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Ask HN: What is the best Laptop you have ever used for development?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best Laptop you have ever used for development?

#21

Post by whichdan »

bobwaycott wrote: post #18

I am quite partial to my current 2012 15" MacBook Pro. Only Apple-supplied upgrades are the 2.5GHz i7 and the high-res screen. Replaced default hard drive with Corsair Force3 SSD, purchased from Amazon (iirc). Removed optical drive & placed default hard drive in its place with aftermarket drive bay kit. Ignored Apple's RAM upgrade & bought 16GB RAM from third party (Apple only sells 8GB, even though 16GB is supported…

I'm using the 2011 one, matte screen, Apple-installed 128gb SSD, and 8gb of RAM. It's the best laptop I've ever owned. I only wish I went for the 256gb SSD, despite the price.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Laptop you have ever used for development?

#22

Post by ixacto »

pkamb wrote: post #16
rule30 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a pleasure to hit them! but they are moving to island-style keyboards: http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/06/lenovo-thinkpad-x230/ (btw i binded caps lock to ESC with `xmodmap -e 'clear Lock' -e 'keycode 0x42 = Escape'`, much better for VIM)

I guess I can go either way on the chiclet keyboard. But why would they go back to the tiny delete key?

Switch to chicklet keys and I might as well get a MBP. The whole point of Thinkpads is that IBM/Lenovo & CO leave the design alone.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Laptop you have ever used for development?

#23

Post by jetti »

agscala wrote: post #10
bitwize wrote: post #8

My current one -- a 2010 Lenovo ThinkPad T510. A high-end, rock-solid machine with an insanely durable battery (they claim up to 8 hours on a charge, realistically I can pull about 5 or 6). Compared to a MacBook, it looks like the Tumbler Batmobile from Batman Begins , but it was about $1000 cheaper than a similarly specced Mac at the time of purchase; the keyboard is much better (not full travel, but good tactile ac…

Extremely tempted to pick up a T520 off of lenovo's outlet store. They're only $1100 for 1080p, 8gb ram, SSD, and a dedicated video card. Whoahhhh

You should do it! That is what I was given at work and will say it is better than any other laptop that I have ever used.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best Laptop you have ever used for development?

#24

Post by VikingCoder »

The best Laptop I ever used for development was one with a keyboard, monitor, trackpad, and internet connection.

I would VNC into my work machine (using a two-factor authentication), and do development on my work machine.

It had all of my work already saved on it, it could compile faster than any laptop of similar price, and if my laptop was stolen from me, I would not lose any of my work - and none of my intellectual property (trade secret, or otherwise) was compromised.

Every now and then, internet connectivity was an issue, and that sucked.

I can't imagine losing full control over my intellectual property, though, so that's a trade I was totally comfortable with.

It had a small SSD so it would boot quickly, because that's all it really needed to do.

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