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Macbook Pro 13" vs Mb 12" for Web Dev?

jagooch

jagooch

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 17, 2009
811
249
Denver, co
How does the heat output compare between the Macbook Pro and the Macbook 12"? for hear, noise, typing, and performance? My 13" Macbook Pro is easy to do web development on and very portable, but it burns my lap after working for 30 minutes. I'm stuck working that way sometimes when the conference table in the meeting room s full and I have to worm from a chair off along with the wall.

I have a personal 15" Macbook Pro that works great but it's too bulky to carry around the airport when I travel on flights. I'm looking at laptops because I cannot do ruby on rails development on my iPad Air.

I'm open to older models and returns as long as the laptop gets the job done.
 
As for Pros the newer the better I guess, although I have no first hand experience with the 13" model.

I have used the 12" MacBook and as you may know these things have no fans. Push them to the limited and they will heat up and throttle which results in less performance. That said I can't recall it ever getting too hot on my lap.

I'd usually recommend the non-touch bar 13" over the 12" for overall performance and features. I'd think it's also better at keeping it cool because it has a fan, but you could also say that the 12" is quieter.

What year 13" MBP do you currently use?
 
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sunapple said:
As for Pros the newer the better I guess, although I have no first hand experience with the 13" model.

I have used the 12" MacBook and as you may know these things have no fans. Push them to the limited and they will heat up and throttle which results in less performance. That said I can't recall it ever getting too hot on my lap.

I'd usually recommend the non-touch bar 13" over the 12" for overall performance and features. I'd think it's also better at keeping it cool because it has a fan, but you could also say that the 12" is quieter.

What year 13" MBP do you currently use?
Click to expand...

For my usage, which normally includes brackets, illustrator, photoshop, and sass, the 13" with touchbar seems to be ok. I have the i7 / 16gb / 512gb. I'm somewhat concerned about the battery life though.

I can't really tell if the i7 is draining it more quickly than the i5 would, but I started using it today (just brackets and safari) at about 1:00 and was down to about 30% at 7:00.

I only chose the i7 model for the ram, which I probably don't even need for what I do on the go.


Edit: sorry, I quoted the wrong post.
 
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My work computer is a 2015 13" i5 2.7ghz CPU w/8gb ram. It's nice, I take it with me everywhere around the office building since it's so portable. It does get really hot though.
 
I decided to get a refurb Macbook Pro 13" 2015 w/ 2.7Ghz CPU 8GB ram and 256GB SSD. It's going to main be for around the house, coffee shops, and travel. I chose it over the 2016 for the keyboard , USB ports, and lack of touch bar.

If I don't like it I can always return it.
 
jagooch said:
I decided to get a refurb Macbook Pro 13" 2015 w/ 2.7Ghz CPU 8GB ram and 256GB SSD. It's going to main be for around the house, coffee shops, and travel. I chose it over the 2016 for the keyboard , USB ports, and lack of touch bar.

If I don't like it I can always return it.
Click to expand...

One post earlier you wrote that you already had a 2015 model, but I'm guessing that was a typo then :) Good luck with your new machine!
 
turbineseaplane said:
Great point - God the new arrow keys situation sucks.
That's the one thing I don't like about the Magic Keyboard actually.

I have no idea why they did that - Awful decision
Click to expand...

What is it about the new arrows that you don't like exactly? Do you have a problem with the left/right being larger than they were before?

I'm using brackets most of the day and haven't really run into many issues with them yet. What I miss more than anything is home/end keys that you find on a desktop keyboard. Though there are probably key combinations to get around that.
 
sunapple said:
One post earlier you wrote that you already had a 2015 model, but I'm guessing that was a typo then :) Good luck with your new machine!
Click to expand...

No problem. My current personal Macbook Pro is a 15" that I bought in mid 2015, , , my work laptop that belongs to my employer is a 2015 13" Macbook Pro. I'm buying the 13" Macbook Pro for myself as well to take on trips, coffee shops, etc.

I haven't decided if I'll keep the 15" Macbook Pro or not. It's my most powerful computer but I don't like to carry it around due to its size. It makes a great workstation , though!
 
jagooch said:
No problem. My current personal Macbook Pro is a 15" that I bought in mid 2015, , , my work laptop that belongs to my employer is a 2015 13" Macbook Pro. I'm buying the 13" Macbook Pro for myself as well to take on trips, coffee shops, etc.

I haven't decided if I'll keep the 15" Macbook Pro or not. It's my most powerful computer but I don't like to carry it around due to its size. It makes a great workstation , though!
Click to expand...

Oh okay, figured that would be the least likely since you complained about the heat, but I guess the other options aren't too great either if you don't like the keyboard, port-situation or Touch Bar (I personally do, but hey).

If you use the 15" so little you might think that you don't really need the power. I have a 2015 15'' with dGPU and that's my only computer. I do need the power, otherwise I would've probably gone with the 12". Carrying it around for me is not too bad though, but I'm usually working in a room with desks.
 
Nik said:
When programming, the cursor keys will drive you insane with the 2016/2017 MBP or MB. Get the 2015 MBP instead. Beautiful machine.
Click to expand...

This, this, a thousand times this.

I've had my 12" rMB for over 2 years now - using it for web development - and I STILL cannot use the arrow keys without having to glance at the keyboard 50% of the time.

I'm a programmer - we don't often make mistakes on keyboards/shortcuts. But with this new key design, I jump around lines of code at random. It's terrible.

Besides that, the rMB is more than capable of web development. I use the standard web dev suite - Terminal for Gulp and npm scripts, Atom/Brackets, Safari/Chrome. Also running MySQL/Mongod/Apache servers.

And my MacBook is the oldest, weakest you can buy (1.1GHz Core-M 2015). If you get the 2017 model it'll do all of this with ease. The main downfall for rMBs is the stress an external display puts on the CPU (i.e. integrated GPU).
 
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andy9l said:
Besides that, the rMB is more than capable of web development. I use the standard web dev suite - Terminal for Gulp and npm scripts, Atom/Brackets, Safari/Chrome. Also running MySQL/Mongod/Apache servers.

And my MacBook is the oldest, weakest you can buy (1.1GHz Core-M 2015). If you get the 2017 model it'll do all of this with ease. The main downfall for rMBs is the stress an external display puts on the CPU (i.e. integrated GPU).
Click to expand...

I've used that exact same model for about three months before I got my new 15" and I've been wondering how the battery would hold up after years of use. What I heard was that it degrades faster over time than normal.

Keyboard is holding up okay? Stuck keys and the like even appear on butterfly v2...

I absolutely loved that machine, I even put it through some 3D CAD and Illustrator/Photoshop, held up fine.
 
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