I'm thinking about buying a new laptop, so I compared three candidates
The laptop I'm using now is a 5-year-old LG Gram, and the battery is dead, so it's about time to replace it. I narrowed it down to three candidates for development work, but I can't decide just by looking at the specs.
1. 14-inch lightweight + 32GB RAM
2. 16-inch + 16GB RAM (expandable)
3. MacBook Air M-series base model
- Option 1: Best portability. But it runs a bit hot.
- Option 2: Great screen and expandability. It's heavy and a burden to carry around.
- Option 3: Best battery and performance, but I've heard there are issues with Docker or certain tools.
My work is mostly running a few backends in Docker and doing frontend development. I don't do heavy video editing.
- Main tasks: Docker, IntelliJ, VS Code, 30 browser tabs
- Mobility: Cafe 2–3 times a week
- Budget: Low 2 million KRW range
If anyone uses a similar setup, I'd appreciate it if you could tell me how the RAM and heat feel in practice. I really can't decide.
6 answers
If you're at cafes 2–3 times a week, you really feel the weight difference. Carrying a 16-inch around feels fine at first, but a month later your arm hurts lol. If you’re on the move a lot, I think option 1 is the answer.
Running a few Docker containers plus 30 browser tabs makes 16GB of RAM really tight. I stuck it out with 16 until swap kicked in, then switched. It’s some comfort that option 2 is expandable, but that’s still extra spending, so recalculate within your budget.
Isn’t the whole Docker-on-MacBook slowdown thing outdated? Docker runs fine on M-series chips these days. You just need to check whether the ARM image is supported. From what I’ve seen in real-user reviews, most people say there are no issues.