13''>15''? Anyone feel the same way?

I played around some more with the 13'' and its actually not as bad as many say. Coming from someone who used to own 17'' laptops, trust me 13'' I truly believe is the best size laptop period. Even if you dont travel much, use the extra money on a big LCD for at home and youre all set. For me, I have a massive display on my desk so I believe by getting the 13'' you get the best of both worlds no? 13'' is the most portable size laptop without it being too small and when at home you can use the larger desktop LCDs.

 

I've always been a fan of small laptops because of their portability. I've owned several 13" laptops over the years and have been using a 13" MacBook (various incarnations) over the last couple years and not once have I ever wished for a bigger screen.

 

I recently picked up the 13" MBP and found that it suites me very well size wise. If I need more screen real-estate, I could hook it up to my desktop monitor. The only thing is I wish Apple released the MBP with an HDMI port rather than the Mini-Display Port. I have to get an adapter to be able to hook up to my desktop monitor because of that little fact.

 

I also prefer the 13" over the 15" but I hate the glossy screen on the 13" Macbook Pro.
If only they offered an antiglare option like they do with the 15".
Now I have to choose between the Macbook Air or the 15" Macbook Pro with matte screen.

 

i'm actually on the other side of this dilemma, I own the 13" mbp it is very portable and convenience to carry around with me and i was very happy in the beginning. however, it's giving me a huge headache when i need to edit/review multiple research papers or having programs open in the background. since I will be living in a dorm I don't want to purchase a 24" or 27" ips monitor, and they are expensive!! now i just want to sell my 13" mbp and get either a hi-res 15" or the 17" model. if anyone wants to trade i'll be more than happy to do so and im willing to make up the price difference.

 

I also have a 13" - perfect!

 

My two 13" units work for me quite well. The only time I wish I had a larger display and resolution is when doing Photoshop or InDesign page layout work. For that, I just try to plan ahead, and use a desktop.

But still, for laptop mobility, I could not live day-to-day with a 15". I have not used my 15" or 17" PC notebooks in many months.

 

For laptops my priority is convenience and portability. So yes, 13" takes the cake for me.

 

Actually I'm on the other side of the fence. I recently moved from a 13" MBP back to a 15" and unless I have a need to carry my laptop everywhere with me in the near future, I'll never go back to 13" again.

I love the screen size, the extra power, etc. It's worth the tiny bit extra size/weight. I feel like the 15" is the sweet spot between the 13" and 17" MBPs.

To each his own, though.

 

I will not buy a 13" MBP because of the low screen resolution and the lack of core i5/i7 options.

 

I love the 13" size too. I think 13 is the sweetspot for size because you can still be on the go with it and the screen isn't too small that you'll have issues using it.

That said, I would have moved up to a 15" with the Core i5 if it was $100-$200 cheaper.

 

I have a 21.5 iMac and a 13 mbp its perfect.

 

Check out the i5 refurbs. I'm getting a 15" MBP with the 540M and the hi-res antiglare screen for $1830.

 

I like the little guys too. I may get one for my mom for her bday. For myself, I like the larger screen for dev purposes... one coding window open... one terminal emulator for unix dev, one email window, one ftp window, one text editor window, etc. The more screen (coupled with higher res) makes nicer when needing to view multiple apps or windows open at the same time. But for general use the 13" is super nice. I'm seeing them alot actually. Friend at work has a 2009 model, saw a lady at lunch yesterday with one, and another at the bookstore the same day.

 

I have been using the 13 inch size for the last few years. I like it, especially for travelling. But this time I went with the 15 inch. I'm glad that I did. I like the larger screen, and it hasn't really affected my portability. I take it everywhere and travel with it--no issues.

 

I am going to be a Computer Science major, will the 13" be annoying to use for the class? I heard Computer Science is coding, coding, and some more coding.

 

to use in class? no, its not annoying really at all.

When your doing very large projects later on you'll probably want to sit at your desk with a giant monitor plugged in... 15 or 17 are a bit more space, but I prefer 24" - 27" when working on tons of stuff.

 

Cool so I assume you are already out of school with your computer science degree?

 

nope... worked for a bit, then decided to go back to school... but already having a lot of programming experience self taught has made school easy to make all As. I still have enough classes to take another semester and a half to graduate.

