
Ask HN: New macbook is enough for front-end developer? - stephenkingsley
I want to buy a new macbook or mbp, but I want to knew new macbook whether enough for front-end developer?
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tracker1
You may be better off with a used Macbook Pro, The prior gen (core 2, and
earlier i5/i7) had more key and touchpad travel. I would still be using my c2d
based macbook with SSD and memory upgrade if it weren't stolen.

That said, any modern computer with at least 8gb of ram and at least a 256mb
ssd should be enough for most front end work. Print and Video is a different
story (more ram will help a lot). SSD will make a much bigger difference these
days, especially if you're doing web front end work, as modern node/npm based
tooling touches a _LOT_ of small files when building, which running without an
SSD is painful by comparison on the same system. Going to 16gb of ram will
help if you need to run VMs, or will be doing more image manipulation.

Computers have been fast enough for the past 6-8 years now with enough ram and
an SSD... Only higher end gaming, video and print editing really push things
to need even a higher end machine these days imho.

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stephenkingsley
thx! new macbook(12') is beautiful and it has at least 8gb of ram and at least
a 256mb ssd and 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core m7. just front-end dev, nodejs,
npm.

and Dan Abramov use new macbook, so I want to know that is enough for dev?

by the way, I had a mbp(15') but it is born in 2014

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tracker1
It should be sufficient... The mbp was probably sufficient as well... I was
disappointed with the non-upgradable memory though. More things are heading in
that direction though.

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Ezhik
I would go for a MacBook Pro purely based on the keyboard.

I honestly can't imagine using the new MacBook's keyboard for an extended
period of time, key travel on it is abysmal.

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melling
The new MacBooks should be out at the end of the month. I would evaluate
those.

