I live in Australia and it's nowhere near being available here yet ;)

A friend of mine sells Notebooks of all kind in large electronic discounter. He said that the most reliable Notebooks were Asus followed by Apple, when it comes to repairs, problems etc. But I certainly do understand why you want a Mac. Quality.

Or you do it yourself :)

Here are some Toplists for Notebooks/Ultrabooks. Chip.de and Notebookcheck are actually testing the notebooks.

1) http://ultrabooknews.com/product-databank/

2) http://www.chip.de/bestenlisten/Bestenliste-Ultrabooks-Co.-b...

3) http://blog.laptopmag.com/top-10-ultrabooks

4) http://www.notebookcheck.com/Notebook-Kaufberatung.12901.0.h...

Notebookcheck is very cool, because it pre-filters Notebooks based on many criteria. I'm sorry it's german, couldn't find a good US site. You can use google-translate :)

You can also click the little American flag in the top right.

Notebookcheck is one of the first places I go when I'm looking for a new laptop.

If you're a student you get rebates! = more SDD/RAM

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