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

541–550 of 813 posts

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

#541

Post by jlokier »

lupire wrote: post #458
jlokier wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unlikely to be website memory leaks. If it was, on "memory flush" it wouldn't drop to about the same amount every time that fits comfortably in RAM, with no visible effect except the pause. This event does not unload tabs. With the numbers I'm seeing, think it's too risky to commit to 16GB non-upgradeable RAM for a laptop that must last many years to justify the cost. The ask HN author wants their sub-$2000 lapt…

Client memory usage has plateaued, now that everything is a web/cloud app.

Storage maybe, RAM less clear. Some web apps use more RAM (in the browser) compared with the equivalent native app, and on a laptop people like to run multiple apps at the same time, whether web or native.

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

#542

Post by 0n34n7 »

rmbyrro wrote: post #326
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…

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.

> 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?

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

#543

Post by oauea »

brimble wrote: post #328
kibwen wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is a luxury fashion company and Apple hardware is a way for people to express social status, which means convincing as many other people as possible that Apple is desirable in order to elevate the effectiveness of their social status signaling. It's the same as any other luxury fashion brand, e.g. Louis Vuitton. The value is not in the function of the product itself, but in the perception of status that it enge…

I felt the way you do for the entire decade of the '00s. Then I started a job that issued me a MacBook Pro. And got to see, use, and develop for, a shitload of Android and iOS devices, both phones and tablets. Turns out I'd just never given them a chance. But yes, I'm sure Apple users are just dumber than you, and that's all it is.

Well, sure, because Apple makes it impossible to develop for iOS devices without using a Mac. So you HAVE to fully buy into their ecosystem if you want to develop anything for their mobile phones.

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

#544

Post by ahepp »

eertami wrote: post #410
swozey wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ultimately more powerful" As a previous BSD engineer please explain further, this entire thread is just horrendous and should be downvoted to oblivion. Nobody cares what laptop you decide to use, nor are you incapable of doing your own research. My grandmother calls me for laptop recommendations. My M1 Max 14" MBP has 64gb ram, mucho cores and is the fastest machine I've used. My gaming/dev desktop is a 12core ryzen…

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.

I had to jump through a few hoops to get Linux working right on my XPS 15, and it was actually a major reason I switched to a MacBook. The backlight didn't work with the original kernel released with Debian Bullseye. That got fixed with the next release of Bullseye, but I still only got something like, 4 hours of battery life? I'm almost certain it wasn't properly switching between integrated graphics and the Nvidia GPU, but there are only so many hours in the day to set this stuff up.

I really liked my XPS when I got it, but I'm pretty jaded about Linux support for laptops ever being good enough to compete with something like Apple. And at the end of the day I care a lot more about having a high quality Unix based OS than whether or not that OS is libre (sorry to say).

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

#545

Post by sto_hristo »

geocar wrote: post #509

Maybe you want to consider a beefy desktop with a battery-backup and plugging it in someplace cold and setting up a laptop to remote into it. You can get a lot of bang for your buck in a desktop, and going lean on the laptop means you don't need to compromise on cpu memory or storage. They even make special video cards that do the remote desktop encoding (PcOIP) that are really quite fine for coding, but I find xpra…

I'm actually on the fence for something like this. Waiting to hear about cooling capabilities of the upcoming Dell XPS 15 though.

In this case, instead of laptop i'm thinking of tablet with a big screen instead.

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

#546

Post by bo1024 »

ibejoeb wrote: post #344
bo1024 wrote: post #287

Purism Librem 14 Is my daily driver currently running Linux mint. - overall very happy with it for my uses. I don’t do a lot of intense workloads on the laptop, mostly stuff like text editing and latex compiling. - battery is great. With screen brightness reasonably low and working on low intensity tasks, I could get 8 hours I think pretty easily. Probably 3 hours of video calls. - durability is good so far. My libre…

Do you have the 3-cell or the 4-cell battery? > expect some challenges if you’re going to run a different distro. There are some battery life/suspend issues that seem to be rooted in the disabled intel ME. I'll have to track it down, but I recall purism trying to get a kernel patch upstream from their PureOS. It surfaced on Arch, but I haven't seen it on Qubes, which is their other first-class OS. > trackpad keyboard…

4 cell battery.

Don't recall hitting the battery life issues, at least in a long time. I do remember having to install some packages about battery management but it wasn't tricky. This is the one thing Framework really trails on for me.

Speakers - agree they're not great but I think some of that has to do with the default EQ, see https://forums.puri.sm/t/better-eq-for-librem-14-speakers/13... I don't know what the current status is, they're ok for me on Mint but my standards are low.

Bluetooth - worked easily for me on Mint.

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

#547

Post by masklinn »

tmh88j wrote: post #464
lazyier wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple keyboards are miserable. I don't know why people keep saying that it's so wonderful. 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. As an Emacs user I find the whole concept of a "touch screen esc key" as deplorable and regressive. And this is on top of the poor re…

>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.

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

#548

Post by mr_coleman »

lazyier wrote: post #441
raxxorraxor wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a Mac Book from time to time and the keyboard alone is special... I don't think Mac is a good universal machine for development to be honest. The devices overall are nice, out of the question, but a Linux machine is ultimately more powerful.

Apple keyboards are miserable. I don't know why people keep saying that it's so wonderful. 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. As an Emacs user I find the whole concept of a "touch screen esc key" as deplorable and regressive. And this is on top of the poor re…

I had a pre-2015 macbook for a while and I can honestly say that I've never had a worse keyboard. It hurt my fingers and it felt like Apple was trying to destroy my hands. A cheap $10 keyboard felt better.

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

#549

Post by bo1024 »

ryukafalz wrote: post #354
bo1024 wrote: post #287

Purism Librem 14 Is my daily driver currently running Linux mint. - overall very happy with it for my uses. I don’t do a lot of intense workloads on the laptop, mostly stuff like text editing and latex compiling. - battery is great. With screen brightness reasonably low and working on low intensity tasks, I could get 8 hours I think pretty easily. Probably 3 hours of video calls. - durability is good so far. My libre…

Also using a Librem 14 as my daily driver but less happy with it. The machine seems to lose track of its charge level pretty easily, so it tends to power off suddenly, especially if it’s been in sleep mode for a while. The hinge feels a bit flimsy; I’m hoping it’ll hold up long-term but there’s some give to it that makes me a bit nervous about its longevity. The keyboard has been disappointing; my experience with it…

Bummer, sad to hear that. Thanks for sharing

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

#550

Post by swozey »

Lio wrote: post #540
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.

8 hours is amazingly good for an XPS13 in my experience. My XP13 9370 running Fedora lasts maybe 2 hours at a push. I'm actually considering moving back to a 14" MacBook Pro because of the battery life. Rumours of an imminent M2 upgrade are about the only thing stopping me now.

I got the 14" Max when they first came out and it's an absolutely fantastic laptop. I love it. The Max battery life is quite a bit worse than the regular M1, if thats your main concern go with the non-Max.
Post reply on HN