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

721–730 of 813 posts

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

#721

Post by hpcjoe »

hpcjoe wrote: post #189

I have several different laptops. Current main (the unit I'm typing this on) is Linux Mint 20.2 based, AMD Zen2 8c/16t, 64GB ram, 3TB NVME, Renior (AMD) and 1660Ti (NVidia) based. HP Omen 15 2020 edition. I get about 3-4 hours of battery life (meh), with iGPU (AMD). Very light. Good keyboard, and trackpad. Everything works under linux, though sometimes the BT vanishes (I think I need to reseat that, but I was lazy an…

s/physin government's Federal Ministry of Education and Research./physi/g

sigh fat fingered this one

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

#722

Post by Delk »

flawi wrote: post #613
hexo wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In where I live there's a ton of devs using macs. The idea sounds absurd, too. Even more absurd when you realize they're mostly developing stuff that will ultimately run on Linux.

Working for a pretty big corporation (20000ish employees), the reason for this I hear from our IT/Workplace Services team is that Apple laptops actually integrate with the existing Windows-centric IT infra reasonably well with regards to account management, hdd encryption, endpoint protection, etc. This is not true for really any flavor of Linux, or so I'm told. So it's either a HP ZBook or a Macbook, and a big chunk…

Things like Office 365 are also still pretty much a hard requirement at lots of offices. More enterprisey projects can definitely require working with all kinds of moderately complex technical or non-technical documents in Word or Excel.

It may be possible to get it running on Wine or CrossOver Office, of course, but most generic Windows-centric corporations probably aren't going to buy Crossover, and "I can't send you a commented version of this document by today because I'm having a random compatibility issue with this non-commercial software combination that other Normal People don't need" isn't going to make you popular.

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

#723

Post by sarks_nz »

anta40 wrote: post #582
0n34n7 wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why Mac seems to attract so fanatic behavior? Ever think it’s simply because they are amazing machines instead of being some conspiracy or mass brainwashing?

Amazing machines? I haven't tried extensively the M1, so my experience is still limited to the Intel Macs. They are OK. Not jaw droppingly good, just okay-ish. I work as a mobile app dev and unfortunately you can't avoid Mac for iOS dev :p

Long time laptop user. 2012 macbooks were solid. Just worked, never thought about them much.

The 2017-18 macbook pros (touchbar) were complete rubbish. Everything was rubbish. Keyboards. Heat. Battery. Processors.

The M1s are gods gift to developers. By far the best laptop I've used, and I don't see how anyone else can catch up

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

#724

Post by nanidin »

akhmatova wrote: post #716
nanidin wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that if someone can’t articulate why they do or don’t want something, someone who is passionate about that thing sees their chance to help someone see the light. I then guess that the solution to giving requirements like “not a mac” is to also articulate why at a level that the audience will respect. OP has already made the mistake of asking for something very broad in the title, then asking for something ver…

If the title read “Linux laptop” I doubt they would have as many people in the comments suggesting anything else. Sorry, but that's a cop-out. As others have point out, the real problem is "people just don't read these days". Not even the top few lines of a post. If they did, they would have had no problem finding this important qualifier: I have no intention of using Windows/MacOS

I don't agree - I think if the original poster adhered to something like "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way: Use meaningful, specific subject headers" [0] then we would not even be having this conversation because the original poster would have found their target audience of Linux Laptop Recommenders rather than a bunch of people that arrived to comment their favorite laptop and found that they were cut off by the original poster with no real explanation for WHY Windows/MacOS are not acceptable.

It would be similar to "Ask HN: Which text editor should I use for software development" with a body that contains "I have no intention of using an IDE or mouse". It's a poorly formed request if your intent is to ask for recommendations amongst the keyboard driven tiled editors.

[0] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#bespecifi...

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

#725

Post by faster »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #445
octagons wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely love the X1 series. I use it as a daily driver running Linux and can vouch for some of the points made in this thread about them.

How is the battery life?

I get 5-7 hours on battery from my X1C7 FHD running Ubuntu. I carry a power bank in my bag that gives me that much again.

