
Ask HN: Which laptop brands are worth shortlisting for Windows work/development? - petecooper
I have been reading previous HN submissions on this subject (e.g., [1]) and I am interested in a late-2014 perspective on this.<p>Currently, I have a MacBook Pro 17&quot;(Mid 2010). I work in OS X 10.10 and Windows 7. I work on my own projects (mostly OS X) and also client projects (mostly Windows 7). The OS split is currently 40&#x2F;60 and the trend is for more Windows 7 client work. With that in mind, I wish to split my own projects from client projects and have a Windows 7-only laptop.<p>The last i386 laptop I bought was an IBM Thinkpad T21. It&#x27;s been that long. I loved that laptop, and used it until its untimely death. What I&#x27;m looking for is a 2014 equivalent to my T21; solid, reliable and built to be used all day. I will stop short of saying `price no issue`, but I&#x27;m willing to drop 800-1200GBP on the right laptop.<p>HN, my question is: which laptop brands are worth shortlisting for Windows work&#x2F;development?<p>Thank you in advance.<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=5088260
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w1ntermute
I would recommend a ThinkPad T420 or X220 (if you want the classic keyboard)
or a T430, X230, or 2013 X1 Carbon (if you don't mind the new one). They're
all pretty cheap on eBay, and you can get ones that have been barely used.
Make sure you don't get the 2014 X1 Carbon, as it's an unmitigated disaster.

Also, remember to get a machine with maxed out RAM (if the RAM is not user-
installable) or max it out yourself (if it is user-installable). Also, make
sure you get the max resolution screen and replace the HDD with an SSD, if you
get one with the former.

~~~
jzelinskie
Can you explain why the 2014 X1 Carbon is a disaster?

~~~
w1ntermute
[http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/heres-2014-lenovo-x1-...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/heres-2014-lenovo-x1-carbon-
owners-complaining/)

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iLoch
A MacBook Pro is one of the best Windows laptops you can buy.

~~~
Artemis2
Not really. The drivers are terrible under Windows: I can't get my MBP 2014's
wifi to work under Windows 8, the Thunderbolt ethernet adapter does not
benefit from plug and play, the trackpad is terrible... I would have expected
a lot better from Apple.

~~~
tdicola
Why not run inside a virtualization environment like Virtual Box, Parrallels,
etc. so you have everything working without any pain?

~~~
chowyuncat
All the virtualized GPUs I've tried are buggy. One pain point is that they
don't support Direct3D 11 for Kinect 2 development.

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virmundi
I use a Sager gaming laptop. At the time, it was fully tricked out with an i7,
16 GB, 1.5 GB mobile NVidia. I hate the keyboard, but it was only $1800. I've
had a few years now. Aside from being a hulk with poor battery life and a
crummy keyboard, it is a great portable desktop. I'm using it now. I put my
split-keyboard over the laptop keyboard easily. It also helps with ergonomics.
Since the trackpad is covered, I use my external mouse that I've used at
clients for years.

One the whole, it's a powerful workhorse (I bought it when I was using Scala
and SBT). It is also $600 dollars cheaper than my similarly spec'ed new MBP. I
would buy again when I need to upgrade this box.

~~~
Zikes
I'm also using a Sager gaming laptop which I bought a few years ago for
~$1300. Ran into an issue with the GPU overheating and needing replaced a year
or so ago, but other than that it's been a fairly rugged and reliable machine.
I will likely be buying my next laptop from Sager.

------
marcuniq
I have personally tested 40+ business laptops(Lenovo, HP, Dell) in 50+
dimensions (performance, display, wlan, heat,...) . In our assessment Lenovo
came first, then HP and closely after Dell.

The difference between consumer and business laptops is enormous in terms of
reliability and how long they last, even from the same manufacturer. In our
experience, the only "consumer" laptops which can keep up with the mentioned
business laptop brands are from Apple.

