A Good Mac Computer for Software Development

You haven't provided a ton of details on the programs you run, which ones run concurrently, and what external devices you need to connect to your Mac. You also haven't said what time of software engineering you do...does it involve gaming or processor/GPU-intensive apps?

I'm going to assume you'll be running Xcode, GitHub, a text editor, maybe Teams or Zoom for conference calls, Word, Excel...maybe Powerpoint?

If you're not doing any graphics-intensive work, are maybe on a budget, don't need to connect more than one or two devices to it, and don't need any extra graphics horsepower, then I'd say the MacBook Air 15" with 16GB of RAM and 1 or 2 TB of storage would be all you need. This is a quite capable MacBook indeed! I use my MacBook Air for occasional photo editing, word processing, and helping out in these Apple Support Discussion forums.

If, however, you need to connect several external devices, maybe 2 external monitors, and would feel better with the extra graphics/processing horsepower, then I'd go with a 14" or 16" MacBook Pro...again with 16GB of RAM and 1 or 2 TB of storage. This MacBook can drive multiple external monitors, and has 4 Thunderbolt ports vs the 2 Thunderbolt ports of the MacBook Air.

Unlike certain Windows computers, Macs have everything soldered to the motherboard (RAM, SSD storage, GPU, etc.) so you can't add anything to it once you get it.

Do you need 24 or 32GB of RAM? Most likely not..unless you plan to do some heavy duty video editing with apps like Final Cut Pro. Macs handle memory much more efficiently than Windows, and in fact a 16GB Mac may well outperform your 32GB Dell in the majority of benchmarks.

One last final thought....Apple does offer education and military veterans discounts...don't know if you're eligible for either, but they're there.

Hope this helps.

mac-newbies wrote:

Hi, I have never used a Mac computer in my life, but I have decided to give it a try. I am a software developer doing extensive single-page application development. I am looking for the equivalent of a Dell Precision Workstation in Apple.

My current computer has 32MB RAM and a 1TB Hard Drive.

Do you have a recommendation?

Mac Newbies

My recommendation is to examine your development envirement requirements and get a computer that supports those requirements. For example, if you are developing Windows apps then get a suitable Windows PC. Windows does not run natively on a newer Mac.

Maybe ask a friend or colleague what they use for similar tasks.