Ask HN: Can a 15-inch Retina MBP substitute an external monitor? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can a 15-inch Retina MBP substitute an external monitor?

2 pointsratsimihah7 comments

I'm aware that the rMBP has a usable resolution of 1900x1200 at most, and that 2880x1800 is unfortunately unusable due to readability issues, so my question could be reformulated as "Can a developer comfortably code on a 1900*1200 resolution without external monitor"?

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In my experience, that can be comfortable on a part-time basis, but less so -- perhaps significantly less so -- on a full-time basis. I find myself overwhelmingly more productive with an external display. When I'm onsite, I typically use my rmbp lid-down with a 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display (2560x1440).

Thank you, that's what I was afraid of. It seems the upgrade to 15" retina is not worth it and I should stick with a 13" Air then.

No worries! In my mind, there are only a few situations where I feel the 15" rmbp is particularly worth it (for developers):

1. If you're offsite far more than you're onsite.

2. If you need >8 GiB of RAM.

Of course, if you expect to do much gaming on your laptop, you may want a laptop with a dGPU. *8-)

I actually am offsite a lot more than I am onsite at the moment, and maybe for the next couple months. I bought the low-end 15" rMBP to test it. 1920*1200 actually provides a lot of real estate while being quite usable. I'll see within the next two weeks how much it can increase my productivity. But it is really heavy.

Agreed on the gaming part. But one wouldn't buy a Mac to play games lol.

So, the 15 inch retina can drive a large external monitor at high resolution (full resolution). This is worth a lot to me. I connect it to a dell ultrasharp via a thunderbolt cable.

I have a 15" MBP and I run it at 2880x1800 (not in HiDPI mode) by using RetinaDisplayMenu. I've been working without an external monitor like this for ~6 months now.

Really? It's kind of usable but it requires being really close to the monitor. I find 1920*1200 more comfortable.

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