|
I have two laptops - one 5 years old (still in perfect working condition) with an i7 2670QM, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, now used as a "desktop", and a much lighter laptop (i7 6500U, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB SSD) that I bought a few months ago (used as a laptop). I find that having a laptop for development on the go (mostly application software) is very useful, and would not go back to a desktop. Naturally, if I needed multiple VMs etc., a desktop would probably be a better choice. 
Both my laptops were manufactured by HP, and I've had no problems with either.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
|
|
|
|
|
I had an HP desktop and it was awful - unknown Korean mobo with cheapcrappy integrated graphics, terrible RAM mounted on it and an outdated processor, at the price of a far better PC.
That stubborn man that is my father single-handedly decided to buy it to replace mine and of course did not consult anyone.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
|
|
|
|
|
den2k88 wrote: That stubborn man that is my father single-handedly decided to buy it to replace mine
Now I understand your avatar...
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
|
|
|
|
|
|
For .NET development I use a Lenovo Thinkpad E550 with 16GB RAM. It came with a hybrid drive, but I replaced it with a 500GB SSD so it runs fast enough now. The screen is a HiDPI one so it can sometimes have funny moments with legacy software and it doesn't have great contrast but it's usable. The trackpad is near useless though.
I'd had a few Dell machines and to be honest, they were even worse. The best laptop I owned (two of them in fact) we the old Sony Vaio's but they're long gone.
TheOnlyRealTodd wrote: While on the subject, those of you who do use Mac; Can you get it to run Windows and perform as if it were a PC by partitioning the drive and booting off of it or do you actually code on a virtual machine?
When I first got a Mac, I installed Parallels so the I could run Windows in a VM. It was okay, did everything I needed, but it wasn't long before I dumped it. The good thing about using a Mac is that it's encouraged me to look elsewhere, so .NET Core/ASP.NET 5, Java, NodeJS, Swift and Docker.. computing feels more exciting again like it did when I was a kid The quality of everything on my Mac is top-notch - build quality, screen, SSD (1TB), trackpad.. expensive but well worth the money in my opinion.
I came into this game for the action, the excitement. Go anywhere, travel light, get in, get out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone. Now they got the whole country sectioned off, you can't make a move without a form.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
|
|
|
|
|
You have my respect, you're the first respondent to actually answer the OP's questions. Thanks for being a reasonable and thoughtful mind.
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks!
I came into this game for the action, the excitement. Go anywhere, travel light, get in, get out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone. Now they got the whole country sectioned off, you can't make a move without a form.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
|
|
|
|
|
I don't care so much about the manufacturer, but it should have these things:
- A strong CPU so that it will do for a while.
- Max. possible memory, no less. I guess I always wanted this from my first computer on.
- A good graphics chipset.
- Reasonable battery life for the next time I have to work in a clean room for hours.
- Efficient and silent cooling. My older notebook got hot as a stove and made as much noise as an idling jet turbine.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
|
|
|
|
|
For work:
whatever they give me.
Home:
No laptop, I prefer to use 3 screens and laptops usually don't have that
Never liked laptops so I use them as little as possible.
Tom
|
|
|
|
|
I use a MacBook with Parallels to a Win 10. It is basically awful. 
|
|
|
|
|
Why don't you BootCamp? Or do you need the MacOS apps?
cheers
Chris Maunder
|
|
|
|
|
I (occasionally) need MacOS apps and sometimes use Swift - I am thinking totally separate windows laptop for my next birthday present.
|
|
|
|
|
HP EliteBook 8770w. Most time I use it over RDP from my Desktop 
modified 19-Jan-21 21:04pm.
|
|
|
|
|
Work provides me with a Lenovo W550, 16G memory, 120G hard drive.
If I am doing application development, it is .NET based; occasionally use SSMS to look at some tables, but don't do SQL development anymore.
|
|
|
|
|
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2015. Which is very nice to use.
On video cards, My main machine has a GTX690 which has been in there for a while now, and does just fine! Except a bit noisy when on full throttle permanently!
|
|
|
|
|
I'm using a Dell Precision M3800 with Intel i7-4712HQ core at 2.3Ghz, which gives me 8 CPU's, 16GB RAM, and the laptop has a 256GB SSD, and I have a second 512GB SSD on a USB 3.0 interface.
That said, the laptop sits to the right where I shove stuff I don't really need to look at, and I have two 1920 x 1080 monitors center and left, one connected the laptop's HDMI connector, the other run off a Pluggable USB 3.0 multi-port thingy, which provides video, ethernet, and more USB ports, though I also have to other USB hubs for a the devices I've got attached for work reasons.
