Selling my gaming pc for a mbp. Need some advice

[BootLoxes]

I havent really gamed in the last 3 years or so yet kept upgrading my desktop. I can easily pull in around $1000 from selling it and was looking at getting the base mbp 13 for programming. Its mostly a hobby but for some time I have been wanting to learn swift. I have been using the ipad playgrounds app for a while now but i want to move up to the real deal.

I am eyeing the 256gb base model. Would this be good for programming?

 

[MrGunnyPT]

I havent really gamed in the last 3 years or so yet kept upgrading my desktop. I can easily pull in around $1000 from selling it and was looking at getting the base mbp 13 for programming. Its mostly a hobby but for some time I have been wanting to learn swift. I have been using the ipad playgrounds app for a while now but i want to move up to the real deal.

I am eyeing the 256gb base model. Would this be good for programming?

Yep pretty much, the 15 is great for screen real estate and if you do some virtualisation the i7 and extra RAM helps but that's it

 

[BootLoxes]

Yep pretty much, the 15 is great for screen real estate and if you do some virtualisation the i7 and extra RAM helps but that's it

I dont really do vitualization. It would just be for switch programming (nothing big at all. I would probably have upgraded by the time I reached a point where I could build something decent in swift), web browsing, media consumption, and writing documents on the apple docs app

 

[ipponrg]

I havent really gamed in the last 3 years or so yet kept upgrading my desktop. I can easily pull in around $1000 from selling it and was looking at getting the base mbp 13 for programming. Its mostly a hobby but for some time I have been wanting to learn swift. I have been using the ipad playgrounds app for a while now but i want to move up to the real deal.

I am eyeing the 256gb base model. Would this be good for programming?

The 13” real estate is too small for programming. I would go 15”. If you plan to always hook up to a monitor then 13” might be ok. Also, you will have buyers remorse later when you need that extra horse power

 

[MrGunnyPT]

The 13” real estate is too small for programming. I would go 15”. If you plan to always hook up to a monitor then 13” might be ok. Also, you will have buyers remorse later when you need that extra horse power

Exactly the issue I had once I started using 4K displays and multiple virtual machines.. This 13" suffers a lot with me lol.. Pushing it to the ultimate max.. Only missing video editing to make it unusable

 

[Howard2k]

I have a 13" and have done some basic programming on it.

Incredibly I can also use it for Lightroom. I know, sounds impossible, but it can be done.

It's really personal preference. And in either case (15" or 13") you can get more real estate with SideCar or a second monitor. Or even both.

 

[recurrence]

Don't buy with the current keyboards. I've had every generation of MBP through work and they're all terrible.

 

[BootLoxes]

Don't buy with the current keyboards. I've had every generation of MBP through work and they're all terrible.

But they all come with 4 year replacements without the need for applecare though.

 

[Howard2k]

But they all come with 4 year replacements without the need for applecare though.

They do, but then you're faced with a $750 repair bill. Or whoever you sell it to is. I wouldn't buy a used MacBook Pro that is 3 years into that 4 year replacement program. I wouldn't buy one at all, but that's a particularly strong concern.

 

[maflynn]

But they all come with 4 year replacements without the need for applecare though.

What happens on year 5? You'll be on the hook to pay 750 dollars. If your plan is not to hold onto the laptop for more then 4 years, then all is good - at least with having the keyboard covered by Apple

 

[btraill]

I have the i9 | 16GB RAM | 512GB SSD | Radeon 560x and I do light gaming and development work. (With some minimal virtualization using Parallels)

On a heavy workload my machine is using about 11 gigs of RAM.

I would definitely agree with others to go the 15" route over the 13". (Unless you could really care less about screen real estate)

If you aren't doing any virtualization the base model should suit your needs. Even with some light virtualization things would be OK, you just may notice some contention within the OS.

 

[BootLoxes]

What happens on year 5? You'll be on the hook to pay 750 dollars. If your plan is not to hold onto the laptop for more then 4 years, then all is good - at least with having the keyboard covered by Apple

I tend to replace laptops every 3-4 years so I will be fine.

I have the i9 | 16GB RAM | 512GB SSD | Radeon 560x and I do light gaming and development work. (With some minimal virtualization using Parallels)

On a heavy workload my machine is using about 11 gigs of RAM.

I would definitely agree with others to go the 15" route over the 13". (Unless you could really care less about screen real estate)

If you aren't doing any virtualization the base model should suit your needs. Even with some light virtualization things would be OK, you just may notice some contention within the OS.

I have a 42" 4k monitor at home if I need extra real estate. I dont need a gpu nor want to pay over $2k for a laptop so the 13" is my only real choice. I wish they would make a 15" without a gpu again but it does not seem possible anymore