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Best Developer's Laptop?
s31523 writes "I love my current laptop, but unfortunately on my last trip the primary LCD went bonkers. It's an older Gateway (2 GB RAM Intel Pentium M 2.0 GHz, ATI M7). There are a handful of features I love about it: [1] Hot-swappable drive bay, with several components that can go in: CD/DVD R/W, extra battery, floppy drive, extra hard drive, memory card reader, etc. The extra battery option is especially appreciated — I can go 4-5 hours on battery power. [2] Docking station / port replicator: I like having my home setup with keyboard, network, and dual screens (a necessity). [3] It runs Linux. OK, I'm a wus, I actually have GRUB command three different OS's: Windows 98 (I have really old embedded software compilers that only run on 98, and yes I have tried every trick in the book to make them run on Linux), Windows XP Pro, and Ubuntu. I'm trying to find a replacement setup that offers the same flexibility and a little better performance. I am open to change as well. So, I ask Slashdot: What is your pick for best developer's laptop under $1,200, considering the features above?"
Wine is making a lot of headway, but a neat helper program allows you to install things easily and with a pretty good GUI called http://www.playonlinux.com/en/
It uses scripts that has their own format to install Wine with a special setup that's taken care of by PlayOnLinux and the script. I think it's a great idea, and all that's needed is more scripts.
From my personal experience, if you want to have efficiency:
1. You will need as much screen estate as possible. Coding against spec? Against existing code? Against requirements? Writing tests against code? In all these cases you would want to have at least 2 windows open in parallel
Thus resolutions such as 1680x1050 or 1920x1080 are desirable. Don't go for 1280x800 unless portability is #1 goal.
2. Compiling ... Compiling ...
Investing in faster CPU will pay off in both short and long term. You won't be able to change CPU - almost not feasible.
3. Hard drive
Today's development requires a lot of tools open at same time, and often projects are huge with lots of small files.
Therefore, I recommend going for 7200rpm drive which will help you feel like you are using desktop (speed-wise)
4. Other stuff
Most laptops today come with lots of RAM, and decent graphics.
So, I guess, you would want the laptop to come with Java preinstalled (if you a Java Dev), or PHP / Apache installed, if you are that way inclinded. For source control, best make sure it comes with a mainstream SCM software, something like Subversion and hopefully the same company will create an IDE that supports it out of the box , while at the same time recognizing that alternative IDE's are out there and provide support and assistance to those who want to use it. Of course, been a developer laptop, having a good Backup Strategy is important, you wouldn't want to loose all that hard work if your hard disk died now would you!. Finally, of course, that manufacturer would provide tools to allow alternative operating systems to run on their hardware so you can test your final product on different systems, or even provide links to third party software should you wish to run any OS in a virtualised environment.....
Shame such a company doesn't exist *sigh*...
Build quality? Really?
My MBP's keyboard backlight was misbehaving within a couple of months of buying it. The machine regularly overheated playing games. The motherboard fried itself and needed replacement after a couple of years. The DVD drive is now extremely fussy about recognizing an inserted disc.
The last two Dell laptops I've owned each lasted well over 5 years with no problems.
Macs may have their advantages, but IMHO build quality is not one of them. You know, to be brutally honest.
Isn't Grub2 one of the features of Ubuntu Karmic Koala?
No sig for the moment.
Any of these I recommend over home/gaming/entertainment equipment.
My experience regarding the customer service has been largely the same (although my Thinkpad is a cheap SL500 consumer series model), but for the price, I'm relatively satisfied with the hardware. The casing is feels cheap, the keyboard flexes a little, and there were a few internal mechanical problems (mainly cables not placed in the proper channels causing PCB stress+flex, and other stuff like that) that I had to fix myself before deciding to keep the machine, but in terms of build quality and important features (decent keyboard, awesome pointing device, wsxga+ on a 15.4" TFT) it's still better than anything else I've found at this price point ($800)...
Never having seen a modern T-, W- or R-Series model myself (I've only used older ones like the T4x and T60/61) I can't offer an opinion regarding those, but just extrapolating from my experiences with the SL500 (which is, as I mentioned above, the cheapest entry-level Thinkpad line - not even considered a real Thinkpad by most long-time Thinkpad users), I'd expect them to be better than other devices in their price range in terms of durability and input options.
you're going to probably need to virtualize win 98 at this point anyway - i cant even get it to boot on my MSI K8MM-V + Sempron machine - you'll probably need to try something newer for it anyway.
VMWare works nicely for this as does virtualbox. Plus if seamless virtualization actually works on your host OS, its pretty smooth.
If you're so big on logic, why don't you find them yourself? Hypocrite. At least he had an argument. All you have is an insinuation that he had at least two logical fallacies. And you offer no proof, no premises and no argument to prove your statement.
