Developing on 13" MBP

I used to use a 13-inch MBP for my developing and web design (Xcode and Espresso). Although at times it felt cramped, it was a really portable machine and worked really great. Speed wise, it's perfectly fast enough to compile even large amounts of files. Right now, I use a 15-inch MBP, a 24-inch iMac, and a 27-inch iMac for iOS development. You could always buy a cheap monitor and connect it to the MBP when you want a larger screen size.

That being said, Xcode 4 takes up a huge amount of room on your screen now (at least in my opinion). So you might find that running Xcode 4 on the 13-inch machine will be too cramped. Best bet is to visit an Apple Store and setup a mock screen of what you'll be doing. You might want to see what the screen will look like when you have a video playing in one corner, coding in the rest of the screen.

 

Development on 1280x800? Yuck!

I used to develop on my 1280x800 Black Macbook. The experience was utterly horrible. It was very much cramped. There was not enough space for both the IDE and references pages. Even if there was, there was not enough vertical space to look at a good amount of code.

Ended up selling it at a loss and then moving to a Full HD MBP 17.

Screen estate is probably the single most important factor to consider in a development computer. Don't underestimate its importance.

 

I pretty much have your same needs. I had a 2010 13" MBP and I recently upgraded to a 15" due to overwhelming resolution-frustration...love the screen there but to be honest I am not 100% in love with its bulk. I would wait and see what is the Sandy Bridge rev of the Air going to be...if they squeeze a decent processor on the 13" I am going for another swap...

 

screen is too small IMO

 

I find the 13" too small and cramped for coding. So use a 15" for those sorts of tasks.

 

13" was fine for me... There was only a few times I wished for a larger screen resolution, and this was coming from a 15.4 1680x1050 laptop.
I did have a desktop at home though, the 13" macbook was only used for coding at school.