Ask HN: What are your opinions and experiences coding on a 13“ or 15” laptop?

I recommend having two monitors, I like working with two monitors, it's better than working with only notebooks monitor.

I second @ramon's answer. . Usedto be with a 13" monitor but bought a 15" alongside it now Fulfilled. .!

If you're set on a laptop, my advice is to buy the smallest physical laptop that has the specs you require and then get a dock (something like http://hengedocks.com/) and monitors for working at home.

A 13'' only useful for short coding sessions on a plane or small train seats, for other locations it is just too small, specially if you are into IDEs.

This is why I tend to buy 14" laptops.

15" is too big to fit in train and airplane seats comfortably, but 13" is too small to get lots of work done.

However, I guess that rules out a MacBook Pro - oh well.

I like having dual setups, but 13 inches is fine by me (MBA 13") Would I like 15? Probably, but I'm not missing the extra size when I can plug a second or third monitor

I just upgraded from a 13" MacBook Pro w/ Retina to the 15" version. Key Reasons:

- Display Space: Even when set to the highest possible virtual resolution, there is still noticeable more space on the 15" version. It's still way worse than a 27" display, but the difference makes me more productive.

- RAM: Retina eats RAM. I could run several browsers, VMs, editors etc. just fine on a 4GB MacBook Air. When I upgraded to a 13" MBPr, I was constantly running out of RAM, the machine began swapping and became barely usable. With the 16GB 15" MBPr, it's a very noticeable difference. I easily run into >8GB RAM usage. In addition, when there's available physical RAM, OS X caches some stuff from the SSD which speeds it up further.

Funny, I also have an old Dell laptop, and I LOVE the keyboard on that thing. It literally makes my fingers happy to use. It was a tough decision to finally adopt another solution (below), but I finally did it.

I use a de-Chromed Chrome book (acer c720) with xubuntu for personal projects these days. I do java/j2ee on a macbook pro for work, I never use it as a laptop, it's always docked. For personal projects on the chrome book, I code apache/python/django/vim, which run wonderfully on it. The smaller screen does take some getting used to, and the nonstandard keyboard takes some remapping. Otherwise, after 9 months, no complaints.

13" Although personally I went with an 11" Air. It's docked 80% of the time so I don't have an issue. When I do need to be mobile or code on the couch or something the portability is sublime. Love it. I do a lot of .NET so I have VS in a VM and it doesn't skip a beat. Took a long time and read countless articles and I was hesitant the 11 wasn't going to be enough, but it is in my use case. So happy with it.

There isn't a hard and fast rule to what you need and what works for one person won't work for another. The only way you'll know is to try it for yourself. And even then you could argue either way depending totally on the context so it's a tough call for you to make.

I've used a 13" laptop as my main workhorse for 7 years now and can't imagine trading it for a bigger laptop.

The reason for choosing 13" is that I travel a lot for work and I want to get some work done when I'm on the road. I also find it the ideal size to still accommodate a decent-sized keyboard and trackpad. When I need some extra screen estate, I just hook it on an external monitor.

Because I do allot of programming on it, I've chosen one with a high resolution screen (1920x1080) so I don't trade in screen estate but that might be a bit too high for most people (e.g. everything tends to get a bit tiny).

Note that you can upgrade the RAM on the 13" model to 16GB, although you have to do this at purchase time, it's not possible to expand later with the current model.

I, personally, use a 13" with 16GB RAM and have external screens both at home and at work. It provides a good balance between portability and utility.

Just ASKING: Why are you switching to a Mac instead of a more sane Linux dual boot machine? Mac's dual booting is a serious PAIN with my experience. The machine runs HOT and the battery drains FAST on anything but OS X.

I have a 15" MBP from mid-2014. I tried the 13" and it was too small for my tastes. I'm very happy with the 15". It is easy to travel with, even the 15" weighs next to nothing.

I have an 11 inch Macbook Air and 15 inch Macbook Pro. The battery life of the 15 inch is far too poor (but if you don't travel much you wouldn't mind) so I hardly ever touch it. I would go for the i7 though; I notice considerable difference when i'm compiling.

I guess I'm a bit of an outlier. I use a 13" laptop for most of my coding, and I don't think I've ever hooked it up to an external monitor (not counting projectors when I'm giving a talk). I used to be part of the "bigger monitors are better" crowd, but I find that focus is my biggest challenge so I actively do not want to have any chat or email or other-distraction windows alongside the one in which I'm editing code. Even without power- and memory-sucking Retina/QHD resolutions, 13" is plenty for a decent edit window and a couple of smaller compile/general-purpose windows.

I used to look at my friends 13 inch laptop and thought "that's way too small, I could never program on that." Now I have a 13 inch laptop and it took me all of 20 minutes to get used to the smaller screen. I find it's a lot more portable too, since I ride to work on a motorcycle and it goes in my bag every day.

I have a 13" Retina Macbook with 27" monitors both in my office and at home. Whilst the 13" is great to carry around and fits nicely into airplane and train tables - I did find my old 15" much better for displaying more workspaces in sublime and jumping into photoshop quickly etc.

I have a 13" Retina Macbook with 27" monitors both in my office and at home. Whilst the 13" is great to carry around and fits nicely into airplane and train tables - I did find my old 15" much better for displaying more workspaces in sublime and jumping into photoshop quickly etc.

If you move to a MacBook, beware of the keyboard. Especially the ENTER key can be rather tiny.

I had a 13" mbp for 5 years and it was great until the last 6 months. The only problem at the end was it needed more memory. Dual booting with linux was a pain, so I stuck with OSX which is a great OS once you get used to all the key commands and helpers (get used to using spotlight search).

I am on a macbook air now, but I would not suggest it for development. Its very thin (which is nice), but its noticeably slower, and I am worried I will run into the memory cap quickly.

The funny thing is that I have been looking at Dell's 13" XPS Developer Edition. Has anyone tried it?

Does the general consensus of HN believe the i7 option is worth the upgrade for the 13" MBP Retina? Standard software development; also been killing my air with powerpoint thanks to school lately, with the various simultaneous use of VMs to load windows programs

I have a 22" external monitor hooked up to my 12" laptop and one of the main reasons for this is ergonomics - I put the monitor on a stand, so that the top edge of the screen is at the same height as my eyes, and the laptop's screen doesn't obscure the external monitor's screen.

The end result is that I have a tiny and lightweight laptop for travel and at the same time reasonably big screen for everyday work.

A factor that can be overlooked is the screen resolution. Normally the 13" screens only go to 1366x768 which can feel like reduction in screen real estate, especially if you have your IDE set up with side panels etc. However I've found with a full 1920x1080 screen if you handle the smaller text everything lays out exactly as it would on your desktop monitor so it doesn't feel as squashed. Best of all nothing changes position when you dock back at your desk. Given the resolution of the 13" MacBook Air Retina is 2304x1440 as long as you can get the font the right size you'll have plenty of screen space.

I use a 17" laptop personally because I love the number pad on the keyboard and the bigger screen (and I do take it around with me).

I would get the more powerful laptop if possible due to the text analysis and neural network stuff you will be doing. Hook it up to an external monitor if you can. It really helps to have the display at eye level.