What does a Hacker look for in a new laptop • Hacker News Board

Re: What does a Hacker look for in a new laptop

#31

Post by gtani » Sat, Aug 09, 2008, 10:51 AM UTC

Most important: minimum 30 day return policy, no restocking fee if poss. You need to take the laptop to coffee shops, office, home, train, see what's annoying, like glossy screens may make you crazy. So i recommend Amazon, Costco, Target.com for returns policy

things that can render a laptop unusable:

- poor display, keyboard, or wireless card; excess fan noise or heat.

nice to have: fast Core 2 Duo, minimum 2G RAM, if you're doing lots of compiles, spidering (DOM tree extraction), database indexing, anyting that pegs CPU's for more than a couple minutes.

like everybody else, my first choices would be macbook or Macbook pro/ Vmware fusion/ Windows XP and ubuntu, or thinkpad with XP/grub/ubuntu (i don't think you can buy them with XP pre-loaded anymore). Toshiba, Dell, HP still sell XP pre-loaded (the "downgrade option") Macbook is only model Toshiba satellites aren't bad, mine's been reliable for 3 years. Read the amazon reviews.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=268438

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=197182

Re: What does a Hacker look for in a new laptop

#32

Post by unalone » Sat, Aug 09, 2008, 1:09 PM UTC

PStamatiou wrote: post #5

xenoterracide wrote: post #2

I would get one of the smallest models I could. I'd also make sure it runs linux. use desktops for power that's what they are good at, notebooks should be portable, meaning comfortable to carry around in a bag for a while. Light as you can get. About the only thing I would invest in is at least 1G of ram, maybe even 2G. laptops tend to ship with slower hard drives so if you start swapping you are really going to have…

this is why i love my macbook air so much..

If you're not doing anything too intensive and you can afford it, it's easily one of the most enjoyable computers I've ever used. Agreed.

Re: What does a Hacker look for in a new laptop

#33

Post by ashleyw » Sat, Aug 09, 2008, 1:26 PM UTC

Personally, a Macbook Pro. I want a laptop to be fast to boot, reliable and nice to work on. Technically OSX is what does all this, but you asked which laptop you should buy, and you either get a Windows Vista or OSX machine. (not to mention getting a Windows machine and booting some flavor of linux, or creating a hackintosh, if thats what you want to do)

Spec wise, I'm running on a Macbook Pro 2006 model with a Core Duo 1.86Ghz processor and 2GB of ram, and I'm doing great. I'm sure one of the latest models with a C2D 2.4GHz CPU would be a bit faster, but I don't do anything too intensive (light photoshop is probably the limit of my number crunching apps). So pretty much anything you buy today (except the ultra-budget machines, of course) will suit you for your needs. Just make sure you have a nice amount of ram! :)

Re: What does a Hacker look for in a new laptop

#34

Post by silentbicycle » Sat, Aug 09, 2008, 1:28 PM UTC

anotherjesse wrote: post #17

noonespecial wrote: post #9

Long battery life, light weight, and most important: fast wakeup and sleep when I close the lid! This is the most important feature to me. I want to open it up, quick jot something down or check something and then close it again. If it locks up or churns for 10 minutes before I can use it, its a non starter. This has so far kept me on Macs.

"This is the most important feature to me." I agree with this, with the caveat that actually more important is reliability. Our company bought a few Lenovo T60Ps - with how great the T43P had performed, we thought it would be T43P++. Unfortunately the wireless cards were VERY flaky. :( So, I want: reliability so I don't have to futz with wireless and other functionality - and then instant on and off. "Elastic laptop"

If the biggest caveat is a wireless card, you can probably replace it.

I have a Thinkpad T41, which has been great except the OpenBSD driver for the included wireless card was incomplete (due to being reverse-engineered). It was only about $15 to replace it with a Ralink card; Ralink happily provided full tech specs to the BSD devs, and the card works quite well.

Re: What does a Hacker look for in a new laptop

#35

Post by amour » Sat, Aug 09, 2008, 5:22 PM UTC

since you have a desktop, get decent average laptop(dual core, 2gb ram, big HDD, internal cd/dvd-rw-unless you don't mind lugging an external one, wireless card, and comfy keyboard).I tried coding in eeepc 7" screen and it didn't get me far. I used 12" asus ultraportable running linux for years and they are good and has pretty solid build. Unless you're getting a linux certified one or buying from a linux-laptop vendor, chances are some features won't work. I just recently switched to 17" mbp because my coding activity has demanded it (more horsepower and screen real estate), but keeping my 12" for fun hacking and cracking. Both lappies has one thing that's very important for coders: NICE keyboard. That being said, choosing a personal laptop is like choosing a GF/BF: it's personal, only you know your coding habit and which feature is the most important for you.

Re: What does a Hacker look for in a new laptop

#36

Post by seanb » Sat, Aug 09, 2008, 9:36 PM UTC

sl956 wrote: post #20

xenoterracide wrote: post #2

I would get one of the smallest models I could. I'd also make sure it runs linux. use desktops for power that's what they are good at, notebooks should be portable, meaning comfortable to carry around in a bag for a while. Light as you can get. About the only thing I would invest in is at least 1G of ram, maybe even 2G. laptops tend to ship with slower hard drives so if you start swapping you are really going to have…

Light as you can get AND linux friendly: that's exactly what I was looking for. I am now the very happy owner of a sub-2 pounds, Ubuntu certified, 12.1" laptop for 6 month, and that the best notebook choice I ever made. Right choice for me, but I am only on the road 5 to 6 days a month, so your mileage may vary if you are really a nomad worker.

I'm thinking of picking up something similar for traveling. What model are you using?

Re: What does a Hacker look for in a new laptop

#37

Post by silencio » Sun, Aug 10, 2008, 6:28 AM UTC

iigs wrote: post #26

CaptainMorgan wrote: post #18

If it were me I wouldn't go with a Celeron; for performance and cache reasons the Pentium M is the wiser decision. Maybe if you're preferring wattage and battery versus overall performance you'd go with Celeron. I run IDE's, profiling and debuggers galore so I need what the Centrino offers. All great points mentioned here. Lightweight; you can get real light these days without being a DR. I love widescreen ever since…

Most people I give PC buying advice to really don't think like I do -- either they want a $400 computer, or they want some $2500 thing with some gimmick feature set (custom color lid? who cares? lightscribe blu-ray burner? do that at home! Vista turbo-memory? Why?). For this reason I sometimes over-discount my own opinions about them when I'm advising others. I personally agree about Thinkpads not being ugly (when I…

> custom color lid? who cares?

I care. I have to use the machine(s) every single day, sometimes for hours on end. If it's ugly, I don't want to look at it. Same goes for accessories. It's impossible to find a half decent non-black or pink womens laptop bag (I believe there's a special and separate level of hell just for the color pink, that's how much I hate it). I just stick with nondescript messenger bags, which don't always fit the occasion but oh well.

My black MacBook has an engraved lid (http://flickr.com/photos/chix0r/2490375769/). The biggest benefit is that it sticks out like a sore thumb so I know it's mine, since so many people don't do anything to their MacBooks after getting one. Very convenient when you're in a sea of Apple laptops..which used to happen to me at WWDC but now also happens at pretty much any tech conference nowadays.

It also makes a great conversation starter with lots of people who are very tempted to touch it..everywhere from airport security waiting lines to the apple store and all.