using a 2011 MBP 13" 8gb ram, now hooked up to a 30" monitor. It's honestly overkill for me.
I like it more than the legendary Lenovo T500 I formerly had (screen wasn't bright enough, wireless/sleep issues bugged me)
Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
21–30 of 47 posts
Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
#22I have a '10 MBA 13. It's really an almost ideal laptop. Pros: -It runs a Unix based OS, but one that I don't have to install and configure myself. -It's thin and light -Battery lasts 7 hours (although recently I've been getting ~5:30, which is not quite enough for "all day usage") -The display is high res. Has the same res as many 15" displays. Cons: Limited storage and RAM with huge markups for upgrades. edit: love…
If you don't mind me asking, what kind of development do you typically do on your MBA?
I have a 15" MBP, and considered a MBA, but I am worried that having available real estate a tad smaller would be a detriment, even with the high resolution.
Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
#23Lots of MBP/Air users here... :-) However, at my office we've just ordered some Lenovo x121e's. All have an i3 processor, 8GB RAM, and SSD's. The speed is great, but the screen isn't so large for those of you that need large screen real estate (11.6"). We ordered them for portable "workstations" or something powerful and speedy enough for basic development tasks. Battery life is great at about 6-8hrs, however the pri…
My x120e, the immediate predecessor, is my everyday machine. I'm sad that I've just got an AMD Fusion instead of an i3, though.
Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
#24Lenovo Ideapad != Lenovo Thinkpad
I made that mistake once and only once, the Ideapad is trash, like your average, low-end Dell/HP/Toshiba laptop.
Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
#25I have a 12.5" lenovo thinkpad x220. i5, 8gb ram, kingston hyperX SATA III ssd. The screen is an IPS screen.
I run 64-bit ubuntu.
I have a 9 cell battery which, after running powerTop, I get ~12 hours battery life out of coding.
This machine is great because I can travel, but it also has VGA out and HDMI out so I can connect to a larger monitor. The SATA III drive was VERY easy to swap out and is ridiculously fast (~500mb/s read/write)
The other benefit of this machine is that there is an mSATA port...you can boot off of the mSATA and use a larger platter drive for storage, even boot other OSes that you don't use too often.
The i5 vs i7 performance isn't too big of a deal unless you're utilizing multicores all the time. I have a desktop at work with an i7 and honestly, I don't feel much of a difference. In fact, the SSD makes my laptop feel a lot faster.
My wife has a MBA 13" that I use from time to time to maintain my IOs app...Thank goodness I didn't get it as my main laptop.
As for the review site, try notebookreview.com. I've always used it and is pretty good
edit: formatting
Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
#26I have a '10 MBA 13. It's really an almost ideal laptop. Pros: -It runs a Unix based OS, but one that I don't have to install and configure myself. -It's thin and light -Battery lasts 7 hours (although recently I've been getting ~5:30, which is not quite enough for "all day usage") -The display is high res. Has the same res as many 15" displays. Cons: Limited storage and RAM with huge markups for upgrades. edit: love…
Is MBA short for MacBook Air?
Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
#27Here is the thing you need to look at
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5177/holiday-2011-laptop-buyer...
Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
#28I have a '10 MBA 13. It's really an almost ideal laptop. Pros: -It runs a Unix based OS, but one that I don't have to install and configure myself. -It's thin and light -Battery lasts 7 hours (although recently I've been getting ~5:30, which is not quite enough for "all day usage") -The display is high res. Has the same res as many 15" displays. Cons: Limited storage and RAM with huge markups for upgrades. edit: love…
If you don't mind me asking, what kind of development do you typically do on your MBA? I have a 15" MBP, and considered a MBA, but I am worried that having available real estate a tad smaller would be a detriment, even with the high resolution.
I have a 15" MBP and I've played around with the 13" MBA and I will say that the real estate issue isn't noticeable. Unless you have difficultly in reading smaller icons and fonts, having the same resolution made very little difference to me.
I will also note that the keyboard feels better on the MBA and the weight is a SIZEABLE difference (~3lbs vs. 5.5lbs).
The downside of course is if for some reason you need better specs, the MBA is only an i5 and maxes out at 4GB of RAM.
Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
#29I have a '10 MBA 13. It's really an almost ideal laptop. Pros: -It runs a Unix based OS, but one that I don't have to install and configure myself. -It's thin and light -Battery lasts 7 hours (although recently I've been getting ~5:30, which is not quite enough for "all day usage") -The display is high res. Has the same res as many 15" displays. Cons: Limited storage and RAM with huge markups for upgrades. edit: love…
Is MBA short for MacBook Air?
Yes it is
Re: Ask HN:Best Development Laptop?
#30Is the 'wipe down' comment related to the finish on macs? I've got a lenovo with a soft-touch finish (orange in my case), and it is great. The finish is durable, and I'm amazed how many mac owners look at my laptop and comment on how nice it is. It has a much warmer feel than the air or it's copycats. I never thought I would buy lenovo, but I'm sold. They do need to improve battery life. I thought I'd never run down…
Yeah, the lenovo finish is very nice.