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Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

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Re: Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

#41

Post by streblo »

To echo what a lot of people are saying: It sounds like you really want a mac, so I'd say go ahead and swallow the cost and just get it.

Personal testimonial: I own a G4 Powerbook that I bought about 5 years ago, and a MacBook Pro that I acquired about three years ago. Both work really well, and their longevity has been more than worth the price tag. My Powerbook still runs Halo flawlessly on medium settings. Any time I've had a problem with either, I've gone to an apple store and they've fixed any and all problems I've had.

Re: Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

#42

Post by drinian »

I just picked up a Sager NP7350 a few weeks ago, in part because Sager resellers like PC Torque or Xotic PC will sell you a laptop without a Windows license (and I'm going to use it entirely with Linux).

$1750 including 13" screen with LED backlight, and one of those Intel solid-state disks. Believe the hype, they are ridiculously fast. The machine is dead silent when the unfortunately loud fan isn't running.

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid supported most hardware out of the box, aside from a nasty bug in the wifi support that will be solved in a kernel update, hopefully soon. No support for the fingerprint scanner and possibly the webcam, I haven't tried it.

Sager is essentially rebranding machines made by a Taiwanese company called Clevo, and cater mostly to highly technical users. Most tech support won't ask you to open up the back panel and reset the CMOS battery yourself before RMAing (true story), and I like that.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1017 is a big hub of information.

One thing I would watch out for, Intel VT is not yet enabled in the mainline BIOS. Clevo just recently enabled it, and Sager has yet to get their rebranded BIOS in stock yet. However, one BIOS flash will fix this.

Re: Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

#43

Post by varaon »

alnayyir wrote: post #27
niels_olson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but what good is a laptop to a .NET developer if it doesn't have ethernet? Do you mean the wired card doesn't work, but wi-fi still works?

He does, which is highly bothersome to me.

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/15/accessories-for-macbook-air-u...

Possibly compatible, who knows.

Re: Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

#44

Post by alex_c »

This depends on how urgent it is, but if you have some time and really want to save some cash, keep checking the refurbished Apple store a couple times a day for a week or two. The listings change regularly, but the good deals can be gone within hours.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

Re: Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

#45

Post by varaon »

alnayyir wrote: post #21
tower10 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought mine new a while back (~$3000 AUD) from Apple. Just looking at eBay, they seem to go for a touch over $1000 USD at the moment. I figure they're a bit of a bargain at the moment since they're perfectly capable and have just been replaced by the shiny new model. I mainly develop Ruby Rails/Merb apps with TextMate.

Egads, I love textmate. Another reason I want a mac. That and darkroom and a multitude of other apps. :| I'll poke around ebay and see if I find anything worthwhile.

Free Darkroom, plus cross-platform. http://www.codealchemists.com/jdarkroom/

Re: Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

#46

Post by kajecounterhack »

alnayyir wrote: post #32
TheNational22 wrote: post #30

This may not be popular, but, I use HP laptops almost exclusively, I'm a Python and PHP mostly programmer (I have been learning Java for about a year), and I have three HP laptops. A dv2300 pavilion, an HDX 16, and an older one, can't remember series, that still works. They all dual boot windows and linux (sorry, no OSX, just doesn't appeal to me). As long as you can easily add ram and HDD's (one of the reasons apple…

I've used HPs, they feel like they're made of the plastic they make trash cans out of. Keyboards are just as bad. They make me want to cry because I know what kind of hardware HP is capable of making.

actually the new HP line is really really popular (HP has surpassed dell as the #1 PC maker) -- and the quality isn't bad at all. you can get the latest nvidia geforce 9800go with a 17 inch screen, dvd burner. if you get the really popular models, hackintosh is a snap (there's one hackintosh thing that makes it super easy, I dont remember if its iatkos or something else...) -- and linux is also.

keep in mind that on ANY computer, you can install windows and dual boot ubuntu with the WUBI installer, which is a REAL linux installation that uses your windows partition to run (so it doesnt use the extention filesystem). that solves the "hassle free linux" problem.

I personally have been using a Dell Precision M70 Workstation with a Quadro 1400go gfx (1920x1200 res) for the past 3 and a half years, which has been awesome. Like you, my system got old, and I customized a cyberpower laptop for 1 grand. I got geforce 8600gt (yes last gen I know but that was months ago), core 2 duo (the fastest I could afford at the time), minimum ram (I bought another 4gb later to install), dvd burner, and all that jazz.

Love it.

Re: Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

#47

Post by kajecounterhack »

alnayyir wrote: post #15
gherlein wrote: post #7

I just got a Dell XPS 1530 - bigger than you probably want, but for me it's outstanding. 1920x1200 LCD, HDMI out, 4GB RAM, Core2 Duo, 320GB haard drive - for under $1500. A huge seling point for me was that it can be ordered with Ubuntu so it's fully linux compatable.

As soon as a windows laptop cracks 1k, it's macbook buying time I'm afraid.

Hey hey hey, you spend $2k on a REALLY nice PC, and install Ubuntu via wubi for ZERO driver problems (granted you need to install windows beforehand but that doesn't look troublesome since you play eve online).

Who said macbook was the only way to go over 1k? ever read zed shaw's horror story? yeah.

Re: Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

#48

Post by alnayyir »

varaon wrote: post #45
alnayyir wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Egads, I love textmate. Another reason I want a mac. That and darkroom and a multitude of other apps. :| I'll poke around ebay and see if I find anything worthwhile.

Free Darkroom, plus cross-platform. http://www.codealchemists.com/jdarkroom/

It sucks, sorry. :(

Re: Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

#50

Post by alnayyir »

whatusername wrote: post #38
alnayyir wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most are recommending that I either get a lastgen mac or the current-gen. The current-gen is quite an upgrade, and it seems that I might just sell off some stuff to make up the difference and get a current-gen. There's just too much great software on OS X for me to pass up.

Depending on timelines - don't forget that snow-leopard is coming out soon... Not sure if it's worth the extra couple of months waiting?

I can wait. If I do, I'll def. have the money for a macbook/macbook pro outright.
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