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Comment by blakesterz | Hacker News Reader

>> I have been using an 11" MacBook Air as my primary computer since 2011

So I think he's using this thing plugged into an external monitor most of the time? Can anyone actually use an 11" monitor as a primary monitor? If so, what do you do? I only ask because I struggle to work when I'm on the road using my 13" laptop and I can't imagine being able to get much done every day on an 11".

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Depends on what you do, but 13" or less means e.g. you won't be able to do vertical split of windows in Xcode. Which is annoying, because at times you have to have two windows open (such as one source and one IB storyboard or XIB, plus the navigators on the left and right hand sides). But this is still workable. I've written 3 or 4 iOS apps entirely on a 13" laptop. If there is an itch to finish and release something, suddenly those limitations aren't anymore.

>> If there is an itch to finish and release something, suddenly those limitations aren't anymore.

Good point :-) Funny how things become less important when there's a push to get it done no matter what!

Change your coding style to 80 chars per line and you can vertical split like a pro

I use a MacBook Pro 13" Retina. With a 1280×800 resolution there is not much space. I turned off LCD font smoothing and set the resolution to a scaled 1680×1050. It is such a joy!

Text on websites and in text editors can be a bit small at times, but changing the font size is quick.

(You can disable LCD font smoothing in System Preferences > General. It requires a redraw in apps to see the difference. Alternatively, just reboot.)

Works for me, I can do that for months. I'm doing mostly coding in Sublime Text (and using Origami Plugin extensively), iTerm and Chrome. It's for me not too small for text related work. It's also good for video watching. What's not good for: Photo editing in my opinion. The experience is much better the bigger the monitor is (and TN display is not great for photo editing in general).

It's not my preference but I think hiding the dock, working in fullscreen, one app at a time and alt+tabbing a lot will make it quite workable.

In fact, thinking about it I imagine it to be a rather uncluttered, focused experience compared to the 27" screen full of windows I'm currently looking at. Which isn't an argument against large screens, but poor window management and lack of focus I guess.

This, mostly.

I have a 27" 4K display at my desk, but I can be just as productive (sometimes more so) on the short 11" screen.

Heck, I just deal with streams of text 90% of my day.

I used an 11" ultrabook with very little difficulty. What did I do? I ran eclipse and developed as normal. Maybe positioned the computer a little closer to me than I would have for a bigger one. Modern pixel densities are such that you can get ample resolution for development work on an 11" device.

I used a Samsung Q30 sold as Dell X1 as primary device for a while about a decade ago. It's 12" and for the time it was great. Fanless, quite fast and light AF. So yeah, 11" is doable. Depends on what you are doing and how.

I've used the 10" Asus Flip to write (and publish) a book with a great deal of scripting on the side. Incidentally, the keyboard is amazing--I prefer it to my Thinkpads.

The smaller screen does force you think in a more modular way.

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