Not only does it feel faster, but it also beats the iMac at single-core performance, looking at bundle build times. If I could fully utilize all the RAM + cores

Not only does it feel faster, but it also beats the iMac at single-core performance, looking at bundle build times. If I could fully utilize all the RAM + cores of the iMac, it would obviously come out ahead, but that's not the case for most frontend dev work. Not to mention it cost about 1/3 of the iMac and the battery lasts forever.