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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?

#561

Post by gspr »

indiv0 wrote: post #505
c0mptonFP wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, operating system is one of the most fundamental things to consider when getting a dev machine. MacOS is literally useless for me, because I depend on the Linux kernel.

Just run Linux in a VM! It's my preferred workflow nowadays. See: https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDMLoWz76U Only real limitations are lack of ML because no server/desktop-grade GPU and some missing ARM-based docker containers. But the latter is slowly being resolved and the former isn't gonna happen on a laptop anyways.

> Just run Linux in a VM! It's my preferred workflow nowadays.

Or just run it on real hardware! It's my preferred workflow.

These two comments of ours are equally pointless.

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

#562

Post by StillBored »

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…

sleep/standby on linux has really gone downhill in the last couple years, mostly because of microsoft's modern standby, which has become a price discrimination option for HP/dell/lenovo which only provide the better supported S3/etc ACPI methods on their "linux compatible" laptops.

So, what happens is that Linux tends to "work" on lots of lower end laptops/etc that ship with windows, but suspend will consume considerably more power vs just turning everything but the DRAM refresh off (what happens with S3). If you find a laptop with S3/etc support, the battery will last for days in linux as well. I have an older cheap dell inspiron from ~2016 and it can stay in S3 for more than a week from a full charge, and with a bit of powertoy/etc tweaking idles at about 3W which gives it about a 14 hour battery just sitting there with the screen/emacs running.

So, its definitely worth getting a "linux compatible" laptop if your not a kernel hacker who is willing to fix bugs in various drivers. Even then if your picky and you get a bleeding edge machine its quite likely there will be quality of life issues for the first couple years until all the fixes work their way through to all the distro's/etc everyone runs.

Its actually a good reason for avoiding the tier 1 OEM's, because acer/asus/msi/etc tend to ship with a full suite of BIOS options which allow better linux tuning. HP has gotten quite aggressive about changing/etc the password/hidden key sequences to unlock the hidden bios options.

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

#563

Post by aenis »

swozey wrote: post #418
eertami wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have an M1 MBP and XPS 13. I pretty much always use the XPS. Side by side, there is no noticeable difference in speed for my everyday work. The MBP is more efficient for sure, but I get 8+ hours of battery from the XPS which is good enough - and I can run Linux without jumping through hoops. Edit: Missed the 'z', sorry, possibly explains different experiences.

Mine is the ultrabook, the XPS 13z 2n1. It throttles nonstop, I've even gone so far to rip it open and attempted to re-paste everything inside of it. Unfortunately the ultrabook CPU can't be de-lidded and pasted without breaking things, I was actually the first person on /r/dell to rip this laptop open.. The XPS 13 is a much larger device (better cooling). The 13z ruined me ever buying another Dell. I really wanted t…

My wife has one of those things for work. She had to downclock the CPU in order to prevent it from running the fans at full speed for her workflows. After that, it was OK, slow, but at least no longer too loud to have a conversation next to it.

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

#565

Post by NikolaNovak »

fullstackchris wrote: post #533
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…

> I mean, guys seriously. But we're serious. OP has created their own nonsensical boundaries with these constraints. Essentially the title is completely misleading apart from the 2K number. If OP is looking specifically for a linux-compatible machine they should have at least mentioned that in the title. It's no suprise at all that these types of answers are in this thread. I saw the title, came here to offer my thou…

Love it!

There's a meaningful title, and a set of perfectly common and reasonable requirements in an ordered, clear, explicit fashion that we all normally wish requester would follow.

But because some jumped in with their own agenda, and feel stifled... now these are "nonsensical boundaries" :->

(Plus, I mean, if somebody wanted a mac... how much advice or options do they need ? Want a mac, get a mac. That part of equation is not exactly complicated, for better or for worse, is it? So let's not pretend this was anything but zealots wanting to chime in :)

You do you, Hacker news :)

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

#566

Post by tmh88j »

masklinn wrote: post #547
tmh88j wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple keyboards are miserable > I have a Macbook pro I get from work and the keyboard on that thing is borderline unusable. With it's weird flat keys, no travel, and the elimination of function keys for this terrible GUI thing. You have an older version made sometime between 2016-2019. They got rid of the butterfly keyboard for the 2020 models.

