Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 813 posts

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

#521

Post by rootusrootus »

tsuujin wrote: post #392
rmbyrro wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Mac seems to attract so fanatic behavior? They seem to want to push everyone to use Mac, like religious fanatics try to push everyone to their "truth". I think this is a result of some marketing tactics Apple employed for decades, and it only pushes me away from this brand.

Fun fact: the windows and Linux communities are both equally bad at this. It’s not that apple users are fanatics, it’s that some people define their identity by their OS and will make absolutely certain you know.

Some of the pro-Apple commentary that happens in discussions like this is just a response to the constant "you got suckered by Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field" style of comments. Anti-Apple folks like to insinuate (if not proclaim outright) that Apple users are less technical than Linux users, they're stupid, etc.

Meanwhile, some of us just wanted a decently polished desktop GUI that runs a unix command line natively. You could say that Windows now supports this, and Linux desktops have made some progress, but when I switched over to primarily using OSX for my workstation years ago, neither was remotely true. I stick with it because inertia, just like most everyone else.

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

#522

Post by AlexCoventry »

havocsupreme wrote: post #515

I know you said you dont want mac, but I recommend apple only for the hardware. If you want linux, you can use Asahi Linux. Its in the beta stages but it allows your to harness mac’s superior hardware to develop on Linux. Apple is proven to make long lasting products that meet all the requirements you’ve list. Recommend M1 in particular, better than most intel and ARM laptops of its generation. https://github.com/Asa…

n-gate, can you please start writing again?

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

#523

Post by fsloth »

briffle wrote: post #435
rmbyrro wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Mac seems to attract so fanatic behavior? They seem to want to push everyone to use Mac, like religious fanatics try to push everyone to their "truth". I think this is a result of some marketing tactics Apple employed for decades, and it only pushes me away from this brand.

Dude, its been this way since the mid 1990's at least....

"Hello. I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC"

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

#524

Post by ZuLuuuuuu »

IMO, Lenovo ThinkBook 13s Gen2 (Intel) and Gen3 (AMD) are hidden gems which are not much talked about.

- 16:10 matte screen with no PWM

- Very good port selection (1xUSB-C, HDMI, 2xUSB-A)

- Good battery life (for a Windows laptop)

- IMO, the best keyboard layout

- Fingerprint reader

- It is actually around 1100$

- A difference between Intel and AMD versions is that AMD version does not support full length M.2 SSDs, it only supports the short ones.

- But it is probably not for computing usage since it is thin and light

A new gen with Alder Lake is announced a few weeks ago. It is almost the same but the biggest difference is that there are 2xUSB-C + 1xUSB-A instead of 1xUSB-C + 2xUSB-A. And the touchpad will be glass I think. Surprisingly the battery life seems a bit shorter on the upcoming gen. I currently cannot decide whether to buy Gen2 or wait for Gen4.

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

#525

Post by ct520 »

prewett wrote: post #433
rmbyrro wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Mac seems to attract so fanatic behavior? They seem to want to push everyone to use Mac, like religious fanatics try to push everyone to their "truth". I think this is a result of some marketing tactics Apple employed for decades, and it only pushes me away from this brand.

Macs have a certain set of features which is not even close to being matched by any other laptop, as far as I'm aware. Not everyone values these features, and for them, the Mac is just overpriced. - solid and beautiful chassis, no plastic-y uninspired 2008-Dell design here. - large, beautiful, high-DPI screen looks great and has crisp text. You can seamless rescale the UI to get effectively a 17" resolution or 13", d…

Well said! The comment about Linux I feel is spot on and gave me a chuckle. “ Contrast with Linux, where you can do absolutely anything you want, but nothing ever fully works.”

I’ve ran MacBook for mobile dev and pc for in home for over a decade. Swapped to new m1pro and finally ditched my windows desktop. Still keep a local esxi server with windows dev vm in case. But Best upgrade I’ve had in awhile.

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

#526

Post by scelerat »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #200

** "I don't want to use a Mac" ** "I've had these problems with Mac" Reasonable response: Cool, use what works for you. EDIT> Here are some suggestions that match your constraints. Annoying response 1: You should reconsider because Mac works great for me. Annoying response 2: Your problems aren't real problems. Annoying response 3: Let's live debug your problems in this thread to see if they're real problems. Guys. I…

There are many angles to take when responding to a query, and when doing so one must consider, and occasionally, question the original premises.

In public forums, one should assume both the questions and the answers to be for a wider audience. People are here for the alternate takes, the discussions, etc. Built-in to the interface of this site and many like it are tools to hide threads, in part or in entirety, and to downvote posts or threads deemed inappropriate or irrelevant.

I guess my main counterpoint is that it's a bit vain to expect a diverse public forum to be one's own personal consultancy / counsel / etc.

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

#527

Post by pflanze »

kellogs_aran wrote: post #449
banal00 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These posts are annoying, IMO. Reviews and blogs posts about them are everywhere by like minded readers, and this is the discourse such posts bubble up every time here. Guys. I mean. Seriously. It’s a laptop. It’s not worth a request for comments every week.

Hi. OP here. I did do some reading before posting. Here are some of the threads I had read before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21302412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28861949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28216287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28023345 None of the threads seemed to have a consensus e.g. some swear by the Dell XPS 13, others say the laptop has been a crap experience more…

I'm happy for your post (I might be about to look into deciding for a laptop, too, and unlike general review sites the discussion here is centred on the use for a particular community we're part of), and honestly I find JabavuAdams' post pretty toxic (it does elicit more heated arguments). The annoying thing here in my view is this sub-thread, not your post.

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

#528

Post by macintux »

emptyfile wrote: post #409
kayodelycaon wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> result of some marketing tactics Apple employed for decades Or perhaps people really like macOS and their value system is different. I don't think a lot of developers are buying macs due to marketing. Also, Linux attracts the same fanatic behavior. If you like linux, you don't notice see how many people are pushing it. If you like macOS, you're more likely to notice the people pushing linux because you disagree wit…

>I don't think a lot of developers are buying macs due to marketing. I've never seen a developer with a macbook in my country. The idea sounds absurd. Unless you need Final Cut or whatever, Apple is considered a status brand in many parts of the world.

> I've never seen a developer with a macbook in my country.

In the U.S., at least, whenever I see photos from development conferences (which, admittedly, has been a few years) at least half of all open laptops would be Apples.

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

#529

Post by alkonaut »

jobigoud wrote: post #389
alkonaut wrote: post #319

I have the same question but I'll tweak the parameters somewhat: I want a movable developer workstation. I'll never (or almost never) be using these components of the laptop: battery, screen, touchpad, keyboard. I also don't care much about size weight since I'll be 99% sitting still. On the contrary I'd like it to be large and heavy, if it would help with noise and thermals. Are there good "movable" laptops that run…

Do you use a portable screen? I'm also looking for a "movable" workstation. I have considered a mini PC like Intel NUC coupled with an external GPU, but between the screen and the GPU case I fear it would start to be inconvenient for plane travel.

No I use normal screens 27” and up. I just move the machine between a home office and computer and have screen/keyboard/mouse etc in both locations.

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

#530

Post by smoyer »

I've had great success with Lenovo X1 Carbon laptops running Linux (Debian with XFCE). I've also had good luck with the older Dell XPS laptops. Getting either of these for $2k would require a sale and if you want to run a lot of Docker containers you'll need to pick a beefier model.

My only annoyance, which seems to cross brands, is that none of the newer laptops support the deeper sleep modes.

Post reply on HN