Is the MBP 13 inch good enough for Xcode development?

[Glutenbob]

I am talking about the low end 13 inch, i5 2.4ghz dual core processor with 4GB of RAM.

Or should I invest in one of the 15 or 17 inch quad core models?

 

[MacaDroid]

What type of development are you planning on doing?

 

[Glutenbob]

Just regular iphone/ipad app stuff. I want to make a 2D platformer with ither Cocos2D or OpenGL ES by the end of the year. Most of my work will be apps that use openGL ES.

 

[MacaDroid]

Just regular iphone/ipad app stuff. I want to make a 2D platformer with ither Cocos2D or OpenGL ES by the end of the year. Most of my work will be apps that use openGL ES.

I think the 13" model would be fine for that, but if you can shell out the money just get the 15".

 

[ninja2000]

it will be fine performance wise.

But... Are you planning on programming using the laptops screen or an external LCD? I do some light work on my 13" but the 1280x800 screen is a killer. even 1440x900 is difficult. I mostly work at my desk with an external @ 1080p which is perfect for me

 

[azentropy]

Definitely performance wise. But as others have echoed the display is small.

Rather than springing the extra $$ for a 15 inch, which is still small, you can get a great 24" IPS monitor for $300. That way you have a portable when you need it, but when docked you get a much bigger screen.

 

[Glutenbob]

I have a 23inch ASUS monitor that I can connect to. So I think im set. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Menge]

I use a 13" MBP to program in Xcode and it's fine. The only thing I do is add 8GB of RAM to it so it doesn't choke when I have Photoshop + Xcode + Instruments + iOS Simulator + Firefox + iTunes + Twitterrific open