It's quiet, it's fast, I can have a VM dedicated with 8GB and 4 cores running and I don't even notice.
In a year or so I'll see what's out there laptop-wise and whether I want to throw some money at upgrading, but for the foreseeable future, this machine has all the capability I need.
Marc
|
|
|
|
|
HP Envy ???
i7
12 GB Ram
17.1 touchscreen
1 TB HDD
I paid less than 1K (US) for it last year about this time.
If I had it to do over, I would trade out the touchscreen with a 500 GB SSD.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
|
|
|
|
|
Wow that's great for under 1K USD 
|
|
|
|
|
On Black Friday of 2015 I finally broke down and purchased my own laptop (instead of hoping I could get my paying job to purchase me a new laptop for home use)
GE72 6QD Apache Pro | MSI Global | Laptops - The best gaming laptop provider[^]
The 4 core / 8 threaded 45W Skylake i7 CPU is as powerful as my 95W i7 960 at work. However the 17.3 inch screen I find is about as small as I can use as a c++ developer and still function. It has a boot 128GB M2 SSD however I can not use that for coding at all. Its nearly full an my build tree would run at least 1/2 of that. I am currently using the 1 TB hard drive for that and plan to replace possibly both drives with 512GB or 1TB SSDs.
When I am not browsing the internet I use this laptop for some minor c++ (work related) development while watching TV or the mornings in the sun room with the wife.
John
|
|
|
|
|
Work provides a Lenovo W540 16 Gig RAM, 450 Gig hard disk, and a docking station at work so I can use 2 monitors, real keyboard and mouse.
When I work from home (2 days a week) I've got USB keyboard and mouse along with a good size monitor and I use the laptop screen as a second monitor for selected applications since the text is so small compared to the big screen.
We are a mixed shop and they'll get you your preference of Windows or Mac machines.
|
|
|
|
|
Here's my write-up[^].
I'll go a surface Pro when it slims down a little more and meets the specs of the Macbook Air (battery life is the big one, but RAM, and frankly price, are issues too)
cheers
Chris Maunder
|
|
|
|
|
I hate laptop keyboards. However, the Dell Precision Mobile Workstations are worth looking at since you can get a docking station and use a real keyboard and full size monitors.
For trivial use, I highly recommend ASUS.
One thing that really frustrates me with the current laptop offerings (besides the keyboards and touch pads) are how few SSD options there are and much prices are inflated for those options. By far the biggest issues I see with the laptops of family and friends are hard disk failures (and charger connectors.)
|
|
|
|
|
I have a desktop for daily use and a laptop as both a backup and travelling machine.
I bought the laptop last year from Dell.
Alienware 17
Intel(R) i7-4710HQ [4th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4710HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz)]
16GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600MHz (2x8GB)
1TB 7200rpm SATA 6Gb/s 1
490-BCLJ NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 980M with 4GB GDDR5 1
555-BCDR Killer 1525 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1 1
555-BCIC Killer Wireless 1525 Driver 1
(At the time) Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit English - since upgraded to Win10 Pro
As a bonus, it's a great gaming machine.
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
"I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
|
|
|
|
|
I resisted buying a new laptop for years as I have a great desktop setup -- Core i7 with 24 GB of memory, dual video cards and four monitors, plus my own virtual server farm on the network. I still do most of my development on that.
But a few years ago I had to go on-site with the current development project, and be able to make changes in the code. At that point my portable technology was a little 10-inch netbook, so I had no choice but to get something decent that could handle Visual Studio and a database client.
After some searching I found an Asus N56V -- Core i7, 8GB (which I upgraded to 16GB), a 750GB drive, Blu-Ray reader, and a 1920*1080 15.6 screen. It has an aluminum chassis, came with little in the way of crapware, and has performed flawlessly now for over 3 years. I have a virtual network running on it with a Windows Server and a database server, so I can do full Web development within its own few pounds of weight anywhere that I want.
The biggest drawback with it was Windows 10. It came with Win 8, and I let it get upgraded. Now, every time Windows decides to upgrade, it kills the touchpad drivers and screws up the backlit keyboard, all because MS thinks it has better drivers (it doesn't, most assuredly).
From a hardware standpoint, its 6-cell battery didn't give it much life, but I found a good 9-cell on eBay that not only fixes the longevity issue, but props up the base to a nice angle for typing.
Highly recommended, and I won't part with it until it dies.
|
|
|
|
|
I think there's a way to lock down the drivers so that they don't get killed by MS Update, but I can't find it right now.
|
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
