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Ask HN: Which is the best laptop for programmers under budget?

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Re: Ask HN: Which is the best laptop for programmers under budget?

#71

Post by mod »

madaxe_again wrote: post #66
mod wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that weird or even interesting. I could work on that machine, as well. Put briefly, I work in a terminal all day. Sometimes locally, but oftentimes I ssh to a machine in the cloud. Virtually any machine would work well for me. I do like nice machines still, but I would give up a lot just to have a nice keyboard.

Ditto. Without the HDD or optical drive it's fairly light, and the battery lasts hours. Use a USB wifi dongle as needed. The keyboard and pointer nubbin work great. To be clear I also have an MBP, but I usually use the junker. The MBP gets used for potatoshop and client side testing. I also drive a '95 golf. Cost next to nothing to buy, parts laughably cheap. £500 for a convertible that goes like stink? Yes please. I…

I have a '96 Jeep with an inline 6. Also I didn't mention it, but at my (non-tech) business, I still have a Toshiba Satellite running. I bought it used for $50 like 7 years ago and we keep our books on it.

Guess we're soul-mates now.

Re: Ask HN: Which is the best laptop for programmers under budget?

#72

Post by segmondy »

The cheapest laptop the programmer can comfortably afford. Most programmers are not limited by their machines but their mind. Unless you are doing cutting edge research, pushing 3D graphics, deep learning, machine learning, serious analytics, security or things requiring multiple containers/VM. You will be fine.

My laptop is a chromebook that I bought for a bit more than $100. I upgraded the memory to 8gb. It still has 16gb SSD. Run linux on it too and use SD card and google drive for storage.

Re: Ask HN: Which is the best laptop for programmers under budget?

#74

Post by comstock »

mod wrote: post #62
comstock wrote: post #16

If your backend dev, maybe the laptops I use (IBM x220s) would work for you? I find they fly with Linux/an SSD. They're also pretty cheap (50 to 100USD). So I buy a few at a time so I can leave one at the office etc.

Where do you buy them? I can't find any for sale.

eBay, there are a bunch of sale.

A while back one seller was selling packs for 3 or 4 without HDDs/batteries for around 50USD each.

Re: Ask HN: Which is the best laptop for programmers under budget?

#75

Post by codegladiator »

I have a lenovo yoga 260 and I love it. Not the commercial one (there are multiple yoga series). One of the best keyboard I have used ( the one on MSI was better ofcourse ), plus this has 512 ssd + 8 gig ram. never heats up, very robust.

I wish there was no black boundary around the screen.

Re: Ask HN: Which is the best laptop for programmers under budget?

#76

Post by limeblack »

kk_cz wrote: post #3

It's hard to answer, unless you define the budget, but I'd say refurbished ThinkPad T420 (Last model to has decent keyboard). Put some RAM & SSD inside and you have nicely built and powerful machine.

Funny this is exactly what I have. Only funny thing is they have cd drive although the hard drive is crazy easily removable which is a positive.

Re: Ask HN: Which is the best laptop for programmers under budget?

#78

Post by kexari »

deafcalculus wrote: post #31

MacBook Air - The keyboard is nice, and the trackpad is small enough that accidental taps are a rarity. Screen is poor though. If you can get a macbook pro 2015, that would be better. But the Air makes a decent budget laptop. If you're into game dev, you'll need a Windows laptop. Macs are fine for web/app dev.

+1 on the MacBook Air. I've got a 2014 model and use it daily for Swift iOS dev. Fantastic size machine. Battery is great. Keyboard to die for. And it has USB ports not USB C.
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