What size laptop do you edit on?

Question

1) Do you also connect to an external monitor?

2) When using just the laptop standalone, what size is your screen and what do you think about it?

I previously had an XPS 13 - portability was amazing but it was also underpowered. I upgraded to XPS 15 mainly because of discrete graphics card support.

Now I am going to be getting a new macbook, but I'm honestly very conflicted about the 16" (very similar to my XPS 15") or the 14".

I don't need to lug it around daily, nor carry it often in a backpack. But I imagine the 14" is more coffee shop-friendly, maybe more lap-friendly? But is the screen too small to work within lightroom and photoshop?

Conrad_C · Answer

I used to use the 15" MacBook Pro back when they were Intel-based, partly because the 15" was the only way to get features like discrete graphics and more RAM. But when Apple switched away from Intel to Apple Silicon and started offering the 14"/16" sizes instead of 13"/15", I decided to try the 14". Partly this was because the 14" was no longer as compromised as the old 13" models were. The 14" can be configured to be nearly as powerful as the 16", and the Apple Silicon GPU works very well with Lightroom Classic.

And I love it. I set the screen resolution to a setting that squeezes a little more on screen so that this 14" actually offers more pixels than my old 15", but the 14" case is so much more portable that I use smaller bags than I used to. I am fine using the 14" screen for Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, but not everyone would agree with that.

If I am in the studio, I connect the laptop to a dock with one Thunderbolt cable, and the dock connects it to two displays and other peripherals, and also to power. I usually use Lightroom Classic with the grid or Survey mode on the secondary display.

If I’m going to work away from the studio and I think I might want more screen space, I bring my iPad which my Mac can use as an additional display, so I can still work with a two-screen setup on a coffee shop table if necessary. You don’t need to use an iPad for this now that there are more affordable USB-C powered portable monitors out there that I see other people use with their PC and Mac laptops.

I don’t think I will need the 16" in the future, the 14" is a nice sweet spot. The only time I think the 14" gets really cramped is in video editing apps; if I had to do that all day long I would use the 16".

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