I need help choosing my next laptop!

I'm sort of torn between the 2.8 i7 13" MBP and the 15" i7 15" MBP. The cost difference is exactly $224 on amazon ($1,424 vs. $1,658, no sales tax AFAIK).

I'm kind of more attracted to the 13" because I travel with my laptop quite a bit and 13" seems to be the limit as far as what one can reasonably use on a plane in a typical economy class seat (my current 15" is too big, clunky and heavy)-plus it's about a pound lighter which always helps. But I'm kind of worried that the dual core would be a bit slow and the display would be too small (I'm kind of used to my 15" now).

I don't do any heavy duty graphics (the occasional graphics stuff on GIMP but nothing like animation or anything) and mostly just surf the net, watch movies and stuff like that. Battery life sucks on my old MBP so I'd like much better than the 2 hours I get now

So what will it be? Which one would you choose?

Oh, one more thing-if I were to buy an external display to go with it, would I be able to do the dual display thing where I can use the external as an extension of the laptop's display?

 

Personally, I don't recommend going with the i7 13" MBP. Both dual-core processors offered in he 13" MBP are just fine for what you want to do. They might only have two cores but it really takes a lot to bog them down. The reason why I don't recommend the i7 is that it isn't that much of a performance boost for the price. I purchased the i7 13" MBP last year and, if I could do it again, I would have just gone with the i5 edition and put the extra money towards extra RAM and an SSD (about $70-$80 for 8GB of RAM and $150-$200 for a 120/128GB SSD). A friend of mine purchased the i5 13" MBP the same time I picked up the i7 edition.

Each unit performed the same for what we were doing (some of it involved writing long code in MATLAB). The i7 pulls ahead when you start looking at video encoding but I don't think it is that big of a deal especially since for the average DVD movie in Handbrake, he would have to wait an extra few minutes (2 or 3) out of an already long (45-60 minutes) process.

The 15" MBP is also really portable but you aren't describing anything that would require its GPU and quad-core CPU. However, it is essentially going to be the same size as what you currently have. So, if you find that to be too clunky and heavy, you are going to think the same about the current 15" MBP.

I am currently using a 13" MBA as I wanted something that was even more portable than the 13" MBP so I have no issues with a 13" display size. In my opinion, it doesn't really seem like 13" (actually 13.3") but larger for whatever reason. I like the MBA as it has the same resolution as the 15" MBP whereas the 13" MBP has a smaller one. That being said, I still didn't see anything wrong with my 13" MBP's display.

Either the 13" or the 15" will be able to use a secondary display in the way you want (i.e. as an extension). The only difference is that I don't think the 13" MBP can drive the older Apple displays using dual DVI connectors. I could be wrong about that though. Both the 13" and 15" support the same output resolution to a single monitor though as either a mirror or extension.

 

Well, I have the lower end i5 in my 13.3" MBP and I run the system just fine with 4 virtual machines on it (VMWare Fusion). For what you do, even the i5 is overkill. I wouldn't waste my money on the 15" or the i7 13.3".

I did upgrade my machine with a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM though. And for full disclosure the virtual machines are:

1x Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Core running Active Directory
1x Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Core running SQL Server
1x Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Full running TFS
1x Windows 7 Enterprise running Visual Studio

Then I run Xcode on the host. I figured, buy low and if I needed to I could return it and buy the higher end model. Yes I bought it on Amazon as well - no tax and less than the Apple store across the street from work.

 

Thanks guys for the help. Any online stores you know of that offer a better price than Amazon?

I'm out of the country right now so returning it for a higher end model could pose a problem. I think I'll go with the 13" i7....even though it's probably overkill.

I wonder if it would be possible to do the dual display thing with just a garden variety Samsung or LG display (since they seem to be MUCH cheaper and since it'll be sitting on my desk 24/7, clunkiness isn't an issue)

 

It isn't "probably" overkill, it is overkill in terms of a $/performance ratio. It is your money so you can spend it how you want, just know that you are overpaying for what you are getting. Things would be different if Apple had put a quad-core Core i7 in the 13" MBP but they didn't. The dual-core version is still an admirable performer but I don't think that justifies the much higher premium cost.

