Mid-2014 i7 or Mid-2017 i5 for Development

[tsprks]

For iOS development which system would be preferable. The options are 13" Mid-2017 i5-7360U with 8GB RAM or 15" Mid-2014 i7-4870HQ with 16GB RAM. Personally I'm leaning towards the 15", but I'm not sure that's the best choice. I can say that the 15" is in perfect condition and has only ever sat on a desk plugged up the entire time my company has had it. When I checked it's battery cycles I was very surprised to find that it only had 2 cycles.

 

[robvas]

My 2013 15" is a bit faster than my 2016 13" i7 for a lot of Java development tasks, I've ran them side-by-side

 

[Thornblom]

I love the screen space of the 15 inch. I'm about to replace my 2010 15 inch i7 / 8gb machine, and I have pretty much decided that 15 inch is the way to go. I use it for programming mainly. My girlfriends non-retina 13 inch Macbook Pro is a pain in the *** to work on, however, the high-res 13 inch screens might be much better, as you get virtually more screen space.

 

[oldtime]

I'd lean toward the 15" as well.

 

[jerryk]

For iOS development which system would be preferable. The options are 13" Mid-2017 i5-7360U with 8GB RAM or 15" Mid-2014 i7-4870HQ with 16GB RAM. Personally I'm leaning towards the 15", but I'm not sure that's the best choice. I can say that the 15" is in perfect condition and has only ever sat on a desk plugged up the entire time my company has had it. When I checked it's battery cycles I was very surprised to find that it only had 2 cycles.

I always found the 13" screen tight for development.