MacBook Pro 13 inch for work

I have just sold my iMac 27 inches for the reason it being too big! I will avoid mentioning the reasons, but...

Now that I have got the exact money to buy the new 13 inch retina one. Problem is I am a programmer and I am wondering if such screen is not too small for working. I doubt I will have, in a good span of time this money again so chances are the following:

• buy MBP 13 inch retina, that has a very good display for my sight.
• buy any other random laptop that is 15 inch or more or an older version of MBP.

So in short, the question is:

Does the MacBook Pro 13 inch retina have a good ( / big ) enough screen to be productive at work, particularly for a programmer?

Any experience with this?

Solution 1:

If your programing needs include displaying an iPad with retina simulator, then perhaps a 13" MBP limited real estate will slow you down. Choose a 13" MBP for mobility.

From my talks to programmers who are happy with only MBP 13" (without external display) are programming HTML, Terminal/console shell scripter types. The others who develop apps for iOS tend to either have an MBP 15" or MBP 13" with an external display.

Solution 2:

I recently switched to a 13 inch retina MBP from a 27 inch display. I regularly write Java and C++ code, and don't really regret the change. It was a little hard at the beginning but now it's fine.

What I miss in the 13 inch screen is (was) screen real state (i.e number of lines of code that you can visualize). However, when I really need more screen real state, I switch to the "scaled" mode (a feature of the retina MBP) and aim for more space (1680x1050, the characters are really small but you can fit a lot of content in the screen).

What I miss when working on any other computer (despite a 27 inch display) is the retina resolution (the retina display ruins your experience with other displays). Crisper text really changes your life (specially if you write code/text).