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Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

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Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#111

Post by cntrl »

fy20 wrote: post #51

A few years ago I would have said ThinkPads but I think there are better options available now. At the end of last year I wanted to replace my T470, and wanted to upgrade to something with a more powerful (not U-series) CPU. The ThinkPad option that fitted my requirements was on back order for months, so I looked around... The ASUS ROG line of gaming laptops had exactly what I wanted, although they look a bit garish,…

was about to recommend the G14 as well.

Have my 2020 G14 since almost two years now and it's absolutely fabulous running arch as my daily driver.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#112

Post by lhl »

There was a recent discussion on the StarBook: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31034024 - in the comments I mention a few other laptops I've been looking at that may be of interest as well as my own review/experience w/ a laptop w/ the same chassis as the KDE Slimbook 15/Tuxedo Pulse 15.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#113

Post by happymellon »

carlsborg wrote: post #94
fy20 wrote: post #51

A few years ago I would have said ThinkPads but I think there are better options available now. At the end of last year I wanted to replace my T470, and wanted to upgrade to something with a more powerful (not U-series) CPU. The ThinkPad option that fitted my requirements was on back order for months, so I looked around... The ASUS ROG line of gaming laptops had exactly what I wanted, although they look a bit garish,…

Second this. I run an Arch derived distro on my ASUS AMD Zen3 5900 with 8 cores/16 hw threads and the cpu benchmarks are close to the M1 macs for about half the price. The Realtek WiFi device is a problem with hp laptops too. Works but needs a cold reboot after the hibernate wakes up. Are you saying the intel WiFi chip is pin compatible with the Realtek? That’s an amazing find.

> Are you saying the intel WiFi chip is pin compatible with the Realtek? That’s an amazing find.

I thought that most laptops have the WiFi on a mini-PCI card these days (or really anything in the past 10 years) unless they are really trying for the ultra-slim, solder everything down look.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#114

Post by samsk »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #6

Second hand ThinkPad T series gets a lot of bang for the buck (maybe not as good as they used to be, but still good, repairable, generally upgradable and very available as ex-enterprise machines). Good matte displays, good hinges and great keyboards. Don't sweat the battery, they're removable, upgradeable to larger ones if you have to go a longer time on a charge and easy to replace. For the change left over from $20…

Cant agree more.

I've stopped buying new laptops and now I use refurbished Thinkpad P50 with i7, 64GB RAM, 512 SSD for ~1100 USD.

If I need to do something really computing intensive, I rent a cloud VM ;-) Actually, I've one for each project I'm working on, and I scale them as/if needed.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#115

Post by shireboy »

Unless you’re training some ml models or doing heavy graphics, you might not need super heavy compute/gpu. If you do need, then remote into a desktop or vm is another option.

I have for the past 5 years or so focused on battery life over compute for my machines and then used RDP to access a VM dev machine hosted in azure. It’s worked great, and I was able to use free azure credits that came with msdn. You can do similar with ec2 and google compute. There are also container based dev environment services out there now. The benefit being you don’t need dev cruft on your everyday carry laptop. Plus if you get a new laptop or have multiple, your dev environment doesn’t change.

That said I did just switch to an m1 max as I also need to do Xcode. That has been a solid machine, though might be above budget. You could run Linux on it pretty sure.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#116

Post by rpdillon »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #57

serious question: what is the practical difference between MacOS and Linux? Do you have a habit of modifying your wifi drivers and recompiling the source? I am big on open source but have never felt my life was improved chasing dependencies vs just brew install ... I have never had a satisfactory battery + sleep/standby experience on a linux machine, vs a Mac I can leave unplugged for weeks and it wakes back up where…

Not OP, but MacOS has very different ergonomics than Linux. My latest frustration on MacOS is switching between desktops/workspaces quickly. In any Linux distro, I can use both alt-tab and desktops to manage windows and switch instantly between programs. On MacOS, even when I disable animations using accessibility settings ("Reduce Motion"), switching workspaces comes with a delay during which the workspace appears switched, but keyboard input is eaten because the application window hasn't been given focus by the WM yet. Linux gives me the freedom to switch WMs, but on MacOS, I'm trying to cobble together something workable using alt-tab (the app) and accessibility settings, and still not succeeding. I've searched for a fix[0], but no luck so far.

