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How portable is the TB MBP 15" vs. 13"

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wnxgenral

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 14, 2008
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Can anyone comment on their first few days of transporting the TB MBP 15" to different locations? How portable is it? Is it light enough to justify the additional screen realestate and compute power?

I am a current MBP 13" late 2012 owner and considering the new TB MBP 15" for the additional screen realestate and power. I travel 200k+ miles per year and am on the road 75%. Does anyone that travels a similar amount carry the 15"?
 
I had the 15 along side of the 13 both 2016, both TB. I returned the 15 mainly because of portability and because I couldn't more than 7-8 hours of battery life with it. That may have changed if I did the things I did to this 13 TB, stripping everything out of it basically.

Overall the 15 was too big for what I use it for, I always felt like I was going to drop it. Thing about it is it's really wide compared to the 13. I honestly came into this thinking the 13 was too small and in some ways I wish I had one more inch of screen on it because the best thing about the 15 is the screen. But I just feel I ever want a big screen I will dock the 13 on 4k screen.

Both laptops are heavy, but the 15 just felt too large and wobbly on my lap, the 13 is perfect you can toss it around easy without fear of dropping or wacking it into something. For me the 13 just worked better, but the 15 is nice for power and screen space, portability is better than it was but it's still a large heavy laptop.

Maybe buy both and do a side by side, you can just return the one you don't want.
 
wnxgenral said:
Can anyone comment on their first few days of transporting the TB MBP 15" to different locations? How portable is it? Is it light enough to justify the additional screen realestate and compute power?

I am a current MBP 13" late 2012 owner and considering the new TB MBP 15" for the additional screen realestate and power. I travel 200k+ miles per year and am on the road 75%. Does anyone that travels a similar amount carry the 15"?
Click to expand...

You have a 13' 2012 MBP:
Height: 1.9cm
Width: 31.4cm
Depth: 21.9cm
Weight: 3.57lbs

2016 15' MBP:
Height: 1.55cm
Width: 34.93cm
Depth: 24.07cm
Weight: 4.02lbs

If you found your current 13' inch laptop to be portable, you should have no issues with the 2016 15' laptop in terms of portability (only .45 lbs heavier).

The current 15' is shorter by .35cm, and is only 3.5cm bigger in width (~1.4inches), and about 2.2 cm bigger in depth (.86 inches). Makes sense since it is a bigger screen.

The footprint of the current 15' inch model is smaller than last years too, and the machine is highly portable (At the expense of many other things people are upset about), so if portability is a key factor for you, then the current 15' should cause no issues for you going from a 13' late 2012 to a current 15'. You can always return your MBP too if it doesn't work.

I'm someone who use to use 13' and went to a 15', and I can honestly say I wont be going back to a 13 inch, there are just too many benefits with a 15 inch for what I use it for and the portability is not an issue.
 
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I went from a 13" Air to the 15" Pro... I had always gone 13" for portability, but the new 15" was small enough now that I decided to switch. I find it very close to my previous Air -- slightly heavier, slightly larger, but it doesn't feel particularly different when carrying it around. And I find the increased screen real estate to be even more valuable than I had hoped.
 
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poorcody said:
I went from a 13" Air to the 15" Pro... I had always gone 13" for portability, but the new 15" was small enough now that I decided to switch. I find it very close to my previous Air -- slightly heavier, slightly larger, but it doesn't feel particularly different when carrying it around. And I find the increased screen real estate to be even more valuable than I had hoped.
Click to expand...
Great to hear! I'm also switching from 13" (rMBP 2013) to 15" and it's only a 250g increase.
 
The 15" model is less portable because it's unwieldy to transport when open, due to the moment of inertia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia) when holding it from one side of the top case.

If you're closing up the laptop and packing into a bag like a backpack or carrying it under your arm, then the difference in size/weight from the 13" is pretty negligible.

Where the 13" really excels in portability is when you have it open, and are trying to move from the desk to to sofa or from the sofa to the bed.
 
If OP is near a BestBuy or Apple Store they should be able to find a stock MacBook Pro 13" and 15". If not they should have the most recent MacBook Air. The 13" is a quarter of a pound lighter than the 13" MacBook Pro w/ Touch Bar (MBP:TB). If you feel the weight of that you're quite closely approximating what the 13" will feel like relative to weight. The new MacBook Pro is thinner than the MacBook Air at the hinge area.
 
Went from 13" retina mbp to 15" mbp+tb, it definitely feels huge in comparison. And before the 13" mbp I had like 6 15" MBPs before so I was a 15mbp guy for sure. I went with 15" coz the better processor.

the weight delta isn't much, but since now to use the Thunderbolt Display at work I have to carry the power adapter, usb-c power cable, and tb3->tb dongle, the total weight of the 2016 15mbp rig is definitely quite a bit more than the 13". Obviously I can fix this by buying an extra set of those.
 
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