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It depends on what you are doing. My Macbook Pro stays nice and cool for light tasks, but for any gaming or processor intensive tasks is gets VERY hot. So hot I could burn myself, if I touched the wrong places on the case.
 
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I have a 2009 macbook (not pro) and it has never got hot just a little warm.

However I have not really taxed it much as is used for work.

this is web browsing, files an have burnt odd dvd or two but never got hot just warm.

I have never heard the fan running, but I know it does run and hear it on boot for few seconds if put ear close.
 
I have a MBA 2013 i7, it is always in a incipio transparent case, and it only has the fan on when it has been on the bedsheets for 20 minutes.
It is usually ice cold for the first 30 minutes of use, then the palmrests warm up a bit.
As the case radiates heat out from the back of the underside, it may get warm in summer if you wear a tshirt, but is not likely to be too hot unless you're using it somewhere warm.
 
My old 2009 Mac Book Pro got hot enough in mid summer in the south of France to burn my legs, while using it wearing shorts. I have seen the CPU temperature up to over 80ºC when doing intensive Photoshop work or batch converting a large number of DNG/RAW images with Capture One to 16 bit TIFF's. My more recent 15" Retina MacBook Pro gets hot but never as hot as the older one.
 
My old 2009 Mac Book Pro got hot enough in mid summer in the south of France to burn my legs, while using it wearing shorts. I have seen the CPU temperature up to over 80ºC when doing intensive Photoshop work or batch converting a large number of DNG/RAW images with Capture One to 16 bit TIFF's. My more recent 15" Retina MacBook Pro gets hot but never as hot as the older one.

Yes, but that is just near the Mediterranean sea and not an area suited to working outdoors in summer, even if it is outdoors with a cocktail to hand :) To be fair, you wouldn't do the same outdoors use of a laptop in tropical Qld, Australia either, you'd work inside under a fan or air-conditioning.
 
One day hopefully apple will make a portable computer that stays at around 40 degrees +-, and the fan doesn't click on what ever the task, maybe Skylake and 16GB RAM is the answer?

What I found with my rMBP is that you can reduce heat by:

1. disabling the processor's Turbo Boots with Turbo Boost Switcher.

2. disabling the discrete graphics card with gfxCardStatus

3. optionally, controlling the fans with smcFanControl
 
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Thx guys for your opinions.
I order a macbook pro r 256gb ram and will follow your tips.
 
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