I agree about power management, but having freedom to configure things like this is a bigger factor for me personally. As far as package management, my experience with apt has been better than my experience using brew, though both are serviceable.

[0]: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/17929/how-can-i-di...

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#117

Post by ajb »

lhl wrote: post #112

There was a recent discussion on the StarBook: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31034024 - in the comments I mention a few other laptops I've been looking at that may be of interest as well as my own review/experience w/ a laptop w/ the same chassis as the KDE Slimbook 15/Tuxedo Pulse 15.

Tuxedo pulse15 is great.

Only issue I have so far is that I have a crumb stuck under the shift key and haven't figured out how to get it out without damaging the key. It's a very flat keyboard which may not be for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#118

Post by adrusi »

OJFord wrote: post #47

> I looked into the Framework laptops and so far it looks like they are still a bit beta. I'm not sure that's fair, (and it's pedantically wrong - they're in production - but I know what you mean) the hardware is the nicest I've seen besides Macbooks (I agree with you about macOS, but I do like the hardware, keen for Asahi one day but that is very much beta ( alpha actually I think)) and Linux is Linux? It works fine…

I made the switch back to mac after spending the last 9 years exclusively using linux on desktop with the release of the M1 Pro chip. I haven't regretted it. Their new chips really are impressive for their combination of performance and battery life. Combine that with Apple long having been the only manufacturer to manage high display resolutions without compromising battery life. It's the first laptop that I'll leave unconnected to power even when it would be convenient to connect it.

I'm definitely very keen to use Asahi once it's more stable and has support for more of the hardware though. For now I have an Arch Linux ARM VM that I keep running for some things (Haskell development on M1 is still a bit of a mess) and I can VNC into a Linux desktop over 2.5 gigabit LAN when I really yearn for my old workflows.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#119

Post by OJFord »

radicalbyte wrote: post #106
resonious wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a Framework and it's been fantastic. Even the fingerprint works "out of the box" (in quotes because in Arch Linux nothing is really out of the box... I just had to install the right package). The only particularly disappointing thing is that the battery drains mega fast while suspended. This is something I might be able to tinker away, of course. And for what it's worth, non-functional suspend is basically par…

> The only particularly disappointing thing is that the battery drains mega fast while suspended That's a killer - it's 2022 and Apple are still the only company who can get that right. I'd switch over to a Framework in an instant (for dual-boot Linux/Windows) if they could fix that.

I didn't mention it because I don't think it's a Framework issue (GP obviously doesn't have it) but rather my somehow messed up configuration of it, but the one problem I have with mine at the moment is that ten seconds or so after resuming (but not before) everything starts segfaulting, literally any command. And consequently logs don't get written to disk, so there's no record of it after I reboot it (with the physical button, necessarily) - so I'm having a hell of a time trying to debug it...

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#120

Post by forinti »

lelanthran wrote: post #99

Depends on the development. I am doing C development, with some Javascript thrown in for the client, quite comfortably on a laptop from 2008 (Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, 320GB spinning rust HDD). I use WindowMaker, Firefox, Xterm, Vim, Git, Clang and GCC. from login Window to my first xterm opened in the project directory is around 500ms. My build (C only) is currently around 700ms. My editing is lag-free only as long as…

I have a Core 2 Duo laptop. I pimped it up to 3GB of RAM and an SSD. I also installed Ubuntu Mate. It works great for remote work, when I mostly just use it as a terminal into my workstation. I can also use MS Teams on it without issues.

I read somewhere that it might support 5GB of RAM (4GB + 1GB), but I don't want to spend more money on it on a gamble.

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