Questions to 13 inch 2018 MBP Owners

[semistandard]

I am trying hard to decide which one (15 or 13) to get, and there are few questions I'd like to ask about the 13 model.

The main selling point of the 13 model is portability. However, the 15 model is not that heavy or big for me. It seems rather small one for a laptop in its class. So carrying it around is not a big deal. And it fits almost any "desk" I can think of. So the portability advantage of 13 model boils to the following question - can it be used not on a desk (lap or bed for example) for non-intensive tasks? (Coding, writing papers, browsing, listening to music, occasionally watching videos). I understand that it is unreasonable to expect it do heavy work while not on a hard surface. And what about its battery life. It is part of "portability" actually. Laptop can not be portable if it needs to be connected to work. So - how many hours do you get? How far is it from the advertised 10 hours?

Second - how are the thermals? Really. Some people told that 15 model can get uncomfortable to type on when the laptop is stressed. Did any of you have similar experience with 13 model?

Third - How well does it handle external monitors? I am getting it mainly for ios development, and there is a chance I need external monitors if I need extra "real estate". Does it cause the temps to increase like in the 15 model?

Fourth - have any of you tried using it with eGPU yet? How would you describe the experience? Is it smooth? Or low-power processor is still a bottleneck? At the moment it is not necessary, however I might connect it when working with Unity/Unreal. (I am using my Windows PC for this purposes at the moment). How does it affect the temperatures?

 

[stormchasejg]

I am trying hard to decide which one (15 or 13) to get, and there are few questions I'd like to ask about the 13 model.

The main selling point of the 13 model is portability. However, the 15 model is not that heavy or big for me. It seems rather small one for laptops in its class. So carrying it around is not a big deal. And it fits almost any "desk" I can think of. So the portability advantage of 13 model boils to the following question - can it be used not on a desk (lap or bed for example) for non-intensive tasks? (Coding, writing papers, browsing, listening to music, occasionally watching videos). I understand that it is unreasonable to expect it do heavy work while not on a hard surface. And what about its battery life. It is part of "portability" actually. Laptop can not be portable if it needs to be connected to work. So - how many hours do you get? How far is it from the advertised 10 hours?

Second - how are the thermals? Really. Some people told that 15 model can get uncomfortable to type on when the laptop is stressed. Did any of you have similar experience with 13 model?

Third - How well does it handle external monitors? I am getting it mainly for ios development, and there is a chance I need external monitors if I need extra "real estate". Does it cause the temps to increase like in the 15 model?

Fourth - have any of you tried using it with eGPU yet? How would you describe the experience? Is it smooth? Or low-power processor is still a bottleneck? At the moment it is not necessary, however I might connect it when working with Unity/Unreal. (I am using my Windows PC for this purposes at the moment). How does it affect the temperatures?

1. Yes 13” can be used on a lap etc even for intensive tasks, the cooling on the new model seems better than my old 2013 model even though I’ve old had it since yesterday afternoon it was doing lots of intensive tasks whilst on my lap/sofa with no problems the fans would kick in to keep it cool.
Can’t comment on battery life just yet as I haven’t had it long enough but will report back after a few days of testing.

2. Haven’t noticed any problems with thermals, fans seem to kick in earlier than on my old one but this means it stays cool and doesn’t get uncomfortable.

3. Haven’t tried external monitors yet as still waiting for my dock to arrive and I don’t own any thunderbolt displays (sadly) but I find theirs plenty of screen space and I don’t know why but it seems larger than my old one but I know it’s not!

4. Don’t personally own an eGPU but from the reviews I’ve heard they work really well and can even beat the performance of the 15” with dGPU. I rarely do enough tasks that would require one so for my use it’d be overkill.

