Maxed out 13" MacBook Pro as the best Portable?

[Larrabee213]

Right now I have two laptops that I work on. One mostly for home and one mostly for travel (2x/month minimum)

Home - 15" 2013 Retina Macbook Pro, 512GB SSD, 16GB Ram, 2GB 750m

Road - 13" 2015 Retina Macbook Pro, 256GB SSD, 8GB Ram, Intel 6100

After a few months, I am finding it a bit of a hassle to bounce back and forth between these especially when working on longer projects. Drop box has helped.

But I am wondering if a 2015 13" Macbook Pro with 512GB SSD and 16GB of Ram would be just right?

I edit a few hours of video a week in Premiere, but it is mostly just chopping it up and adding titles then exporting a 720p file and then making smaller versions with handbreak.

I sometimes use Final Cut for shorter 5-10 minute videos with some extra effects.

The big issues with the current 13" rMPB is that while encoding video it is super sluggish. I am guessing that the 16GB of ram would help with that?

Also if price isn't a factor, should I go with the i7 in the maxed out 13" rMBP? Just worried about heat and battery life when doing non intensive work. I hate how hot my 15" always is.

Thanks in advance for the suggestions.

 

[TheIguana]

I edit a few hours of video a week in Premiere, but it is mostly just chopping it up and adding titles then exporting a 720p file and then making smaller versions with handbreak.

Are you using the current Creative Cloud version of Premiere Pro or an older version? The reason I ask is it could affect if you are using hardware acceleration or not which results in considerable speedups while using Premiere Pro. You will want to make sure you are at bare minimum using the Mercury Acceleration Engine via OpenCL.

The big issues with the current 13" rMPB is that while encoding video it is super sluggish. I am guessing that the 16GB of ram would help with that?

The 15" has a quad-core processor in it, meaning it will be able to chew through video a lot more readily than the 13"s dual core processor. Additionally, the 750M in your 15" is going to give you much better hardware acceleration than the 13"s integrated graphics (the Iris 6100 is still a good card).

Also if price isn't a factor, should I go with the i7 in the maxed out 13" rMBP? Just worried about heat and battery life when doing non intensive work. I hate how hot my 15" always is.

General consensus is that the i7 upgrade for the 13" is very costly for the performance boost it offers.

Just worried about heat and battery life when doing non intensive work. I hate how hot my 15" always is.

What apps are you using when you say it is running "hot"? Under normal non-load conditions a 15" should run on par from a heat perspective compared to a 13" That changes though when it is under load.

 

[TechZeke]

Right now I have two laptops that I work on. One mostly for home and one mostly for travel (2x/month minimum)

Home - 15" 2013 Retina Macbook Pro, 512GB SSD, 16GB Ram, 2GB 750m

Road - 13" 2015 Retina Macbook Pro, 256GB SSD, 8GB Ram, Intel 6100

After a few months, I am finding it a bit of a hassle to bounce back and forth between these especially when working on longer projects. Drop box has helped.

But I am wondering if a 2015 13" Macbook Pro with 512GB SSD and 16GB of Ram would be just right?

I edit a few hours of video a week in Premiere, but it is mostly just chopping it up and adding titles then exporting a 720p file and then making smaller versions with handbreak.

I sometimes use Final Cut for shorter 5-10 minute videos with some extra effects.

The big issues with the current 13" rMPB is that while encoding video it is super sluggish. I am guessing that the 16GB of ram would help with that?

Also if price isn't a factor, should I go with the i7 in the maxed out 13" rMBP? Just worried about heat and battery life when doing non intensive work. I hate how hot my 15" always is.

Thanks in advance for the suggestions.

I'd stick with the 15". The 15" is thin and light for the performance it offers. The 15" also offers considerably more performance than the 13" for the amount of money you'd spend on a maxed out 13". No amount of RAM and SSD is going to compensate for the lack of GPU and CPU power.

My 15" rMBP is light enough for me to carry around all-day everyday. It's not like we are talking about 15" cMBP vs 11" MBA here.

 

[Larrabee213]

Are you using the current Creative Cloud version of Premiere Pro or an older version? The reason I ask is it could affect if you are using hardware acceleration or not which results in considerable speedups while using Premiere Pro. You will want to make sure you are at bare minimum using the Mercury Acceleration Engine via OpenCL.



The 15" has a quad-core processor in it, meaning it will be able to chew through video a lot more readily than the 13"s dual core processor. Additionally, the 750M in your 15" is going to give you much better hardware acceleration than the 13"s integrated graphics (the Iris 6100 is still a good card).



General consensus is that the i7 upgrade for the 13" is very costly for the performance boost it offers.



What apps are you using when you say it is running "hot"? Under normal non-load conditions a 15" should run on par from a heat perspective compared to a 13" That changes though when it is under load.

As for the cost, I would be going refurbished, so the maxed out with i7 would still be less than without it new.

Everything with Adobe is up to date.

Heats up with things like Pages, keynote, and obviously Chrome.

 

[Dark Void]

I don't think it would be a good idea to limit yourself to the 13'' if you use applications that take advantage of multiple cores or those that are GPU intensive.

You can add as much RAM as you want to the 13'' - and not to downgrade its capabilities but - it will still be dual-core with an integrated GPU.

For what you've listed I would stick with your quad-core machine.