-XcepticZP
I've found that laptops like the Asus G51 series (more or less designed for gaming) tend to be amazing for development as well. This is mostly due to the high quality of the individual parts, as well as a nice package, decent support, and redundancy built in, as there are 2 hard-drives built in, so you can run them in RAID 1.
If the laptop does not support virtualization how bad is it to run tight VNC on a machine that is running linux which can run several operating systems virtually?
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I use both high-end laptops. Both have 15" screens.
MacBook Pro advantages:
+ much brighter screen
+ Nicer OS w/ native Unix support
+ trackpad is way better if you use trackpads
Lenovo Thinkpad t61p advantages:
+ 1920x1200 resolution fits *alot* of code on one screen
+ better build quality-- yes, I think the build quality is better than the macbook pro
+ its got the trackpoint (aka nipple) if you don't like the trackpad
+ much better keyboard
This has been true for a while, and even before Apple switched to x86; see, for example, Paul Graham's March 2005 essay, The Return of the Mac :
A 13" MacBook will fulfill some but not all of the requirements listed by the OP (the major missing one being a dock) for $1,200, and it's relatively easy to virtualize and/or dual boot all three major OSes (Windows, Linux, OS X). What more is there?
If you're writing code, you need a platform that is well supported by your IDE. If you're writing for vs.net all the time, you probably don't want a Mac. Using Eclipse for Java work, then Mac is fine -- etc.
Since almost any product on the market will work from a power standpoint, look at the details of form. Is the case well made? A magnesium or aluminum case can mean less flex even with less weight. Consider the touch pad -- is it multi-touch? Is the keyboard comfortable?
Also, watch the resolution. One mistake I've made in the past is getting too high a resolution screen for my eyes. At 15" the best resolution for my eyesight is 1440x900, so having a higher res screen means the typeface is too small or it's fuzzy as I switch to a non-native resolution for the screen (windows does NOT cope with rescaled fonts well).
In terms of stability, reliability, and so on -- I find Acer and Gateway to be near the bottom of the line; ASUS makes great hardware but I've never been happy with their support or documentation and their software (for custom bits of hardware, bios updates, etc) is downright terrible. Dell makes some great stuff in the latitude line, but the inspiron stuff isn't well made Dell's support has been downright misleading to me on more than one occasion (documented and published). FWIW, My Latitude D820 has been outstanding even if Dell's support has been terrible. HP has some stuff out that looks pretty, as does Toshiba but neither appeals to me all that much.
I'm kind of in the same boat as you -- I'm ready to replace this D820 after nearly 4 years, but nothing on the market right now really impresses me. I'm waiting for this winter's new stuff based on Core i7 to see what that looks like in a laptop. I'm also going to evaluate Windows 7. If it's not substantially more comfortable and more maintainable than Vista, I'll have no choice but to switch to Mac.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Well, nothing beats build quality of panasonic toughbook. I've had cf-48 with P4 for quite a few years now, and the only things that are not working as good as when it was new are battery (lasts around 1h, so it's not really mobile now) and ethernet card (fried by thunder, with half of my network hardware). Oh, and there's a bonus: when somebody says your laptop is crappy you can hit a wall/desk/that person with the working laptop and continue work as if nothing happened :)
I had the same question a while ago... Except that I do a decent amount of graphic design and video work too.
I went with:
Dell Studio 1555
I upgraded the screen to the high-res one, which gives you a lot more code on-screen at a time. Context is massively useful in terms of productivity and quality.
Changed the HDD to the 7200rpm version
Added the back-lit keyboard, which really is a god-send at 2am when you're coding the dark to let the family sleep
Upgraded the battery to the long-life one (6 or 9 cell? I can't remember)
Made sure that the CPU had hardware virtualisation enabled (Intel arbitrarily turns it off for some models... Look for the list at Ars.
The thing has 802.11n, VGA out + HDMI, mini Firewire, card reader, a few USB ports, and a nice eSATA port, which is ideal for your hot-swappable storage requirement (an eSATA hot-swappable enclosure/backplane should be dirt cheap). Frankly, I'm struggling to see what additional use a dock actually would be.
It's a nice laptop that does the job reliably and without any irritating quirks. Honestly, it's the best I've ever purchased, and I'm very happy.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a MacBook Air for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Thinkpad T60 running Ubuntu, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Safari will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its non-Mac counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My eeePC 701 runs faster than this 2.13GHz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
A well made laptop needs a "port replicator" or "docking station" like a fish needs a bicycle.
Can you direct me towards a laptop capable of driving two 30" LCDs without a docking station ?
Can you explain to me why I should have to go through the annoyance of plugging in a half dozen cables every time I sit down at one of the three desks I regularly work at ?
A well made a laptop doesn't need a docking station ? Any laptop that _doesn't_ have an option for a docking station is a consumer toy.
My work laptop was a Latitude D620, but it was replaced with with an E6400 last week. It is lighter then my old D620 even with the , and has a much smaller power supply. This makes a difference when you have to lug a bag around.