You can output to any monitor you want, it doesn't have to be an Apple one. I currently have my MBA hooked up to my HDTV. I also hook it up to my Dell monitor at work all the time. The displays just need to have the appropriate input method (VGA, DVI, HDMI, or mini Displayport). From there, you can buy an adapter to take the MBP's mini displayport and convert it to something else or go straight into mini displayport.

 

Amazon is the cheapest place I've seen, especially with no tax.

 

Most users could not even detect the difference between an i5 and a dual-core i7 without the aid of benchmarking software. The dual-core i7 is basically a marketing scam, meant to make people think think of the quad-core i7 when they're actually getting a barely-faster i5. Apple or PC, I never recommend that people get a dual-core i7 instead of an i5.

 

So the i7 in a 13 incher is a dual-core? Haha naughty naughty Apple.

 

Many i7s are dual core in laptops, aside from being cheaper they also offer better efficiency for battery life over a quad core.

 

a great number of 15"+ are quads. battery life does not seem to change much but duals do run cooler making them better for smaller laptops.

 

Don't most 15" laptops allow for larger batteries? The real comparison is looking at power draw. I'm not sure if you can on a MBP but on the Lenovo ThinkPads you could few power draw and the dual core laptops were capable of pretty low draws.

 

real question is why do you want mbp instead of air?
In my head its like this:

MBP 15 if:
— you want bigger screen / you work on it a lot and you need that comfort
— you are doing gaming time to time or something gpu heavy.
— you want maximum power

MB AIR 13 if:
— you travel a lot
— you are fine with no DVD and no firewire
— you want light notebook and price isnt deciding factor
— you value higher resolution screen
— you dont do anything with crazy hardware demands on it

MBP 13 if:
— you travel or otherwise fine with it being 13 inch
— or you want cheaper macbook and you are fine with not having much premium stuff in it
— or you absolutely need firewire / dvd
— or you absolutely need the ability to insert 2 hdds / have one huge hdd
— or you need every tiny bit of performance you can have in 13 inch form factor

So Air 13 fits you best because:
— you travel
— you got some money to spend and you ll get some premium stuff in air for that like better screen and ssd
— you dont seem be doing anything crazy on it so power should be more then enough

Only consider mbp 15 if: you will still work a lot on it outside of the plane / at work. Then extra screen space will really pay off.

Dont consider mbp 13 it seem to be inferior for you.

 

I actually did consider the air for a while. But I like to use my laptops for a long time (my current MBP is 5 years old and counting, and it's still going when it doesn't feel like randomly shutting down) and upgradability is an issue. I was planning on getting an iPad whenever Apple feels like releasing the iPad 3 if that changes the equation at all....

Figured in a couple of years when the price of SSDs have gone down I'll upgrade to one.

Thanks for the idea though, I didn't think about the air.

 

All rumors are suggesting that the iPad 3 will be revealed in the first week of March.

 

BUt isn't that universal regardless of i3, i5, i7 ? Theoretically, I don't know if it is true since your cpu would go dual or even single core if it doesn't need four cores. I wonder if the battery life depends upon if turbo boost is on or not, though I am sure i5's have that feature along with hyper threading. Still, I can understand as I was confused by the whole i3, i5, and i7 terminology when I first looked at it.

 

The cores get down clocked on all models, but I don't believe cores turn off for power savings. So a quad core will always use more power than a dual core - assuming the same amount of power is required per core.

Also the TDP for the quad core i7 is 45w vs the TDP of the dual core i7 which is 35w (17/25 for a couple dual core model i7s). The i5 and i3 both share the dual core i7 TDP of 35w. These are for the full voltage processors, the ULV models have lower TDPs.

EDIT: Apparently the power does get cut to the cores when turbo goes on. But that also will utilize more power. I think the TDP is a better reflection of power usage, but it isn't exact as it is used to estimate the cooling required (45w of heat to dissipate, etc).

 

The quad core mobiles are more power efficient than the dual cores regardless of the situation - they can shut down idle cores.

Although turbo boost and running four cores uses more power than running two cores, it's still much more power efficient to finish tasks as fast as possible than to finish them over a longer period of time at a lower power state.

 

wow such a high end cpu is next to pointless without a deticated card go for the 15, better yet for for the 17" Macmall has them on ebay for around $1800 now.