 

all the laptops that i bought was 15" , but i gotta admit it , a portable laptop is an 13 incher , 13" is really handy if you don't need high end laptops , i wish i had an 13 incher mac with my 15" , i choose performance , i think 95% of "NORMAL" people would choose portability and battery life , over large screen and performance XD , and as some people said earlier , i really wish that apple would release their MBPs with HDMI , DVI really sucks big time , i don't know why apple is always trying to make a new standard!!

 

I've always heard from my friends that 13" is the perfect size.
Now, I'm moving to France to study Computer Science there and planning to switch my 2 years old asus M50VM 15" (1440x900 res) on a MPB 13".
But I'm really afraid to not get used to it, as, sometimes, I fell that this laptop screen/resolution is too small ..

Well, I hope I can decide before I travel

 

You could always get the MBP 13" and get an external display as well as others have mentioned. Of course there are PC alternatives from Sony and Asus you can consider.

I don't like how the Asus's screen and size is. Just isn't as good.
The Sony S's build quality is shockingly poor in my opinion and you don't get strong specs GPU wise.

I think the Sony Z is what you are looking for if you can afford such an expensive laptop.

 

Yeah, I thought about getting an external monitor, specially 'cause in France, this kind of thing is much cheaper than here in Brazil. I just don't know if I will have space for it in my new bedroom.

The new asus laptops are not as good as the ones I researched when I bought this one (2008). And sony, well, every day I hear that sony driver's for linux are a headache. Of course, sony z would be a dream, but would be the laptop or the trip to France ... hehehe

 

While I do love my 13" and its performance with the new Nvidia 320m (and the price I paid of $999), I do miss the 15" mbp quite alot.

Last few days I've been toying with the idea of selling my 13" and buying the 15" i7 hi res antiglare model.

 

I agree. Once they start offering something real for MBP 13 I might get one.

15'' is just to big. There is no way. And I am sure that other people feel the same. 13'' is the ideal size. Simply also due to the proportions of the laptop. It's a small footwork but it suits the average humans hands, as far as typing goes.
And it's small enough that you can handle carrying it around for large amounts of time.

A MBP 15 is a great machine, but they are so big and heavy. Walking around with that thing for 8 hours? that's just impossible.


I wish they would offer i7, 330m, anti-glare, Blu-Ray in the 13'' . NOW that would be a Laptop I would die to see!

 

The i7 and 330m alone would suck the battery so fast that you can't even carry it around for 8 hours. You'd be looking at 2-3 hours tops I think. The 15 and 17 inch MBP's can handle it because of the bigger battery and more space to dispense the heat.

 

I agree with you, I had the i7 17" 2.66GHz macbook pro for about 2 months before selling it to buy the 13" and pocket the extra $$.

I'm on campus for about 8-9 hours and while carrying my 17" (the weight doesnt bother me really but the dimension does from pulling out the 17" beast from your backpack is kind of annoying) and the battery life lasted 12 hours (thats with automatic gpu on).

I'm sure most of the time it was using the intel GPU but a quarter of the time I was using the 330m (pretty damn efficient if I'd say so myself) because everytime I would launch vmware fusion, the 330m will be used automatically.

I used the 17" with 1 notch of brightness with 6 spaces and only browsing the web with the occasional youtube video. I also installed click2flash where this app will block every flash content on the web (and to enable flash just click on the flash content to view it) and this saves battery life dramatically.

I would get just about 12 hours and even when I get home from school, I'd still have about 20-30% battery life left.

I always heard that the 15" has the best portability/size/battery life out of the three and I would think that would be true as it has the same specs as the 17" minus a slightly smaller battery. Pretty much the 15" has a much bigger battery than the 13" macbook pro and a little smaller than the 17".

Its been about 3 weeks since I had my 13" and I am growing to love it more everyday. The size is very small and I'm getting used to the glossy screen.

I did own the previous generation 15" 2.8GHz macbook pro and comparing both the 13" and the 15", IMHO I think the 15" was perfect in size/weight/speed/screen real estate.

If anything its a more compact version of the 17" macbook pro lol.

I'm toying with the idea of the 15" 2.66GHz i7 with the antiglare screen.

 

I am thinking of selling my 13" MBP to get a 15" MBP as well. I love everything about the 13" MBP though. No complaints. I am just a sucker for more power (i5 or i7) and I found out this summer I am a bigger gamer than I previously thought I was.

I'd love to somehow find a good condition previous generation 15" MBP. I loved the way those looked too.

 

The only thing I miss about my 2010 13 inch MBP is the battery life. It definitely was not 10 hours, but I could reasonably get 6 hours, which is just amazing on a laptop.

