15" or 13" for elearning creation/Motion

[arnette]

Hello.....

I've been in the PC world for work related things and will soon venture to Mac for eLearning design and some lightweight Apple Motion stuff (lower 3rds, intro/outro bumpers). Work will buy me a 13" or 15" MacBook Pro.

I'm tempted to choose the 15" just because I've never had one before and they look awesome with great screen real estate. But will I tire of the weight and bulk if I bring home my laptop everyday?

Any real-world advice is appreciated!

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I have no idea on that software but

The 15 inch is much more powerful machine and the bigger screen will be great. It is about the same weight as the old 13 inch cMBP so if you have ever lifted one of those then you'll have an idea. As 15 inch laptops of that power go it is thin and light it is no ultrabook though.

 

[arnette]

The 15 inch is much more powerful machine and the bigger screen will be great. It is about the same weight as the old 13 inch cMBP so if you have ever lifted one of those then you'll have an idea. As 15 inch laptops of that power go it is thin and light it is no ultrabook though.

Thanks for your comment. I suppose I'll need to manhandle each model at the Apple Store and make a best guess. It's hard to get a real-world feel for hiking a larger laptop around. I used to have a Dell XPS 15 at a previous job and I hated moving that thing around - but I think that it was mostly due with the crappy build quality. I swear I could feel that Dell sag if I carried it around horizontally from the edge.

The eLearning programs (Articulate Storyline, Screenflow) aren't too taxing though Storyline is PC only and would need to go through Parallels. It's the screen real estate that would be the big advantage.

 

[pubb]

Max out the RAM if you are considering Parallels. I have a mid-2010 MBP sporting a flash drive and bumped the RAM to 16GB. It boots in under 30 seconds and in full screen, Windows 7 responds like it is native. Yes, a 4 year old laptop is plugging away perfectly. It did take a few hundred bucks of upgrades, but it still costs less than a Retina MBP.

Pubb