PS: Check out projektneptun.ch for reasonable configurations of
Lenovo/HP/Apple laptops. I own a Lenovo Thinkpad T440p.

~~~
PaulHoule
I have a Lenovo W520 which has discrete graphics, 32GB of RAM (added
aftermarket) and it is a beast. I also upgraded the HDD to an SSD and that is
something to do right.

Some minuses are that the bluetooth quit working with Windows 8, although I
got a USB bluetooth dongle. Also I got the dock for the W520 and found it
doesn't work ~quite~ perfectly in terms of the USB ports realizing you just
plugged something in and connecting on the first time.

------
sarciszewski
I've heard good things about Asus and Acer, but my *nix buddies seem to like
Lenovo better for driver support. I don't think the brands mean much; it's the
specific models and their technical specifications that are worth
investigating.

~~~
huhtenberg
Acer is a good bang for the buck, but it lasts exactly [the warranty period +
1 month].

In my case first the RAM stick died, then the LCD inverter, then the WiFi and
then the HDD. All in a scope of one week, three weeks after the end of the
warranty. It was spectacular.

~~~
johnatwork
I've had a similar experience. I thought it was just me. It's amazing how they
can get it so accurately down.

------
danielki
I personally use Lenovo laptops (Yoga 2 at home, Thinkpads at work) and have
had good experiences. A word of caution if you're planning on installing Linux
- there's a known issue with the ACPI driver for certain models that will
"hardware disable" your WiFi even if you don't have a hardware disable switch.
I found this fix to work: [http://billauer.co.il/blog/2014/08/linux-ubuntu-
yoga-hardwar...](http://billauer.co.il/blog/2014/08/linux-ubuntu-yoga-
hardware-blocked-wireless-lan/)

------
btb
We have a handful of lenovo's at work(the T-series). Havent heard any
complaints about them so far. And we had one very vocal dev that wouldnt use
anything but lenovo :) (he had like 5 different generations of T-series and
X-series). They also have some consumer series, which (according to the before
mentioned vocal dev) one should avoid.

But I also see alot of people running windows on macbooks. So I guess that
could work too.

~~~
mkoryak
I used to swear by IBM thinkpads, but I think the quality has gone down hill
since being sold to lenovo.

I have a Thinkpad T43p with 2gb of ram from 2006 that still runs pretty good
today (with a new battery), on the other hand pretty much every lenovo I have
bought since (2 or 3 of them) have all had some problem that prevented me from
using them.

I no longer recommend thinkpad to anyone.

------
larzang
Clevo is a major Taiwanese OEM you may not have heard of but builds excellent
business-class laptops. They don't sell direct to consumers, but any small
system builder you buy from (FalconNW, System76, etc) is probably selling
rebadged/modified Clevo laptops, and you can buy barebones or custom systems
from retailers like AVADirect in the US.

They're very reasonably priced in addition to being well-built.

------
dingaling
From a photographic website, here is the current crop of high-DPI laptops:

[http://www.lightandmatter.org/2014/general-photography-
artic...](http://www.lightandmatter.org/2014/general-photography-
articles/computers-tech/best-4k-and-high-ppi-laptops-for-photo-editing-2014/)

The Dell M4800s are well spoken-of online ( haven't used one myself ), mainly
for their raw power and robustness.

------
shepardrtc
I've had the Samsung Series 7 NP700Z7C-S01US for the past 3 years and its been
rock solid. Fast, big screen, and huge battery. Very, very good on power.
Easily lasts 5 or 6 hours just browsing. Not sure if Samsung makes them
anymore, but if you can find one, you won't regret it. The newer laptops
barely beat it in specs.

------
arca_vorago
Depends mostly on what form factor you want? I can highly recommend both Asus
and Dell ultrabooks. Have had no driver issues with linux or bsd on either. If
you want more power though, and care less about support, I would probably say
MSI. Stay away from Lenovo in my opinion, they have been going downhill fast
lately.

------
southphillyman
I use a Sony Viao FW series laptop I purchased in 2008 (swapped in a SSD about
2 yrs ago). At work I use a Lenovo T430 and I'm considering buying a Yoga Pro
2 for home as an upgrade to the Sony. I looked into buying 15" MB Pro but I
can't really find a justification for the price premium.