Other than that, I love the 15 inch in every other way. I find the weight increase negligible for me, but the benefits outweigh the extra pound anyway. It has better speakers, better graphics, better resolution, etc.

I would recommend the 13" for nearly everyone in my family, though, and almost all of my friends. It's a great machine and for most people will be a perfect blend of power and size. i've finally realized I'm a 15 incher, anything else just seems too small.

 

Try installing click2flash and only click on the flash content that you want to see to view it. With brightness level at 4, bluetooth off, wifi on, I'm able to get 9 hours and 25 minutes battery life out of mine.

 

Love the battery life as well. As we speak, I am still using the MBP 13" on the same charge from 11AM! It is 6:30PM now so it lasted me 7ish hours now. I did watch some shows on Hulu and browsed the internet with some music.

 

I was fine with 6 hours, because I was able to use the screen on a higher brightness, and pretty much do everything I wanted to. It wasn't worth it to me to look at a dim screen just for an extra hour or two - but click2flash is excellent.

It was crazy good. Many times I didn't even bring my charger out with me.

In the long run, though, I am happy to trade the better battery life for all the things I love about the 15 inch. I've gone to the 13 inch twice, and both times I've gone back to 15 inch shortly thereafter. Probably won't do it again, not matter if they promise 20 hours on battery.

 

Its good for ya though! Its good exercise and it'll convert you to a big tough guy in no time.

Whatever doesnt kill you will only make you stronger.

 

You also need a bigger backpack to fit the 15 inch model. YMMV but I usually carry only my laptop and 1 notebook in a small bag to class, as my computer is the only thing I need 99% of the time.

 

I'm not sure my boyfriend would be very happy about that... maybe I should not carry around hardly anything, wouldn't want that to accidentally happen.

 

You wont really get any swoller lol. It'll work the heart and tone your body walking around campus. Its not like heavy weight lifting that'll make you look like arnold or anything.

 

13" with 1440x900 screen = SOLD for me. The processor - don't care so much about but i5/7 would be good.

As it stands, I'll be ordering a 15" with hi-res+matte upgrade in a few weeks. I'll be upgrading from a 12" tablet so it will take some getting used to lugging around...

 

I'm on the 13-inch side. Just got a new 13-inch MacBook Pro unibody, loving it!

I just prefer the 13-inch form factor for notebooks. Any larger and I think it would sit on the desk far too often to be a proper notebook .

 

Yay another new MBP!

 

I used briefly a 17" MBP today and Oh My GOD...Compared to the 13" it is WOW. That screen!

I wanna see how much of the market has 13 vs 15 vs 17.

The numbers probably would be 50/40/10 % respectively?

 

Well sorry to say I'm not in the game with the rest of you, I got rid of my 2009 13" SSD MBP and just took delivery of a beautiful 15" Core i5 500GB 7200rpm with Hi-Res Antiglare screen MBP. Love it. None of those options are available for CTO on the 13".

Funny though, I'm more excited for Sam, he's been on Tiger with a white Macbook for way too long. Good to see you on Snow Leopard with a new Macbook Pro. Congrats Sam.

 

Haha, that's great! Yes, I've been on a white MacBook on Tiger for quite a while - so Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a 13 MBP is awesome! I'm loving this machine!

 

ALthough I understand weight is really just a personal preference, why do people carry textbooks to class so often? I was a Biochem major and those biology/chemistry books were huge but it's not like I ever needed them for class. If I wanted them for studying, I'd just leave it in the car and get it when I'm ready for the library or whatever. Usually a lab notebook but that was once a week. This just a curious question because I don't think I ever had to bring 3 textbooks at a time to a full days worth of classes. That's some heavy stuff!!

 

Most don't have a luxury of a car. For most, they have to either:

1. Walk far to class without text books, walk back to get them, then walk to library again.

2. Walk to classes with books and then go straight to library.

 

All this clean up work...

 

If I wouldn't travel I'd prefer 15" or maybe even 17".

 

I'm in high school, so carrying books around is a fact of life unless you have classes in the same general area as your locker. I'd rather carry around a bunch of books than make constant trips to my locker.

College will be a welcomed change.

 

^ I see. My HS banned bookbags when I attended. We had to carry our textbook and go to our locker between each class. Most of the time it wasn't a big deal. Passing period was extended because of it

 

Omg my school did the same. It was a HUGE pain I tell you. So many books for one class!