Looking for a good developer laptop
March 21, 2017 4:21 PM Subscribe
I may be in the market shortly for a laptop that would primarily be used for development work. Looking for recommendations from the MeFi crowd.
This question has been answered previously in 2013, but I'm looking for more up-to-date recommendations. Weight doesn't matter. I primarily work in Visual Studio. Thoughts?
This question has been answered previously in 2013, but I'm looking for more up-to-date recommendations. Weight doesn't matter. I primarily work in Visual Studio. Thoughts?
ThinkPads are still the gold standard for development laptops. I have a p50. I also have a t440s. Both are A+. You really can't go wrong with a p- (if you care about RAM or Xeon or Quadro), t- (general) or x- series (lightweight).
Dell XPS Developer + Precisions also sound great, but I can't personally vouch for them.
posted by so fucking future at 5:14 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
Dell XPS Developer + Precisions also sound great, but I can't personally vouch for them.
posted by so fucking future at 5:14 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
I use a mid 2014 MacBook Pro for dev work and enjoy it.
I would stay away from anything from Lenovo, as I do not trust Lenovo at all.
What kind of stuff are you developing?
posted by durandal at 6:26 PM on March 21, 2017
I would stay away from anything from Lenovo, as I do not trust Lenovo at all.
What kind of stuff are you developing?
posted by durandal at 6:26 PM on March 21, 2017
I'd be wary about about anything Lenovo. I've had two Thinkpads; both workstation-class laptops, a W510 circa 2010 and a W540 circa 2014; and almost everything about the newer laptop is worse. The W-series was apparently so bad it was renamed to the P-series.
The problems in the newer laptop:
- low quality TN display, with a very narrow viewing angle
- chicklet/island style keyboard, worse than the W510
- offset keyboard for the numeric keypad which I rarely use
- loud fan that turns on and off even with no load
- loose connection to the docking station, leading to flaky connections
- never seems to sleep correctly, often turns on/fails to turn off with the lid closed and battery then dies
- missing physical buttons for the Trackpoint
- missing buttons for the trackpad
- unable to drive three external displays through the docking station
- no light sensor for the keyboard so you need to turn on the backlight manually
Looking over the specs for the P-series, many of these faults have been fixed. But given that these faults were put into the product and shipped in the first place, my confidence in the manufacturer is low.
posted by meowzilla at 7:24 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
The problems in the newer laptop:
- low quality TN display, with a very narrow viewing angle
- chicklet/island style keyboard, worse than the W510
- offset keyboard for the numeric keypad which I rarely use
- loud fan that turns on and off even with no load
- loose connection to the docking station, leading to flaky connections
- never seems to sleep correctly, often turns on/fails to turn off with the lid closed and battery then dies
- missing physical buttons for the Trackpoint
- missing buttons for the trackpad
- unable to drive three external displays through the docking station
- no light sensor for the keyboard so you need to turn on the backlight manually
Looking over the specs for the P-series, many of these faults have been fixed. But given that these faults were put into the product and shipped in the first place, my confidence in the manufacturer is low.
posted by meowzilla at 7:24 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
The new MacBook Pros also have shortcuts for Xcode on the touch bar, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
posted by oceanjesse at 7:28 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by oceanjesse at 7:28 PM on March 21, 2017
Response by poster: Primarily web application development (.Net)
posted by isauteikisa at 8:50 PM on March 21, 2017
posted by isauteikisa at 8:50 PM on March 21, 2017
The ThinkPad T-series are tanks with great keyboards. A work T420 survived bicycle crash a few years ago with only cosmetic damage to the case. After many years to wear and tear and travel with my personal T400, I picked up a used T420 a year ago (off of craigslist), put in an SSD, and maxed out the RAM (to 16Gb) to support the 6Gb VirtualBox VMs we use for a project. It plugs into a 1920x1080 monitor, and does dual-screen well. Audio and built-in speaker are fine for youtube videos; mic is o.k. with skype. The webcam is good enough. Did I say the keyboards are great? Try one.
posted by dws at 11:16 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by dws at 11:16 PM on March 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
I've gotten rave reviews about the XP-16 line as well. Great price point and performance.
posted by geoff. at 4:44 AM on March 22, 2017
posted by geoff. at 4:44 AM on March 22, 2017
For .NET work, you obviously need native Windows, not a Mac.
Our sister company has had some great results with the XPS 15 machines from Dell. Since they went private, their build quality and design has improved drastically.
The smaller XPS13 is limited to dual-core chips; if you're going to do Windows-style development, I'd spring for the XPS15 -- in addition to the bigger display, you can get quad-core CPUs in them.
posted by uberchet at 8:23 AM on March 22, 2017
Our sister company has had some great results with the XPS 15 machines from Dell. Since they went private, their build quality and design has improved drastically.
The smaller XPS13 is limited to dual-core chips; if you're going to do Windows-style development, I'd spring for the XPS15 -- in addition to the bigger display, you can get quad-core CPUs in them.
posted by uberchet at 8:23 AM on March 22, 2017
myself & my business partner (both web developers) have been very happily using Thinkpad X1Carbons (various generations) for several years.
posted by anotherthink at 12:15 PM on March 22, 2017
posted by anotherthink at 12:15 PM on March 22, 2017
XPS series (especially XPS 13) and X1 Carbon are preferred, or at least drooled over, by the devs I know, almost to the exclusion of other options. There is probably some bias there towards the lightweight and Linux-friendly, though.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 2:24 PM on March 22, 2017
posted by Gerald Bostock at 2:24 PM on March 22, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by MasterShake at 4:53 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]