
Ask HN: Will I *need* a powerful laptop? - kmfrick_
I&#x27;m a CS undergrad currently working (from home, yay coronavirus) on my thesis project. My laptop is four years old and in perfect condition, I upgraded it to an SSD about a year ago when I could not bear the boot times anymore. However, it has no GPU, a less-than optimal CPU, and a 720p screen.<p>I noticed that, while most of the heavy lifting (model fitting and any serious benchmarks) is carried out by my uni&#x27;s computers, I spend a lot of time waiting for code to compile or simulations to start up and run (slowly); it also gets annoying to have to edit code to only use the CPU when compiling on my computer, iron out all the cracks then turn the GPU flags back on when moving to the uni&#x27;s servers and hope it works without additional hacking.<p>My screen being low-res also causes issues when some GUI tool was developed in-house by somebody with a bigger screen and it does not fit on mine and can&#x27;t be resized so I have to move it around.<p>These are all minor annoyances I can tolerate, but I&#x27;m only an undergrad. Will I <i>need</i> a more powerful laptop in the future or can I assume that during my career I will always have access to compute time to do the heavy lifting on? And if I can assume this, on the other hand, what&#x27;s the point of having a powerful laptop if you work in CS and don&#x27;t play video games or do video production on your laptop?
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simonblack
I'm probably different from most laptop users but my policy is to buy as good
a machine as I can afford and then keep it for years. Maybe I will do minor
upgrades but that's about it. My purchasing policy is generally along the
lines of the old adage "Buy twice as good, and buy half as many."

Normally I use a good Desktop, and the laptop is for travelling and other 'out
of the office' use.

My current laptop is a ThinkPad T410S which I bought at 'high cost for the
time' (= $2500) back in late 2010, just before I went to France for 8 months.
So it's now about 10 years old, but still very usable, and has roughly cost me
only $250 bucks a year. (pretty much - a bit more, actually, because I decided
to upgrade the hard drive.)

It had a good screen resolution for back then (1440 x 900) which is still very
usable for my developing, though it's now starting to feel a bit cramped. The
CPU was 'upmarket for the era' and is an i5, 2 core. My only upgrade has been
to increase my hdd from 500 megabytes to 2000 megabytes.

Compile times for my work are still good. But, mind you, I can still remember
compile times of 30-40 minutes for the Linux kernel way back in the past, so
everything is relative.

~~~
kmfrick_
I understand, that is my policy as well but I was wondering if I should
instead start saving more money in order to be able to keep up with newer tech
in laptops or money saved is better spent in other ways. Thank you for sharing
your opinion!

~~~
simonblack
"Newer Tech" is not progressing rapidly. Sure there is improvement, but it's
not at an exceptional rate. Which is why a 'good' laptop holds its usability
for quite a few years.

If you have an urgent need for a new laptop now, then go out and buy the best
one you can afford and 'get your feet on the ladder', so to speak.

Then keep that machine for as long as possible while building up a cash
balance that will get you a machine in the future that is 5-10 times as good.
Don't buy a replacement just because it is just a little bit newer and better,
and you can afford it, but only buy a replacement machine that is _a whole lot
better_.

It may be that it takes you 10 years or more for a replacement machine to
reach that level. Hence my reasons for keeping my 10-year old ThinkPad T410s.
I keep looking for a replacement these days (Lenovo keeps emailing me teaser
ads), but I haven't yet found one that is leaps and bounds better than that
old T410S.

EDIT. Did I mention the great connectivity of the T410S? It has all these
connectors built-in (4x USBs, RJ-45 Ethernet, Express card, Firewire, eSATA,
SD Card, DisplayPort, RJ-11 Phone/Modem) with a removable battery pack and a
DVD writer as icing on the cake. All the newer machines don't have those. They
expect you to plug in a whole bunch of USB adapters, instead. ... Now do you
understand why I'm having so much trouble finding a replacement that's better?

------
ktpsns
I have a quite similar story to tell. During my time (PhD) at academia, I
always had access to plenty of computing resources. What's the point of having
a powerful laptop? Mostly the possibility to do some heavy lifting also
offline (during travel, in hotels with bad WiFi, at conferences, etc) and
especially without latency (doing visualization with remote GPU rendering over
VNC is fine, but annoyingly slow if you have a slow WiFi).

Having said that: being equipped with a decent work station can really feel
much better. Maybe you can manage your university to pay for it (sometimes
your advisor/professor has some money left).

~~~
kmfrick_
So it basically comes down to "minor annoyances" all the way, and the question
is whether they pile up enough?

------
saltcod
It really comes down to what you can live with. Does the desire to have a new
computer really weigh on you? Then just work towards getting it. Does saving
the money matter more? Then don't get it. My wife works happily away on her
2011 MBP — not compiling code, but still working happily away. I work fine on
my 2014 MBP. SSDs really make it tolerable these days.

~~~
kmfrick_
I have no _desire_ for a new computer. I just wonder whether in the future
these small annoyances are going to become non-trivial hindrances to my work.

