I'm looking for something as small as possible but can still be used in a decent way for coding. The goal isn't to code super complex things but use it more as a tool to quickly write tiny JS/PHP/Html programs. The small form factor is important so I can keep it with me like you would keep a physical paper notebook with you
Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
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Re: Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
#2Anything with SSD and 8-16GB RAM should do the work.
Personally i would buy a 13" macbook pro.
Re: Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
#3if you are looking at Macs, mac book air.
Chromebook is a fantastic option in terms of price, though everything may have to stay in the cloud.
Re: Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
#4if you are looking at Macs, mac book air. Chromebook is a fantastic option in terms of price, though everything may have to stay in the cloud.
macbook air, is no good for programming.
sketching and frontend things yes, but when you start running environments within it like docker for example. it will crash.
Re: Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
#5I managed to get my hands on a Lenovo X280 before they were discontinued. I think it's fantastic and really hits the sweet spot between weight and performance - it's my main driver and weightwise I have a hard time telling it apart from my iPad Pro 11 with a keyboard case.
Re: Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
#6if you are looking at Macs, mac book air. Chromebook is a fantastic option in terms of price, though everything may have to stay in the cloud.
I've not tried it, but I think you can install Ubuntu within a container on a Chromebook[1] without jailbreaking or removing ChromeOS.
[1] https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-on-chromebook
Re: Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
#7if you are looking at Macs, mac book air. Chromebook is a fantastic option in terms of price, though everything may have to stay in the cloud.
You can repave a lot of Chromebooks with Linux, and should, if you're using one as a dev machine.
Re: Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
#8if you are looking at Macs, mac book air. Chromebook is a fantastic option in terms of price, though everything may have to stay in the cloud.
macbook air, is no good for programming. sketching and frontend things yes, but when you start running environments within it like docker for example. it will crash.
If you spec it out to about 2000$, with the i7 upgrade, 16 GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, I'm pretty sure it will be plenty powerful for the majority of developers. Probably as good as the 5 year old MacBook Pro everyone still uses.
Bonus: you get a function key row
Re: Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
#9if you are looking at Macs, mac book air. Chromebook is a fantastic option in terms of price, though everything may have to stay in the cloud.
macbook air, is no good for programming. sketching and frontend things yes, but when you start running environments within it like docker for example. it will crash.
You don't need to run docker for every single thing
Re: Ask HN: Smallest laptop that is decent for coding?
#10if you are looking at Macs, mac book air. Chromebook is a fantastic option in terms of price, though everything may have to stay in the cloud.
macbook air, is no good for programming. sketching and frontend things yes, but when you start running environments within it like docker for example. it will crash.
The use-case is “quickly write tiny JS/PHP/Html programs”. I do that on my Air. I have never used docker and don’t really know what docker is besides a tech-de-jour.