MBP 13 or 15?

Hi,
I'm sold on switching to a mac. I like the smaller form factor of the 13", but I'm hesitating on screen resolution and C2D vs i5. I'm looking for input from others that have made a similar decision.

My uses are web, office docs (not daily), netflix/hulu, occasional light graphics work, home video editing, and dvd ripping/encoding to fit on ipods, etc. No gaming. From other post it appears the 13" performance is adequate for this? I don't love the idea of buying a last gen cpu, but day to day will it matter?

The bigger question for me is the tradeoff between portability and screen res. I'm coming from a 1440x1050 14" PC - have other 13" owners made a similar transition and found the mbp resolution to be acceptable? I don't want to buy and later regret not having the screen res. On the other hand, the 15" is bigger/heavier than I really want to carry around. Price isn't really an issue. Thanks for your input!

 

I don't think you'd have any problems with those uses. I love my 13"er. I record things off TV and edit them and put them on my iPhone... its no problem. I'm sure a i5 or i7 could do encoding a bit faster, but I doubt it would be noticeable to me with as little as I do. Just because its a "last gen" CPU doesn't mean its slow... heck I even game on mine fine

As for resolution... its no big issue for me, for the screen size I kind of like 1280x800... when I want to do things that need a big resolution, I'm usually at my desk with my external 27"er plugged in running 1920x1080.

 

I think people over-estimate the the advantages the i5 has over the C2D on the MBP 13" and 15". In my opinion, if a person is open to the 13", and that it suits their needs (mainly casual uses), then the performance boosts the i5 has over the C2D isn't that important.

Whilst people will surely notice the snappiness of the i5 over the C2D, it'll become a novelty issue once the initial pleasure passes. This is because the C2D is plenty snappy itself, and the minimal additional snappiness of the i5 can be compared to giving an adolescent with hundreds of toys an extra ten buck gift from Toys R' Us. Meaning, the kid's gonna bask over the new toy for a day or two, then it quickly becomes just 'one of the toys' after the initial pleasure of playing with it.

Obviously the additional horse-power of the i5 would be much more tangible for those who need it. But if the MBP 13" suits your needs, then I say it's the better purchase over the 15" (though everyone has their own preferences as to screen-estate to portability + battery life).

I can't say much as to the importance of screen-resolution as this varies heavily between users.

EDIT: And don't worry about the difference of 'future-proofing' between the C2D and the i5 available on the 15". In the future if that C2D becomes useless (I'm thinking it can last at least five years for the CASUAL user), then the time for that i5 is just around the corner (if not the same).

 

I got 13" and hook it up to my 23" samsung LED when working with graphics

 

I think the biggest advantage the 15 has is a discrete graphics chip, but if you aren't gaming it doesn't matter.

However, from what I have seen a 15" MBP is in general more portable then a 14" consumer laptop, with the Envy 14 being an exception. If you put your computer in your backpack, then I think things like screen size don't matter. Only things like weight etc. The only exception is if the screen size is so big it won't fit in your laptop.

But I am kind of biased because in high school I carried around a 30 pound backpack because I took 7 AP classes and didn't have a locker.

 

If it was 2-3 months ago, I would have suggested the 13" because it was still relatively new in the newly released cycle. But now that buyer guides label it as NEUTRAL, I would splurge and get the newer 15" model.

You do get newer technology even though I don't think the average user will ever see the difference. The autoswitching discrete/integrated graphics is a huge plus as well.

And personally, I am using Parallels right now for Windows 7 and I wish I actually had that extra resolution and screen space to watch a movie in Mac OS X via Hulu while playing a game on Windows.

 

@chris2k5
use spaces.
games need discrete graphics.if you like gaming buy windows machine.

 

Spaces = I can only watch the movie or listen to the movie while playing a game... = Not good.

Team Fortress 2 and a lot of my other games work fine with the 13" MBP.

 

Hi there,

I'm in the same boat trying to decide between 13" and 15" MBP. Looking for general/internet & light graphic use

Could any of you guys suggest a PC alternative?

 

You could try the what notebook should I buy forum. Asking that here only leads to Mac vs PC debates that do nothing other than shut down threads.

 

13"
Asus U30JC
Asus U33JC
Acer Timeline
Envy 14 or 13
Sony Vaio Z

15" I dont know.

 

You'll be happy with either, but if you can spring the extra $$$ for the 15", do it. It does not weigh THAT much more...you'll have the res you are used to, latest chips, dedicated gfx, and you will gain some more muscle .

 

15" hands down.

 

Agreed.

I do use a 13" MBP for many of the same uses though alongside a 14" Dell Latitude E6400 (with the 1440x900 screen) and am perfectly satisfied with my MBP's screen. If you can, I'd suggest going to a store and trying both the 13" and 15" out.

In the end, it'll boil down to your own personal preference and how much cash you're willing to lay down.

 

size and portability depend on you more than they computer. I used 15"ers for years, and went to a 13" MBP and never want another computer bigger than this again.

 

I currently have a 13" macbook c2d (but 4 years old and starting to slow down) and was quite close to switching to the 15" macbook pro. The reason I wanted to switch was for the screen (obviously), more powerful speakers and dedicated video card. I was quite happy with my macbook, but couldn't justify the pricey upgrade to the 15" macbook pro, especially with the lack of upgrades to the model this year (no hdmi out (without extra cable), which is pretty standard on pc's, no option for blu-ray). My wife recently got a pc with windows 7 and I played with it and really liked it, so I started looking for pc alternatives that were as light as the MBP. For me it came down to

MBP 15" (5.6 lbs)
Dell Studio 15 (~5.6 to 6.2 lbs depending on config)
HP Pavillion DV6tSE (15.6") (~5.5 to 5.8 lbs depending on battery).

Ultimately, I decided on the hp because even after essentially maxing out the specs, with various discounts, the hp was about $700 cheaper than the mbp I wanted. Windows 7 is pretty nice, and I have found many alternatives to features I loved on the macbook (like spaces, ical, iphoto etc). Plus it's got some nice toys like a touchscreen. We'll see how the experiment back to pc goes...

 

same here, was on 15 inch laptops for a long time, now i think 13 inch laptops are dope, 15 is too big for my uses

 

I can say that all of the claims that the 13" is only good for casual use (internet/e-mail) are totally bogus. If thats all you're doing, get a netbook.

Get the 13 (mines even a mid-2009 and I edit photos and video all day long (Photoshop, Aperture, and Final Cut) and get an 8GB RAM upgrade, possibly a 500GB HDD, and you're still running $100s cheaper than the 15, and you can still game too. I run Windows in Boot Camp and with VMWare, and I can play MOST current games reasonably. The lower native res actually helps with that.

If you bought the 13 of today (with the 330M instead of my 9400M) then you'd be even better off, but I'd still recommend the 8GB and 7200RPM upgrades for max performance, at an affordable price!

 

Thanks all for the input! I ended up ordering a base 15+hi res screen. It was a tough decision, and I'm still not sure I made the right one. I spent as much time as I could on my daughter's new 13" for a week before deciding, and in the end it came down to screen resolution. I'm coming from 1440x1050 and found the 1200x800 to require a lot more scrolling around, and text looks blurry/poorly rendered on some of the sites I frequent. I think that's due to the relatively low resolution of the screen.

I'm still not sure I'll like lugging around the extra size and heft of 15", but do think I'll be happier with the screen. Other than that, I really like the MBP and can't wait for mine to arrive!