I’ve had my 2018 13” TB 2.7GHz i7, 16GB, 512GB Flash, for little under half a day now but the time so far has been a vast improvement and I don’t regret it yet. Sorry I wasn’t able to be more help hopefully someone with more use can confirm your other details

 

[semistandard]

1. Yes 13” can be used on a lap etc even for intensive tasks, the cooling on the new model seems better than my old 2013 model even though I’ve old had it since yesterday afternoon it was doing lots of intensive tasks whilst on my lap/sofa with no problems the fans would kick in to keep it cool.
Can’t comment on battery life just yet as I haven’t had it long enough but will report back after a few days of testing.

2. Haven’t noticed any problems with thermals, fans seem to kick in earlier than on my old one but this means it stays cool and doesn’t get uncomfortable.

3. Haven’t tried external monitors yet as still waiting for my dock to arrive and I don’t own any thunderbolt displays (sadly) but I find theirs plenty of screen space and I don’t know why but it seems larger than my old one but I know it’s not!

4. Don’t personally own an eGPU but from the reviews I’ve heard they work really well and can even beat the performance of the 15” with dGPU. I rarely do enough tasks that would require one so for my use it’d be overkill.

I’ve had my 2018 13” TB 2.7GHz i7, 16GB, 512GB Flash, for little under half a day now but the time so far has been a vast improvement and I don’t regret it yet. Sorry I wasn’t able to be more help hopefully someone with more use can confirm your other details

Thanks.

Just curious - what do you mean by intensive tasks

 

[matthewadams]

Second - how are the thermals? Really. Some people told that 15 model can get uncomfortable to type on when the laptop is stressed. Did any of you have similar experience with 13 model?

Third - How well does it handle external monitors? I am getting it mainly for ios development, and there is a chance I need external monitors if I need extra "real estate". Does it cause the temps to increase like in the 15 model?

Fourth - have any of you tried using it with eGPU yet? How would you describe the experience? Is it smooth? Or low-power processor is still a bottleneck? At the moment it is not necessary, however I might connect it when working with Unity/Unreal. (I am using my Windows PC for this purposes at the moment). How does it affect the temperatures?

Hey, I recently upgraded my work laptop from a heavy 15" (2015) to the 13" (2018), due to portability for meetings mostly.

Overall the machine feels much faster than my previous 15" one (which I mainly used for development, I have since transitioned to management, thus the need for higher portability).

Can't speak to one, because I leave the laptop mostly at my desk and only take it out for meetings, but so far haven't experienced anything bad.

The thermals seem fine, even with 3 monitors (2 externals, one of them even 4K) the temps are around 36-45C in idle. I rarely hear the fans spinning up, even under load.

Overall I'm very happy with this machine.

I do have a 15" at home though, and yes, it is roughly 10C warmer than the 13" on idle.

 

[anpaman]

For MBP 13' 2018 while playing 1080 video in youtube, would fan spinning up ?

 

[maflynn]

However, the 15 model is not that heavy or big for me.

Me either, and while I'm not trying to derail this thread, I do prefer the 15". Don't get me wrong, with the 2018 model, the 13" is a fine machine. I think in years past the difference between dual core and quad core was more severe. Now that the 13" is quad core, the performance is high enough that you cannot exclude the 13" based solely on that.

I prefer the larger display, but that's a story for a different thread.

 

[leman]

1. Both 13" and 15" can be used on a lap (I am using a 2018 15" on a lap right now) without issues. Both are smaller then an average 13" or 15" laptop on the market. Battery life is same as it always been with Macs — among the best on the market. And yes, the 13" is significantly smaller and more portable than the 15". Still, if you re coming from pre-retina 15", with will feel like a feather to you.

2. Both will obviously get hot under heavy load. Uncomfortable to type on though? Nonsense. The 15" has more opportunities to get hot because it has a second GPU (which alone can develop as much or more heat as the CPU in the 13" alone).

3. It handles external monitors just fine. And yes, connecting an external monitor will put the GPU in a higher power state, leading to more heat. With 13" its less pronounced (due to lack of dGPU), but ist there.