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Undecided Developer, need an opinion :)

M

Memole

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 26, 2013
81
0
Hello people of macrumors i have been using my really old black macbook from 2007 :D i really love it but since its ageing and cant upgrade ram :( so i need to get soon a new laptop in my case new macbook :)

I mainly use my laptop for causal web browsing and developing apps in C, objective C, PHP/CSS, Java, and C#...


So i need a opinion from fellow devs about thiese macbooks:

- Macbook air 13 inch with i5 Haswell CPU, 8GB of ram and 128GB of SSD
I do really love the mobility of Macbook air and now that its upgraded to haswell and have amazing battery life and new AC wifi so i wonder if this little fella is ok enough to be a Dev machine or not :)


- rMBP 15 inch with 16GB of ram and 256GB of SSD
What i really love about this macbook is IPS screen and of course retina display that i could scale to any resolution which is important for web design and the 15 inch screen is better than 13 inch tho currently only downside of rMBP is that battery life is not impressive as macbook air and that current gen rMBP is not updated to haswell and that it doesnt have ac :(

as i want to change my old black macbook in till August/September

but not sure if rMBP 15 haswell is worth the wait or to go straight away with macbook air or current gen rMBP 15...
 
I'm developer in web, mobile apps and EDC.
...
Now I'm using 13" retina display with 240GB SSD. it's more than enough.
 
lagisibuk said:
I'm developer in web, mobile apps and EDC.
...
Now I'm using 13" retina display with 240GB SSD. it's more than enough.
Click to expand...

thanks for reply :) since macbook air and rMBP 13 inch have similar hardware what you said that i wont have any issues with 13 inch macbook air with 8 GB of ram?
 
go for the rmbp. the air's great if you're traveling lots (battery and weight), beyond that the extra weight and skinnyness is no big deal.. its not worth not having the extra specs* and retina screen.

* 8gb is "enough" but check out activity monitor right now, you're probably at 500mb free.. ram makes all the diff.

rMBP is the way to go.
 
Retina MacBook Pro not close. I am also a fellow developer and writing apps on this beautiful screen couldn't be better. It really changes the experience for the better and makes me actually wants to sit down and draw something because of the screen. I have the maxed out 15" version but get what you need. Even the base model will do you plenty.
 
Well ocassionaly i do travel time to time, as i don't mind extra weight so i will probably go for the rMBP 15 16GB of ram as i want to keep laptop for next couple of years. Since both air and rMBP are not user upgradeable and air offers 8GB of ram tops and rMBP 15 offers 16GB of ram so at least i won't have to worry about it for next couple of years :)

Once again thanks guys for replys i really appreciate it :)
 
Memole said:
Well ocassionaly i do travel time to time, as i don't mind extra weight so i will probably go for the rMBP 15 16GB of ram as i want to keep laptop for next couple of years. Since both air and rMBP are not user upgradeable and air offers 8GB of ram tops and rMBP 15 offers 16GB of ram so at least i won't have to worry about it for next couple of years :)

Once again thanks guys for replys i really appreciate it :)
Click to expand...

Since you mention developing in C# I assume that means you're running Windows in some form. 8 gb is marginal when running Windows in a virtual machine. 16 is the way to go.
 
i'm using a 13 MBP for web design right now, and the screen estate is seriously inefficient.

i'd go for at least 15 inch, though the retina is complementary unless you're doing hi-res work.
 
sofianito said:
13" rMBP or cMBP?
Click to expand...

Xcallibur said:
It'll mean the cMBP, its a bit too small for designing websites (designing in general to be honest). The rMBP 1680x1050 resolution is perfectly adequate for designing on.
Click to expand...

yup, he's right....mine's cMBP.

either cMBP or rMBP is the same, even though rMBP have better pixel density it doesn't really help if you have a pretty lousy screen estate to begin with.
and no, i don't think macbook air helps either.

15" is still better for productivity.
 
glenthompson said:
Since you mention developing in C# I assume that means you're running Windows in some form. 8 gb is marginal when running Windows in a virtual machine. 16 is the way to go.
Click to expand...

yea i do run windows but i usually do triple boot in EFI as i avoid bootcamp/BIOS and since i dont have lot of ram on my current black macbook ( it have only 4GB RAM ) thats why i dont do virtual machine...

I will go for a 15 inch rMBP with 16GB of ram as future proof laptop :)
 
I'd highly recommend a Retina display simply because you will be looking at a lot of coding which is text in general. I love the Retina display and I can't have any other screen now ;)

Best to have a look in store
 
I'd go with the rMBP and I think a 15" display gives you more screen real estate.

I found (for my needs) that the 13" was too small but YMMV
 
I do similar work and think the 15" rMBP is the way to go too. It has the same 'native' resolution as the 13" MBA but can go higher if necessary and still look better than the MBA.

There are deals around on the current 15" rMBP, not directly from Apple, of course. If you wait until the rMPB's are updated (and who really knows when that is going to be) third party prices will be close to Apple's for a while.
 
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