------
zamalek
We're running DELLs here. As a developer I really can't complain - the
Latitude E6530 is a performance beast. I'm hitting mine with 3 HyperV
instances right now and it isn't even breaking a sweat.

We've had __horrific __experiences with the top-of-the-line Asus and Toshiba
laptops.

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lowlevel
I've been buying HP's higher end notebooks for a number of years now. There
have been some build quality issues, mostly cosmetic.. but they are repaired
promptly and correctly, and turn out to be fairly reliable machines at least
for the first 3 years of use. (EliteBook, Zbook)

------
kyriakos
I was using dell for years and 3 years ago switched to Asus. If you are not
after an utrabook you can get a very powerful Asus machine in your price
range.

Also recently bought a lenovo yoga pro 2. Everything is nice about it but
default windows installation is a bit bloated.

------
ceedon
Supported a fleet of 500+ Lenovos (T400s-T430s). They were solid machines.

We had a bad run of LCDs on the T410s and Lenovo had folks on-site to fix all
of them as they died. Pleasant overall experience.

I have a maxed-out 15" retina, and I still miss my T430s sometimes... (dat
trackpad)

------
bradfa
Lenovo Thinkpad T series are still quite good, if not the best, Windows
laptops on the market. Although some things have changed since the T2x days,
the overall design is still very robust.

I owned a T22 and T41, now I have a T530. All ran/run Windows well.

~~~
molsongolden
I also have a T530 and it runs well. I bought the docking station and use it
as a full desktop replacement with no trouble.

------
AdamN
Get a new 15" rMBP for OS X and take your old MBP and boot directly to Win7 on
there.

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Afforess
I use a Lenevo W530 at work. It's great, it has a mobile i7 quad core
processor, discrete graphics card with 2GB VRAM, 16GB DDR3, etc. It's a very
powerful machine, and does not weigh much.

------
thenipper
Lenovo's are decent, however I'll say beware of this year's model of the
Lenovo X1. I have one at work. The keyboard is really funky. The caps lock
doesn't exist and instead is split into two keys home & end. The backspace key
is splint into backspace and delete. Finally the ~ key is down on the right in
between the right alt and right control key. It is incredibly annoying. Oh and
the function keys are some weird eink style touch bar. You can switch their
function easily enough but still it is really really annoying. Besides that I
love the machine, though for the price point I think MacBook's are a better
deal.

------
coderjames
It sounds like your current MacBook Pro is already serving your Windows needs
quite well.

Why not just buy an updated MacBook Pro, wipe out OS X and only run Windows on
it?

------
unkoman
I like Lenovos for everything except the trackpads. It's impossible to use
other trackpads after using a macbook - they are just that good.

~~~
ceedon
Read your post after I submitted mine.

I'm curious what you disliked about the Lenovo's trackpad.

For me, the MBP's is disagreeable bc of the additional friction.

~~~
hack_edu
Texture, glossy-plastic feel, size, two or three bulky protruding buttons in
between your keyboard and the pad, and being very distinctly sub par in regard
to multi touch functions or detection (though OS integration seems to be the
main factor). Size and an offet layout (some are unfriendly to lefties)
relative to the rest of the case is a factor on most of their line as well.

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smrtinsert
Lenovos have great specs and the best keyboards, but Dells (used to) at least
win on support.

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headgasket
mbpr 15 with 16GB of ram, 1TB ssd, parallels 9. Best windows experience bar
none, seriously. If you absolutely want a second physical device, get a second
one and boot it directly in windows.

~~~
chrismeller
The entry-level 15" MBP with the 1TB SSD and AppleCare is $3,148 and the
higher-level comes to $3,348, which isn't even close to his desired budget
($1287-1930 USD) and your answer is to simply get two of them...

------
awa
Our team went with Lenovo Carbon touch and Asus Zenbooks for our devs

------
basch
Lenovo Thinkpad T440S or X240 or ThinkPad Yoga or Yoga 3.

Samsung ATIV Book 9.

Acer Aspire S7-392

MacBook Air/Pro