The keys on the new ones still have pretty short travel though. Much shorter than the pre-butterfly generation, which wasn’t very deep in the first place. I can well understand that people who like / want deep key travel would dislike them.

I hate the butterfly keyboard too, but most importantly the worthless touchbar is gone and the physical escape key is back.

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

#567

Post by nerdawson »

eldaisfish wrote: post #500
falcolas wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why Mac seems to attract so fanatic behavior? The same reason console wars exist. If there are multiple choices, and it's not practical to take/use/buy all the options, people feel the need to justify the choice that they did make. When someone's starting from a defensive position, unemotional rationality is uncommon. AKA, it's human nature.

it's really not the same as console wars. You touch and interact with a laptop far more often than a video game console. That alone makes the comparison invalid. While i am no apple fanatic, i will readily admit that much of their hardware is designed extremely well from an ergonomic standpoint. Barring obvious failures like their push to make things needlessly thin, a lot of their hardware is durable and holds its v…

I think you're making a different point.

The post wasn't about how you engage with the device. It was simply another similar scenario where the same behaviour emerges.

It's an emotional decision dressed in layers of thought and reason.

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

#568

Post by banal00 »

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…

Look I’ve designed electronics for big corp; if you used the internet 99-2004, parts I designed probably switched your packets, or boosted signal.

You’re trying to predict your future. No one here can help with that.

You know your philosophical constraints. Hardware across vendors fails at largely the same rate due to normalized manufacture and sourcing patterns now. It all comes from the same few parts bins pretty much. The key specs are listed on each site.

Reality is you have roughly the same risk of getting a lemon or finding a laundry list of nitpicks with any choice.

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

#569

Post by StillBored »

xwdv wrote: post #537
StillBored wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lenovo, in their wisdom (penny pinching I guess), has been soldering either 4 or 8G of ram into the thinkpads for the last few years. This is one of the things that drove me away from them, because it seriously limits the amount of ram that can be installed (vs what is possible) and it messes up any kind of dimm striping one might want to run, as well as restricting you to the generally not great timings of the solde…

You can still install more RAM into a T480s as there is an open slot.

Yah, I thought that was clear. But if you get one of the machines with 4G soldered, your basically limited to 1/2 the full capacity of the hardware (36G vs 64G IIRC).

edit: Its actually 20-24G max according to the spec sheet, compared with my similar age cheepe dell which does 32G because it has two dimm slots so I have a pair of 16G dimms in it.

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

#570

Post by soulnothing »

mentos wrote: post #332
noduerme wrote: post #192

This is probably an unpopular view, but I kind of use laptops as if they were terminals. If you want to spend $2k, I'd invest $1600 of that in a great desktop machine, and spend the other $400 on a cheap chromebook and tablets / keyboards / gizmos to log into it remotely.

I went to BestBuy last month with this same idea in mind. I've got 4 desktop PCs under my desk I use for game dev but I'm curious to travel and remote desktop into them. I was on the fence about maybe just getting a small laptop and large portable monitor but eventually landed on a $329 "HP - 17.3" Laptop - Intel Core i3 - 8GB Memory - 256GB SSD - Natural Silver" that seemed to check my two boxes cheap & large screen…

The weakest link in this setup is your current internet. I've found while traveling, internet is generally pretty bad under, 10Mbs. Making this a rather difficult task. American view.

At home, my "laptop" is a dumb terminal that docks to my desk monitors. But computes to servers in the closet.

At my families who have (150:down/10:up)Mbs it was no different from being at home. I connected over wire guard. I even took my zoom/client calls in vms over rdp. Passing my webcam from my local laptop -> wire guard -> server. I also used parsed to stream gaming from home.

Conversely, I was at an Airbnb recently with (5/0.512)Mbs DSL. It was a real chore. For the internet black hole, I've opted to go for a SFFpc instead. That can fit into checked baggage or carry on. Even if I can't setup a monitor and keyboard at the airbnb hotel. Having both off in lodging wifi is suitable enough.

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