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Comment by codedokode | Hacker News Reader

13 inch screen is a toy usable only for browsing social media and not for real work.

That's a take, for sure. I use a 14" as my daily driver. Sure, I plug it into a big monitor when I'm at my desk, but it's perfectly usable standalone.

I used to use an 11" as my daily driver (and that was before retina-resolutions were a thing). It wasn't ideal, but it was fine for development work.

As someone who likes small-screen laptops: no. The screen size is not the problem (unless it is also low-resolution), it's the battery size, and what the battery can power for a "reasonable" amount of time.

13-14" is the sweet spot between power storage, size, and energy efficiency in my opinion.

13 seems to have emerged as the generally best compromise for using at your desk and traveling. Even a 15” is still small relative to an external monitor and is getting large to fly with.

You don't use your laptop as just a thin client connecting to a more powerful machine over the Internet?

No, I do not. How does this solve the small screen size problem?

I read it as being not powerful enough and didn't parse the size issue properly. What exactly is the problem? I'm regularly using 12" laptops and don't see much wrong with it. Just changes the workflow a bit, as I normally use a 52" screen.

It's not ideal, but then working on a laptop never is.

The problem is too few lines of code and controls can fit on a small screen. How many lines of code fit on your 12 inch screen? On my screen there are 40 lines and some space for window headers and top bar.

yeah real programmers only use the biggest screens, the bestest cpus, and discrete graphics

Companies have standardized on, mostly, 13” laptops with whatever accessories. But, honestly, for some people who never leave their desk, a desktop of some sort is probably a better choice— though just connecting to a server works too.

"bestest" CPU is not required, but with 13 inch screen you have to either make everything tiny and strain your eyes, or have only 10-15 lines of code in the screen. Also, modern websites and apps use gigantic font size and you will have like 3 paragraphs of text in one screen.

Are you coding in Word or something? 36 point Times New Roman?

36 point Times New Roman Mono

Thereby all but ensuring the software they write will be sluggish on end users' computers- and "Runs fine on my machine." shall be their mantra.

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