MacBook Neo: A Software Developer's Perspective

[tutubibi]

Appreciate this write up. I loathe traveling with my Macbook Pro because it was so ridiculously expensive and I'm always worrying about it. A travel development laptop would be just what I'm interested in.

Not sure what type of development you're doing, but as mentioned above, this device works very well as a travel development laptop for my primary workloads (.NET/C# and Xcode/Swift).

Xcode performs surprisingly well, with relatively fast build times even on complex projects. Simulator performance is very good. I also tested PHP and Python workloads, results are more than acceptable.

However, Node.js, npm, and TypeScript/Angular development shows a more noticeable performance drop from M-level machines. Performance scales down with the number of project dependencies (is it related to SSD performance?).

Android Studio and Rider are usable for both editing and building, they occasionally become somewhat unresponsive, but nothing too frustrating. The one significant dark spot is the Android Emulator. It is very slow and unresponsive. Debugging with the emulator is almost unusable and feels like stepping back to the Android development experience of 2011.

 

[raythompsontn]

If you saw a row in the list saying "Lightroom .... 100%"

No row, just the total CPU utilization at the bottom of the activity monitor.

You can manually set it to low power mode whenever you want.

I didn’t, and why would I want to when I am using the power adapter?

The Mac mini only has one fan.

Ok. I thought the discussion was laptops. You may have a bad fan in your Mac mini.

 

[MisterSavage]

Not sure what type of development you're doing, but as mentioned above, this device works very well as a travel development laptop for my primary workloads (.NET/C# and Xcode/Swift).

Xcode/Swift app development!

 

[tutubibi]

Xcode/Swift app development!

In that case, you will probably be fine with Neo as a travel development machine. My current projects are mostly mid-sized SwiftUI projects and no issues at all. I still have to try with larger "legacy" projects but I see no reasons why it would not be adequate for that as well.

 

[MisterSavage]

In that case, you will probably be fine with Neo as a travel development machine. My current projects are mostly mid-sized SwiftUI projects and no issues at all. I still have to try with larger "legacy" projects but I see no reasons why it would not be adequate for that as well.

Appreciate all the info. Mid-sized SwiftUI (or smaller) is me.

 

[ry-guy]

Swift/Xcode

I thought Xcode required 16gb ram to work. I guess that’s not the case then? If so, then this Neo might be on my radar