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

#726

Post by goosedragons »

prewett wrote: post #710
goosedragons wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- It's not 2008. Plenty of great looking PCs these days. My Xiaomi Mi Air 12 was IMO a better looking MacBook, clean and free of branding. - Pretty much every modern Windows trackpad has two finger scrolling that works fine. - You can also get mice with free scrolling wheels like the Logitech MX Master line that switch between free spinning and ratcheted. Sometimes ratcheted scrolling is better particularly for gamin…

Well, if you don't appreciate what Apple is offering, then don't buy one. I was just explaining what people see in it. Judging by the upvotes, I'd say it's fairly representative of why people like them. > Just don't buy crap that doesn't work with Linux. See, this is exactly my point. Blame the user... I don't want to have to research what works well. Even if I know it works, it may take quite a while to figure out h…

And I was explaining some of what's wrong with your post. It's pretty clear you haven't touched a PC laptop for like 15 years.

Is it crazy to expect a $1000 laptop these days can handle 2 external monitors? Especially when it's predecessor could? If you're just using 2 monitors to look at spreadsheets or a web browser why spend an extra $1000 for more CPU and RAM you might not even need? Even crappy Intel integrated graphics will do it so long as there's the video outputs.

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

#727

Post by esaym »

xvello wrote: post #424
esaym wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Intel has removed support for S3 sleep from their platform Wait what? How is that allowed?? What is the replacement?

> How is that allowed?? Looks like they can get away with it ¯\_O_/¯ > What is the replacement? S0ix sleep (named s2idle in Linux), where the OS is responsible for suspending / resuming all non-essential functions. Work is ongoing on the Kernel and drivers to improve it, but there is a long way to go (yay Monday mornings with an empty battery because the power draw is still > 1W). Even Windows is unable to make it co…

That sounds really awful...

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

#728

Post by veb »

jerlam wrote: post #719
flawi wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for a pretty big corporation (20000ish employees), the reason for this I hear from our IT/Workplace Services team is that Apple laptops actually integrate with the existing Windows-centric IT infra reasonably well with regards to account management, hdd encryption, endpoint protection, etc. This is not true for really any flavor of Linux, or so I'm told. So it's either a HP ZBook or a Macbook, and a big chunk…

I worked for BigCorp (not FAANG), and developers chose Macs for exactly the opposite reason - they did not integrate into BigCorp's dysfunctional IT infrastructure because they were too new. Over the years, BigCorp IT had deployed increasing amounts of corporate malware for various reasons. Users would be regularly treated to dialogs from various IT departments (accounting, security, inventory, licensing) demanding t…

I was so against Macs when I was younger. I'd only used Windows and FreeBSD for most of my teen years. So when I was 19, and went to Singapore to work... they used iMacs. I'm all like "ew" but my boss told me once I got used to it, I probably wouldn't wanna go back. He was right. I even bought the iMac home to NZ with me as my carry on luggage (those white iMacs) heh.

Though, for the very first time in a long time I had a job with a windows laptop early last year for about 6 months. Holy shit it was a nightmare - if it'd just been Windows, I'd have been fine, but every day there was some new bullshit IT had implemented. I spent so much time fighting that thing, or just being completely lost. The network even had its own MITM thing going on which really messed with vscode (thank god for win-ca extension) - I think they were scanning in real-time to make sure you weren't doing security breaches.

Regardless, it was so over the top it's not funny. This place had less than 20 people, but these insane IT overheads.

With my current job I have been given a top of the line XPS and I gotta say, that screen looks so much better than my 2020 MBP. It's really nice. A few of my colleagues have put Linux on it, but then they can't connect to work VPN, etc. I only use the laptop for connecting to our databases and I just code on my macbook. This is a far bigger company, and they have a great IT team with none of that silliness from the smaller company.

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

#730

Post by KennyBlanken »

SxC97 wrote: post #694
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.

Have you not noticed the rabid Linux fan base on HN? It seems like every discussion about Macs or macOS has at least 2-3 comments about how someone had used macOS for years, then got sick of apples (intel) hardware or lack of software customizability and switched to a Linux machine running Debian/Fedora/Ubuntu/Manjaro and they are never looking back (except for commenting on every Mac related post on HN). The only re…

> If this was a gaming focused forum, you would see a lot more Windows fanaticism.

Eh. Gaming forums are full of complaints about windows and what a pain in the ass it is. Old games break, new games break, drivers break, malware concerns, bloated device drivers (glaring at you, Razer) and gamers don't like all the bloatware and analytics crap.

The reason you don't see Windows fanatics on here is because so many people hate dealing with it.

People seem genuinely excited that Steam is pushing more games to Linux.

Post reply on HN