

Ask HN: Do you consider a 13" laptop usable as a main development machine? - sokrates

Do You?
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LeBlanc
I bought a laptop with a 12.1" screen and for a while I thought it was fine.
But when I plugged it into a 27" monitor I had, I noticed a huge increase in
my productivity. I don't completely understand why, but programming became
much more enjoyable and easy.

So one datapoint: you can use a 13" laptop as a main development machine, but
you will probably be more productive if it has a bigger monitor.

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RoyceFullerton
I have a 13.3" Macbook. It is usable for development, but I dread using it to
code after coming home from coding at work on a dual screen system. Its like
programming while looking through a keyhole. The increased resolution on the
new 13" Macbook Air does have me tempted to buy one.

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fredex
I think it depends on the type of application you're building. A Twitter like
application probably doesn't need as much hardware as something more complex.

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perucoder
It's usable but far from ideal. A pen and a pad of paper is usable to write
some code in, but I wouldn't recommend it either.

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aitoehigie
I use a 13.3" laptop as my main dev machine.

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wmf
Sure, if it's plugged into a real keyboard and a 30" monitor.

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pzxc
No, I do not.