I can't really comment on battery life since I my use consists of moving from docking station to docking station. I don't think I actually opened it since client support dropped it off, but I haven't had any problems running 2 monitors through the docking station.
I do like the fact that both the dock and the laptop have eSATA ports. For my use, this is probably the biggest improvement outside of the upgraded processor. If you are like me an keep most of your work on an external hard drive, eSATA is a big improvement over USB.
My only complaint is the sound quality, and you if you can't listen to Lady Gaga you can't do any real development. I don't think it pumps out enough power to drive my headphones. Maybe this is an excuse to build an Altoids amp.
I just bought a new laptop to replace the mobile workstation our school gives us (HP nw8240 for the 2005 class; now you know where I go to school!). While that computer was, even to today's standards, pretty freaking fast, I had no warranty on it and saw that the LCD was going at some points.
Instead of waiting a few months, I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade two weeks ago. I was deliberating between a non-unibody Macbook Pro, a Dell Precision M-series and a Latitude E-series. Since I commute and am moving around a lot, I really wanted a computer that could take a bit of a beating and hold a decent charge, all while still being not being as powerful and svelte as my old machine.
In the end, I landed up getting a Latitude E6500 with the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU (P8600 - 2.4GHz with 3MB L2 Cache), 2GB of RAM (though the eBay ad advertised it as having 3GB...bastards :p), 80GB SATA hard drive, nVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M 256MB discrete graphics (not good for Crysis, but good enough for a non-gamer like myself :D), 15.4" LED WXGA LCD and an integrated webcame (VERY IMPORTANT) for $695 shipped.
This thing is awesome. Scratch that; it's FREAKING awesome. It runs Windows 7 like a Cadillac, looks damn good, has THE perfect keyboard (no, really...it's really, really good) and is pretty light (something like six pounds). It's 6-cell battery usually lasts me 3.5 hours, which is perfect for me. Thus, doing development work on it (right now, I'm working on projects in C, though I mainly do a good amount of scripting and am learning C# in the future) is just fantastic. You might want a bigger LCD; they have a WUXGA LED screen available, which I hear is phenomenal. I personally wanted something with a lower-resolution, as I hardly use 1920x1200 anyway (and most mobile graphics cards can't push that many pixels smoothly anyway when under load).
To add, I can get the fingerprint sensor, Bluetooth module and LED-backlit keyboard from Dell (more like from eBay) when I need it. Oh, and it came with a 3-year limited warranty, which isn't business-class, but it's perfect for me.
In short: Macbooks are still overpriced, and AppleCare still comes separately. My Latitude does EVERYTHING a Macbook would do (yes, it even runs OS X successfully)...while looking just as good and with more AWESOME.
The Mac tax comes from the fact that to buy a Mac you have to choose from Apple's anaemic product line. For the vast majority, the available hardware will be inappropriate, and they'll have to spend hundreds or thousands on superfluous hardware.
Consider that you simply can't get a Mac laptop without discrete graphics, even though integrated graphics are more than sufficient for anyone who doesn't play games. Not to mention a screen that will work with the lights on.
Laptops are ALL sketchy pieces of shit, and if you get one that lasts more than a few years, it's the luck of the draw. I worked at a hardware support desk at a university, and we saw all kinds of laptops come through...Mac, Toshiba, Sony, Dell, Lenovo, etc etc etc. They all use the same innards, and they all wear out at about the same rate. The main difference in quality is the exterior.
I had a cheap ass Gateway laptop that lasted me for 4 years, while a friend's Macbook died within a few months. On the other hand, I've seen Macs last for years and "pc's" die after a few months.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Apple isn't gunning for Microsoft, simply because they can't without losing money.
This isn't because they're software or hardware is inferior, it's not. However, they're primary business is hardware, and they're very dependent on their current profit margins. To take out Microsoft, Apple would have to turn their PC's into a commodity item the same way IBM did, and from the evidence of the few times they've tried this, they just end up being undercut by third parties(just like IBM was). To beat Microsoft they'd have to stop making any money, which isn't really an apple thing to do.
They are certainly going for the "Macs are cool, PC's are dull" angle, and they're going even harder than they used to, but that's always been a part of their overall strategy(coolness sells macs), and won't ever get them above at most a 20% market share.
Apple makes the most money by sitting exactly where they are, certainly if Microsoft created a product which was a threat to their market niche, or to the iPod or iPhone they'd go after them ruthlessly, but the Zune doesn't come close, and Windows Mobile while probably better than the iPhone for general purposes, just like Android has no real brand identity. Neither of these are a threat to apple's profit margins.
That's not to say that apple wouldn't take any market share they can grab, but PC's and laptops which are on average $500-1000 dearer than their PC competitors just aren't ever going to be broad market winners, and most of that $500-1000 is pure apple profit.
used? second hand with 12 inch screen maybe...
those called "netbooks" and dell sells them for 299$