MBA 2020 for programming

[s1lent]

Hello, I'm starting out in the web developer world, mainly focused on backend things, I'm currently finishing my studies (They will be over in a couple of months probably). So, my main doubt here is if my macbook would be able to handle the tasks I would do daily as a web developer, I would be using PHP, Node, basic things. I don't really think I need a super powerful laptop to run that, maybe some frontend things too, who knows.

My config would be i5 + 16gb or i7 + 16gb, I am currently in doubts with those two.

It would be nice to point out that this would be my first macbook ever, I'm used to work with UNIX but never really got into the mac ecosystem.

Thanks in advance for your answers. Any additional advice is welcome! Thank you all.

 

[RegularGuy09]

I have the same kinda work and I'm wondering if the i5, 8GB, 512GB config would be enough. Any advice?

 

[tskwara]

See my comments in a related post about iOS development:

2020 MBA 16 gb vs 8 gb for developing in XCode

8GB will definitely get you by for early/initial development efforts using Xcode. 8GB doesn’t limit the actual ability to code, test or deploy. It does limit your efficiency though, as cycling between the various modes of development (edit, simulation) can be sluggish. More memory would help...

forums.macrumors.com

• The i5 over the i3 for sure (2x cores and threads = faster build times).
• As for the SSD, larger is just more of a convenience than roadblock.
• My recommended upgrade priorities for development use: 1) i5; 2) 16GB; 3) 512GB

I suppose if I bought one for those for times of programming inspiration at the coffee shop, I'd lean towards:
i7/16GB-RAM/512GB-SSD

The i7 has 8MB L3 cache instead of 6MB on the i5, and i7 boosts to 3.8GHz instead of 3.5GHz on the i5. Upgrading from i5 to i7 is really more of a mental satisfaction than anything else for me.

 

[s1lent]

See my comments in a related post about iOS development:

2020 MBA 16 gb vs 8 gb for developing in XCode

8GB will definitely get you by for early/initial development efforts using Xcode. 8GB doesn’t limit the actual ability to code, test or deploy. It does limit your efficiency though, as cycling between the various modes of development (edit, simulation) can be sluggish. More memory would help...

forums.macrumors.com

Thank you for the advice!

 

[frou]

Even the i5, at 4 cores 8 threads of Ice-Lake is a lot of performance.

Put it this way, plenty of web developers who created great projects and became million- and billionaires, did so comfortably on much weaker MBP/MBA than this!

 

[kreasonos]

Hello, I'm starting out in the web developer world, mainly focused on backend things, I'm currently finishing my studies (They will be over in a couple of months probably). So, my main doubt here is if my macbook would be able to handle the tasks I would do daily as a web developer, I would be using PHP, Node, basic things. I don't really think I need a super powerful laptop to run that, maybe some frontend things too, who knows.

My config would be i5 + 16gb or i7 + 16gb, I am currently in doubts with those two.

It would be nice to point out that this would be my first macbook ever, I'm used to work with UNIX but never really got into the mac ecosystem.

Thanks in advance for your answers. Any additional advice is welcome! Thank you all.

Put it this way, my cousin is a software engineer at Google, works on the Google campus and uses a 2015 Macbook Air.

 

[emraha06]

2020 MacBook Air ghosting smearing

if you use your mbp as statik image/portrait viewer, there is not any problem but basically if you scroll a web page you will notice terrible smearing texts look like terrible blurried. Because the display is only 60 hz(cheaper notebooks start from 72hz) and mbp 16 has the worst pixel response...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[hftvhftv]

macOS is UNIX as well, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’d recommend the i5 16GB for the best value